The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat (33 page)

To start with, the energy calculus in the Persian Gulf may change to reflect sectarian rivalries. Shia-majority Iraq could challenge Saudi Arabia for primacy as an oil exporter, thereby loosening the Saudi grip on the West’s strategic imagination. Once the mammoth Iraqi oil fields begin pumping to their potential (and also develop excess capacity
on par with Saudi Arabia’s), world markets could soften and Saudi Arabia’s economic stability and global political influence wane. Saudi Arabia has 262 billion barrels of oil reserves. It also has pumping capacity (10.8 million barrels a day) that dwarfs Iraq’s (2.4 million barrels a day) and Iran’s (4.2 million barrels a day). But as suggested above, this imbalance in pumping capacity could change. Iraq has an estimated reserve of 144 billion barrels, but some put its true reserve as high as 300 billion. Add Iran’s 136 billion, and the geostrategic stakes in the Sunni-Shia rivalry along the Persian Gulf shoreline begin to come into focus. That these three countries together account for a third of the world’s proven oil reserve bears heavily on worries about steady supplies and stable prices.

There are also rivalries and disagreements between the flag bearers of the Sunni rise, Turkey and the Persian Gulf monarchies, especially over how to handle Iran. They all view Iran and its Shia allies with suspicion, but Turkey, unlike the Persian Gulf monarchies, does not see Iran as a strategic threat and does robust business with Tehran. Furthermore, Turkey and the Persian Gulf monarchies are now rival claimants to leadership of the region’s Sunnis.

The Arab Spring has animated this jockeying for power and influence by aggravating sectarian tensions. This is not just a matter of governments, but of popular attitudes. Sunnis all over the region are cheering for the Sunni rebels who are fighting to topple Assad’s minority Alawite (read Shia) regime in Syria. Similarly, Shias in Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere are identifying with coreligionists in Bahrain who are being held down by a Sunni monarchy and the minority that it represents.

The toppling of Saddam enfranchised Iraq’s Shias. Iran likewise felt emboldened after Saddam’s removal, and when Hezbollah made a strong showing in its 2006 conflict with Israel in southern Lebanon, the Shias seemed decisively on the rise. Fast-forward to 2012, however, and the picture changes. American pressure regarding the nuclear issue is squeezing Iran, and its main ally is on the ropes in Damascus.

Syria is being torn from the clutches of the Assad regime to become a Sunni-led country. Elsewhere, the Arab Spring’s biggest upshot so far has been the unleashing of Sunni Islamism—the Sunni expression of Islam and its unabashed claim to sectarian supremacy and political
power—in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and potentially many other Arab countries. In public discourse and official statements, a certain Sunni triumphalism is now palpable.

Leadership of the Sunni world is a plum eagerly sought by many. It is clear that Turkey, in keeping with neo-Ottomanism, sees itself as the protector of Sunni prerogatives in the region.
¹⁷
A sense of Sunni identity is embedded in the ruling AKP’s conception of Islam and its place in politics inside Turkey as well as across the region. Back in 1997, before the AKP as we know it had come into being, I sat down with a group of Islamist political activists (several of them are now leaders in the AKP and the Turkish government). One of them tried to explain the dilemma they faced in Turkey by drawing a parallel with Syria. He said, “We do not want Turkey to become Syria, a Sunni-majority country ruled by an Alevi military. In Syria, an Alawite military dominates; here an Alevi military is trying the same thing.” (Turkish generals with origins in the Alevi community, a religious minority with Shia affinities, were then seen as Kemalism’s staunchest defenders and Turkish Islamism’s worst enemies.) The sense of Sunni defensiveness and embattlement that he expressed brought me up short.

