The dramatic release of 49 Turkish hostages being held by ISIS in Mosul over the weekend was a welcome piece of good news amid the deteriorating situation in Syria and Iraq that necessitated Turkey closing its border for the first time officially this week. After over a hundred days of captivity the safe and triumphant return still shrouded in mystery over the exact terms reached between Ankara and the ISIS caught most of the world by surprise. Turkey’s unwillingness to date to publicly support America’s growing coalition against ISIS has caused many in Washington to scratch their heads, but was generally chalked up to the hostage situation. Now that this has been resolved, Ankara is a necessary partner and the most critical country for America to win over if ISIS is to be defeated.
As a NATO ally, EU aspirant, and border state, no country has more at stake in Syria, and particularly Iraq, than Turkey. Given its location, military prowess, and American assets already based in Turkey, Washington has been very careful in its public pronouncements on Ankara. Yet, Turkey remains outside of America’s coalition—and not for the first time. The current hesitation in Ankara is eerily reminiscent of 2003. However, by quietly acknowledging Ankara’s long-term concerns and the short-term complexities of the situation, America can, this time, get Turkey off the sidelines.
In the lead-up to America’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, Ankara garnered much international attention. However, due to a fundamental misreading in Washington of how the Turkish view southern threats, the perceived threat being communicated by the U.S. was not shared in Ankara and the costs associated with the suggested actions were deemed too high. The Bush administration further miscalculated the shifting dynamic from military to civilian power under the newly elected Justice and Development Party (AKP). As a result, the parliament failed to allow American forces to enter Iraq from the northern front despite the fact that then-Party Leader Erdogan supported the motion.
Making assumptions about the Turkish worldview hasn’t gotten easier given domestic developments in Ankara, nor is it a better strategy than it was back then. After a decade in power, President Erdogan’s AKP is still publicly opposed to American action emanating from Turkish soil, confounding Washington and demonstrating just how difficult geopolitical calculus can be in Ankara and the ever more complicated surrounding neighborhood.
The reality is that ISIS has a fair amount of Turkish leverage it’s using against Ankara. The fact that the Turkish press has been banned from reporting on the Mosul hostage situation and the details of their safe release may never be made public negates the domestic pressure to act that would be building if the actions of ISIS within Turkey was being played out every day across the Turkish press. Adding insult to injury are the persistent Western reporting on Turkish support of ISIS and suggestions that Ankara helped incubate ISIS in its attempts to defeate Assad in Syria. The official denials by Ankara have been unequivocal, yet they are met with increased reporting in Washington of stories of Turks sympathetic to ISIS. Consequentially, Turkish pro-government dailies publish skeptical columns about Washington’s motivations in its neighborhood reminiscent to the commentaries in 2003 about America’s “real” intentions in Iraq revolving around oil.
Western pressure to have Turkey secure its borders and stop the “jihadi highway” that Ankara has been accused of turning a blind eye to have reached a crescendo preceding the official announcement of the locked down Syrian border. In Ankara, however, the real fear is of a vacuum created by the defeat of ISIS being filled by Kurdish nationalists and the PKK, whom Turkey has been fighting for over three decades. Even more difficult to appreciate in the West is the ambivalence the average Turk feels towards ISIS or the cynicism about an American administration that chose to ignore Syria until ISIS started to publicly behead American citizens.
Regionally speaking, Turkey’s diplomatic failings in Syria, Egypt, and Israel, where no Turkish ambassadors currently serve, or in Iraq where Turkish diplomatic personnel are still being held hostage, demonstrate the limits of Turkey’s power and options at present. Ataturk’s maxim of “peace at home, peace abroad” is in tatters along with the AKP’s grand vision of “zero problems with neighbors.” Turkey lives in a complicated neighborhood that Erdoğan’s National Security Council recently described as a ‘ring of fire’ given the unprecedented level of instability.
The consequences of Turkey’s perceived impotence and the constant flow of fighters — both Turkish and otherwise — back and forth makes ISIS an issue that Turkey can’t ignore. Turks will die and the country will be destabilized if the situation continues on the current trajectory. The complexities of living in Turkey’s neighborhood and being a representative democracy in a Muslim-majority nation that is suspicious of any type of military action makes Ankara’s job a formidable balancing act.
Ankara must seize on the unique alignment of U.S.-Turkish interests as a path to pursuing its dream of being a regional leader. For the U.S., acknowledging Ankara’s strategic concerns and working more closely on the tactical level such as demands for “buffer zones” will bind Turkey into the coalition in the long-term, even if in the short-term it must remain a clandescdant participant. Turkey is right that defeating the Islamic State and bringing stability to Iraq and Syria cannot be accomplished by military power alone; however, it also can’t be achieved without it.
Turkey should facilitate political compromise with other competing regional powers such as Iran and Saudi Arabia as well as renew its European commitment, which has been on life-support for far too long. Never wasting a good crisis in international relations means Turkey’s leadership should seize this opportunity to put domestic challenges behind it to demonstrate its indispensable status as a Western ally and leading regional power.
The alternative of Ankara remaining on the sidelines once again dooms Iraq to the same outcomes it faced the last time Turkey chose not to participate. Unlike last year when Erdogan bemoaned the lack of international consensus behind acting in Syria, he should seize the initiative that President Obama has already provided with airstrikes and increased surveillance against a universally acknowledged threat to galvanize an international response. Only time will tell if Washington can “reset” its Turkey policy by bringing Ankara into its coalition by a mix of private tough love and public flattery. Assuring Ankara that the anti-ISIS coalition will not harm its own national interest, but rather help eliminate a mutual threat that Turks are struggling to cope with further through economic assistance for the refugees already within their borders and potentially creating defactobuffer zones within existing ISIS territory would go a long way. Making Turkey the tip of the spear against ISIS would defuse any anti-Islamic theatrics and also help plan for a post-ISIS future that involves complicated questions about the status of the Kurds that Ankara is particularly worried about.
Supporting the international push against the Islamic State, brokering a peaceful transition in both Syria and Iraq while solving its own internal Kurdish question are no small tasks for Ankara and will only be possible with increased cooperation with Washington. However as President Erdogan takes the global stage at the UN and continues to be pressed by the Obama administration, Turkey’s moment to get off the sidelines on ISIS with America in Iraq and Syria has come; here is to hoping they seize it.
Dr. Joshua W. Walker is a longtime analyst of Turkey who studied in Ankara on a Fulbright Fellowship and previously worked for the U.S. State Department. He is currently a Truman National Security Fellow and a Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Views expressed are his own.
