Strategic Analysis: Ibrahim Kaban
Private / Geostrategic Network for Studies
At first glance, the observer of developments in the context of Turkish foreign policy may understand that the Erdogan regime is trying by various means to return to restoring relations with the Arab environment as part of the strategy to save the Turkish economy, which is tumbling between collapse and major decline, but the disaster that this regime has inflicted on regional relations, especially Arabia cannot be bypassed outside international contexts and requires great effort and unnatural concessions to build bridges of previous relations.
The issue of returning to the old days regarding the benefits that Turkey was reaping from those relations with the Gulf countries, is not possible in light of the unstable economic conditions sweeping the region as a whole as a result of the effects of the Corona pandemic, and the fabrication of unhealthy economic factors due to the Russian-Croatian war, and Erdogan’s cabinet hastened to erupt Many unhealthy problems in the Middle East, such as managing the terrorism file, supporting extremists, interfering in and creating several crises, starting with Syria and ending with Libya and Iraq. Supporting the extremist groups of the Muslim Brotherhood within the Arab countries, which entered into great quarrels and problems, cut their relations with the Turkish regime, and led to more stifling around the Turkish economy in the first place, and its regional and international relations.
Has Erdogan become an Arab and international burned card?
Looking at international positions on Turkish policies in the Middle East and towards the European Union, we will find that the pattern in which Erdogan's regime was moving in accordance with the assurances of these countries has changed completely, and that the process of Turkish movement according to the detachments of the Arab Spring revolutions, made it in a different direction than it was before According to the Western strategy, even the Turkish rapprochement with the Russians, at a time when the latter constitutes a real danger to the Western powers, has created new paths through which the Western powers view Turkish moves, in return for the lost confidence on the Russian side towards Erdogan’s Turkey.
The structure of Turkish-American relations is very complex, and it is not possible to remove the Turks from the American mantle in light of all the geo-military and political developments in the Middle East. However, the American view of the process of Turkish moves has developed as a result of the new assessment of the direction of Turkish transformations towards Russia. Logic imposes itself that the Turks were able to play a chord forming a concern for the Americans about the Russian military relations with Turkey, and perhaps the point of Syria formed a crossroads for these transformations, in light of the American non-acceptance of handing over the Kurdish region in Syria to the Turkish invasion, and the deep American awareness of the Turks’ management of extremist groups in Syria Libya and Iraq.
For the Russians, they are very interested in breaking the NATO wall in Turkey, because the expansion in the Arab region for Russia is an important commercial and military adventure, which the United States and Western powers realize, and perhaps heating up the Ukrainian crisis and prolonging its life is done by a deliberate Western action, and this process is intended to afflict this region and transform it The quagmire in the face of Russian expansion, and pushed the European Union to secure alternative energy resources for the Russians, and Russian control over them, which is an economic disengagement process, meaning weakening the Russian capacity, and mitigating its threats to Western countries from the gateway to Eastern Europe.
Therefore, the Russians tried to take advantage of the Syrian crisis and its facts, especially the aspect related to Turkish ambitions, and related to the Kurdish developments in Syria. Russia presented the Kurds on a red carpet to the Turkish regime in exchange for enabling the Syrian regime to eliminate the opposition groups, and the process was carried out in general by applying the following scenario:
The funeral of vast areas inside Syria, in exchange for the implementation of the ethnic cleansing process against the Sunni Arabs, and the mechanism for implementing this process was costly to the Iraqi and Iranian Shiite militias, and the Syrian regime. Thus, it opened the way for the Turkish regime to eliminate any Arab and Western agendas in Syria, build an opposition structure controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood network and Turkmen extremist groups, and implement the process of resettling Sunni Arabs in the Kurdish areas in the north.
Not a single Syrian region remained in the hands of the opposition, except for the Kurdish region extending from Ras al-Ain / Serêkaniyê to Afrin, and the formation of an extremist emirate for al-Qaeda (the Levant Front) in Idlib, and of course under the supervision, support, arming and training of Turkish intelligence.
At the Arab level, most countries suffer from the problem of confronting extremism and the direct threat to regimes, and this means that the Turkish regime is constantly needed. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, run by Turkish intelligence and al-Qaeda networks, disobeyed and files such as the Khashoggi case and others against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as directing the Qatari regime against the Arab Gulf states All of these files are in control of the compulsion of all the Arab Gulf states to restore relations with Turkey, and thus will witness Turkish diplomatic and intelligence moves to restore the small part of those relations, and these countries are under the influence of direct threats from those groups. Therefore, in the coming stages, the Turkish regime will play the Qatari international role, and the Arab Gulf states and Egypt will seek to calm the situation with Turkey. Although the required confidence does not exist, international circumstances are imposing themselves.
Will this help the Turkish regime rebuild regional and Western relations?
Erdogan relies on the strategy of empowering the religious movement in Turkey and forming an army, security and alternative groups for the army that would enable him to mobilize the Turkish street, in return for weakening the secular and democratic currents through fictitious accusations. Relations with Western powers and forcing them to make concessions in favor of dealing with the opposition with low violence.
Since the Arab countries are looking for calm with the Turkish regime for reasons related to their security, as well as the European countries that need Turkey in the refugee files and the restrictions on Russian expansion, restoring relations is possible, but the Western search for an alternative in Turkey continues, and they may rely on the upcoming presidential elections, Although the Turkish regime creates the security, military and political conditions for its continuity.
Western-Russian preoccupation with the Ukrainian crisis, will the Turkish regime help implement a new military operation in Syria or Iraq?
In terms of logic, the answer is yes, and it is not in the interest of the Russians or the Americans to create a crisis with the Turks at this particular stage, but this does not necessarily mean allowing the Turkish regime to create new crises in the region.
The Turkish internal conditions are available to implement any new Turkish military action in Syria, because the Turkish street, including the Kurdish segment, has become hostage to arrests and threats, and there is a large Turkish segment, especially nationalists and political Islam, that supports the Turkish regime in implementing any new invasion against the Kurds. This can be understood more through the new Turkish operation in the Kurdistan region, where it became clear that the Iraqi regime was involved in the operation, and there is a Kurdish party that may be involved in that. Thus, it is possible to expect any new Turkish move towards the Autonomous Administration region. However, the green light will be an American-Russian one, meaning the Turkish move is dependent on that approval, and the issue of obtaining it or not depends on the extent of the American-Russian strategy in Syria. Will Russia do it to create a Turkish-American crisis?
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