The large majority of Turks—especially those on the Islamic side of the aisle—are not just Muslim, but distinctly Sunni in their identity. Just as Turkey’s Sunnis identify with Syria’s Sunnis, Turkey’s Alevis feel solidarity with Syria’s Alawites—although their faiths are not the same and their rituals differ. Alevis, for instance, congregate in
cemevis
to pray, and the community has so far refused the Turkish government’s entreaties that it too worship in mosques—that is, blend in with Sunnis.
¹⁸

By some estimates, Alevis make up as much as a quarter of Turkey’s population (Alevis themselves claim the share is much higher), and they include Turkish citizens of both Kurdish and Turkish ethnicity.
¹⁹
To get a fuller picture of the ethnosectarian identities that exist in today’s Turkey, one should also take into account the additional 3 to 5 percent of the population who are Shias of Azeri lineage, the ethnic cousins of Iranian Azeris and much of the population of independent Azerbaijan. None of this is to suggest that Turkey suffers from acute sectarianism—it does not—but sectarian shadings and undercurrents are present. If the rest of the region blows up into sectarian violence, these could become more
prominent and more problematic features of Turkish life. Already Turkey’s role in the Syrian crisis has brought to the fore uncomfortable debates about where Alevis pray. Alevi intellectuals have taken the lead in criticizing the AKP government’s support for the uprising in Syria, and debate over Turkey’s role in the conflict now has a clear sectarian undertone. Deniz Baykal, former leader of the opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, has called for constitutional changes that would protect Turkey from “Syrian contamination” by fully recognizing the religious rights of the Alevi sect and reorganizing the State Directorate of Religious Affairs to accommodate Alevis.
²⁰
The ruling AKP has rejected such suggestions. Prime Minister Erdogan has shot back, saying, “If we are Muslims then our temple ought to be one and the same” (i.e., no constitutional recognition of Alevi rights).
²¹
At the same time, the government is conscious of the brewing sectarian tension in light of developments in Syria. At a public rally Erdogan brushed aside criticism by his main rival, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu (current leader of CHP), of Turkey’s posture toward Syria, saying that of course as an Alevi, Kiliçdaroglu would have a soft spot for Assad.
²²

Much has been written about the personal relationship between Erdogan and Assad—they had been known to vacation together—and how that had improved the once-tense relations between Turkey and Syria before the Arab Spring. Such coverage is overblown. The truth of the matter is that neither Erdogan nor anyone in his party has ever thought of Alawites as true Muslims or considered their control of Syria legitimate.

The AKP party’s Sunni base may support greater Turkish involvement in Syria—and that may sit well with Erdogan’s ambition to lead the Sunni world from the Balkans to Central Asia and deep into the Middle East. But fear that deeper involvement in Syria’s troubles could inflame Turkey’s own sectarian tensions has stayed his hand. And so will Turkey’s business interests.

The coming apart of Syria has reactivated Turkey’s Kurdish separatist PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), which has strong ties with Syria’s Kurds. As Damascus loses control of its Kurdish region and refugees flow into Turkey, the PKK—with the Syrian government’s encouragement—has found more room to operate. The resulting terrorist attacks in Turkey
have put the country on edge, raising the specter of a risky Turkish intervention in Syria. What’s more, Iraq’s Kurds are sympathetic to the separatist movement, and their leader Masoud Barzani has provided it support, to Turkey’s annoyance. Relations between Turkey and the Kurdish region of northern Iraq have been warm—this year, after oil giants Chevron, Gazprom, and Total signed oil deals with Barzani, Turkey announced it would build two new pipelines to export the new oil through Turkey. But the PKK is now coming between Erdogan and Barzani.

Similarly, China, which has been doing growing trade with Turkey, is irked at Turkey’s stance on Syria in support of the United States. That has not impacted business between the two countries so far, but it is a dark cloud over the horizon. Syria is putting at risk Turkey’s domestic stability and economic interests, and that is likely to serve as a brake on Erdogan and Davutoglu’s embrace of the Sunni surge in Syria and Iraq.

Turkey’s main rival for leadership of the Sunni world is Saudi Arabia. The rivalry is not new. During the first decade of the twentieth century, the Ottoman-appointed governor of the Hejaz (the mountainous Red Sea coastal province of today’s Saudi Arabia where Mecca and Medina are located, and which at the time was the seat of power on the Arabian Peninsula), Sharif Hussein of Mecca (the great-grandfather of King Abdullah II of Jordan), challenged the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul, claiming autonomy for Hejaz and religious authority for himself despite the sultan’s nominal status as caliph of all Muslims. Hussein’s case rested on his claim of blood kinship to the Prophet Muhammad himself (something to which the Ottoman sultans had no pretensions) and his status as “guardian of the two holy places,” meaning Mecca and Medina.

