Turkey’s ties with its neighbors have been transformed since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power almost seven years ago in November 2002. Some analysts have described the AKP’s foreign policy as a “zero problems with neighbors” approach. Under the AKP, Ankara has indeed eliminated problems and built good ties with some neighbors, such as Syria and Iran, and signaled a thaw with Armenia, with whom Turkey shares a closed border. On the other hand, Ankara’s traditionally good ties with other neighbors such as Georgia and Azerbaijan have deteriorated under the AKP, and Turkish-Israeli ties could unravel despite diplomats’ best efforts. The AKP’s foreign policy, far from producing “zero problems with neighbors,” has resulted in significant ups with some neighbors and significant downs with others—especially those that are pro-Western.

For starters, the AKP’s foreign policy has focused heavily on the Muslim Middle East. Some analysts have referred to the party’s foreign policy as “neo-Ottomanist,” suggesting “secular” imperial ambitions or desire to achieve status as a regional power. But the AKP’s foreign policy energy has not asserted Turkey’s weight equally in all the areas that were under Ottoman rule, namely the Balkans, the Caucasus and the Middle East. Instead, the AKP has focused its energy on the Middle East, with a slant towards Islamist and anti-Western actors, while building a finance-based relationship with Russia.

In this regard, the party’s use of diplomacy is evocative: a study of high-level visits by AKP officials to the Middle East, Balkans and Caucasus reveals that the party focuses asymmetrically on anti-Western Arab countries and Iran, while ignoring Israel, the Balkans and the Caucasus. Between November 2002 and April 2009, the Turkish foreign minister made at least eight visits to Iran and Syria, while paying only one visit to Azerbaijan (a Turkic nation once considered to be the closest country to Turkey) and one visit to Georgia (despite the fact that after Georgia’s independence, Turkey had acted as a mentor for that nation). During the same period, the Turkish prime minister made at least seven visits to Qatar and Saudi Arabia, while paying only two visits to Greece and Bulgaria, Turkey’s two immediate European and Balkan neighbors.

Much of the AKP’s energy in the Muslim Middle East has been focused on Syria. In the 1990s, Turkey viewed Syria as an enemy, because of its support of the Kurdistan Workers Party’s (PKK) terror attacks against Turkey. Yet, on October 13, Turkey and Syria opened their borders, which facilitated visa free-travel, and set up joint cabinet-level meetings which encouraged a meld in bilateral policymaking. Turkish-Syrian rapprochement began in the late 1990s when Damascus stopped supporting the PKK, but the past seven years of rapprochement under the AKP have brought about a significant strengthening of Syrian-Turkish ties. The AKP’s sympathy towards Turkey’s Arab neighbors, and its tendency to analyze the Middle East through an “us versus them” religion-based political lens, as well as to side with anti-Western causes in the region, have helped build Turkish-Syrian relations. Today, diplomats describe Turkish-Syrian relations as perfect.

Turkey’s ties with Iran have also improved under the AKP’s leadership, although not to the same extent as Turkish-Syrian ties. This is due to the fact that Tehran is a regional power which, unlike the Baath regime in Damascus, does not need patrons to survive. Still, Turkey defends Iran’s nuclearization, and as international pressure to prevent it mounts, Iran will likely launch diplomatic overtures to strengthen its bonds with Turkey. Trade links, including Turkish purchase of and investment in Iranian natural gas, will upgrade bilateral ties. Yet they will also create tensions between Ankara and the West, which will view AKP-promoted investments in Iran as undermining efforts to isolate Iran economically.

As Turkey’s ties with Iran have improved, Turkish-Israeli relations have significantly deteriorated under the AKP. The party’s critical rhetoric regarding Israel, which has eroded all Turkish public support for ties with Israel, had been dismissed for a long time in the West and in Israel as domestic politicking. However, that evaluation changed earlier this month. On October 7, the AKP dis-invited Israel to “Anatolian Eagle,” a NATO air force exercise that has been held in central Turkey with U.S., Israeli and Western states’ participation since the mid-1990s. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan justified his party’s decision by saying that Israel is a “persecutor.” Yet, the next day, the AKP announced that it had requested that Syria, whose regime persecutes its own people, participate in joint military exercises. A proverbial mountain is moving in Turkish foreign policy: the AKP’s “us versus them” mindset, which does not see nations but rather religious blocks in the Middle East, is corroding the foundations of Turkey’s 60-year-old military and political cooperation with Israel.

Rather than being pro-Western or neo-Ottoman in a “secular” sense, the AKP’s foreign policy is asymmetrically focused on anti-Western Middle East powers, as well as Russia. Rather than having a “zero problems with all neighbors” approach, the AKP’s foreign policy is a mixed bag, eliminating problems with some neighbors, yet souring previously good ties with other neighbors, especially pro-Western ones. The question is: how is that good for the United States?