The rivalry reached its symbolic climax in a dispute over who had the authority to declare a jihad either for or against the Allies or the Central Powers during the First World War. In the end, Sharif Hussein threw in his lot with the British, who thought in turn that his fatwa would carry the most weight not only with Arabs but also among the many Muslims of British India and Britain’s African colonies. Given this thumbnail history (readers may be familiar with some of it from well-known sources such as T. E. Lawrence’s
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
or David Lean and Robert Bolt’s 1962 cinematic masterpiece
Lawrence of Arabia
), it is not hard to see how neo-Ottoman Turkey’s recent rise has grated on Saudi sensibilities and breathed new life into the old competition between Mecca and Istanbul.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia may cooperate on Syria, but they are vying against each other for influence over Egypt and Iraq. Turkish foreign minister Davutoglu’s idea of an “axis of democracy” running between Ankara and Cairo runs athwart Saudi hopes of embracing Egypt as a means of containing the Arab Spring and the democratic aspirations it released.
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Saudi Arabia looks to Egypt with worried eyes. A chaotic Egypt will present the Saudis with myriad problems, and a democratic Egypt may be no less a thorn in the kingdom’s side. It is hard to imagine that the oil princes relish the prospect of a large Arab country filled with Sunnis just across the Red Sea playing host to Saudi dissidents, holding competitive elections, allowing mass demonstrations, and the rest. Unlike Iran, Egypt cannot be dismissed as a bearer of Persian and Shia deviationism. Saudi Arabia has already had to close its Cairo embassy for a time.
²⁴
Saudi rulers can feel at ease only with an authoritarian Egypt.

Turkey is less sectarian in its outlook than Saudi Arabia and has many more areas of common interest with Iran than do the Saudis, and what we may see is not a hard-and-fast Sunni alliance arrayed against Iran, but a degree of cooperation between Ankara and Tehran that would allow Turkey to set itself apart from Saudi Arabia.

An Iranian businessman who plies his trade in Iraqi Kurdistan told me, “All those Turkish businesses that you see doing business in northern Iraq are not really Turkish; many are Iranian or part Iranian.” He said:

America should favor a prosperous and democratic Turkey rather than a conservative and authoritarian Saudi Arabia assuming the mantle of Sunni leadership. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies will be caught between containing the Shia power centers (Iran, Iraq, Lebanon) and coping with the surging Sunni Islamism of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis, which have a populist and antimonarchical bent. In order to have any hope of surviving, these monarchies will have to gravitate toward Islamism and feed Sunni extremism across the region. Here again, Pakistan tells a disturbing premonitory tale. There, the Saudis pumped money in to empower Sunni extremists (and fund a nuclear program) as a way of flanking Shia Iran. If the troubles that Saudi-backed Sunni extremism have brought to Pakistan, its neighbors, and the world at large are any indication, we should hope that Ankara rather than Riyadh emerges as the Muslim world’s Sunni big brother. Turkey too will find itself having to tack in the direction of the Islamism that is sweeping the Arab world. That will not suit Ankara’s global ambitions, and we will have to do what we can to see that Turkey does not veer too far off course in order to align itself with the Arab mood. Neo-Ottomanism can be a positive force only if it avoids marching under the banner of Islamism.

The Persian Gulf monarchies’ efforts to surf the new wave are already in full swing. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been aiding Salafi forces in Libya, Syria, and Lebanon. Yet Washington relies heavily on gas-rich Qatar, a tiny emirate that has big regional ambitions and deep pockets to go with them. Occupying a small peninsula that juts off the Arabian coast into the Persian Gulf, Qatar has long-running rivalries with the UAE and especially Saudi Arabia (there have been armed border skirmishes). The ruling al-Thani family provides bases for the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and also owns al-Jazeera, the Arab world’s most popular and influential satellite TV channel. This unusual combination of U.S. military muscle and influence over Arab public opinion via the power of television gives Qatar an outsized presence in Arab
politics. Al-Jazeera tends to follow the interests of the Sunni regime, showing blood-curdling news footage from Syria to rally Arab public opinion against Assad but remaining largely silent about Shia protests against a Sunni monarch in nearby Bahrain.