While Washington is mulling over what to do next in order to weaken Iran economically, this summer the Islamic Republic has taught us a lesson in strategic maneuvering, taking major steps to bolster its economy and geopolitical posture by positioning itself as an indispensable energy supplier to hundreds of millions of people.

Last May, I described here how after 14 years of negotiations, Iran, which has the world’s second largest natural gas reserves, signed a deal to connect its economy with its eastern neighbor, Pakistan, via a 1,300-mile natural gas pipeline. Both Iran and Pakistan hope to extend the pipeline into India and perhaps even into China. This would not only give Iran a foothold in the Asian gas market and ensure that millions of Pakistanis, Indians and perhaps Chinese are beholden to Iran’s gas, but it would also provide Iran with an economic lifeline and the diplomatic protection energy-dependent economies typically grant their suppliers.

Not wasting any time, Iran is now implementing the second tenet of its pipeline strategy. In July, it announced that by the end of 2009 it will be connected with its northern neighbor, Turkmenistan, Central Asia’s largest gas producer, via a pipeline. Turkmenistan’s interest in pumping its gas to Iran stems from its desire to diversify its export market. Two-thirds of Turkmenistan’s gas flow to Russia, and the dependence on one major client allows Moscow to take advantage of its former republic. But why would energy-rich Iran want to import gas from its neighbor? The answer is the Nabucco pipeline.

For some years, a number of European governments and a consortium of energy companies have been lobbying for the construction of a pipeline from Central Asia via Turkey and the Balkan states to Austria, aimed to ease Europe’s dependence on Russian gas. Last July an intergovernmental accord on Nabucco was signed in Ankara. Scheduled to be completed by 2014 at a cost of over $11 billion, the 2,000-mile pipe is estimated to supply between 5-10 percent of the EU’s projected gas consumption in 2020.

The problem, though, is that it is far from certain where the gas for Nabucco would come from. To date, not a single gas-producing country has signed on to the project. The U.S. position toward Nabucco has been supportive, with the caveat that no Iranian gas should supply the pipeline. But this is an exercise in self-delusion. Even if the 10-15 billion cubic meters of gas per year projected to be tapped from Azeri fields were to become available, much gas would still be needed to meet the pipeline’s capacity of 31 billion cubic meters of gas a year. No doubt about it: Nabucco would have to access both Turkmen and Iranian reserves.

This inconvenient truth is well known to all those involved with the project. But in order to maintain U.S. support, European governments, Turkey—the main transit state—and the consortium of companies which have undertaken to build the pipeline have made sure to drop Iran’s name from any official document or statement related to Nabucco. Tehran, so it seems, does not believe in denial. Its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad knows well that making Europe beholden to his gas is the best insurance for his regime and that Iran is an appealing alternative to Russia for those for whom Vladimir Putin is a far bigger menace than him. Once Nabucco is constructed, it will be only a matter of short time before Iranian gas will be requested. Hence, the pipeline to Turkmenistan will also make Iran a conduit for Turkmen gas.

In Iran’s effort to bring its gas into the heart of Europe, it has another project: a 1,100-mile pipeline currently being constructed from Iran’s South Pars gas field through Turkey and onward to Greece, Italy and other European countries. This pipeline is expected to deliver 20.4 billion cubic meters per year.

Whether Iran’s natural gas ends up powering turbines in New Delhi, Karachi or Vienna, one thing is certain: Iran will be richer and more geopolitically indispensable. As in the case of U.S. dependence on Saudi Arabia, China’s on Sudan or Germany’s on Russia, energy dependency is a major driver of foreign policy. Once these new gas conduits are established, it will be far more difficult for the United States to gather international support for policies aimed to reign in Iran.

All of these developments have received little attention in Washington, where sanctions on imported gasoline are the only game in town when it comes to crippling the mullah’s regime. Unlike the Bush administration, which was vocally opposed to the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, the Obama Administration has been mute on the issue. Instead, it has pressured India to give more consideration to global warming, essentially pushing India to shift from coal-powered electricity to cleaner burning Iranian natural gas. In doing so, the Obama administration has demonstrated that environmental stewardship enjoys higher priority than nuclear proliferation. At a volatile time when the Taliban is at Islamabad’s gate, the Obama administration has also refrained from pressuring Pakistan to reconsider its decision to provide Iran with an umbilical cord. As a result, should the worst happen and a Taliban-style regime take over Pakistan, the economies of the world’s most radical Shiite state and that of what could be the world’s most radical Sunni state would be connected to each other for decades to come like conjoined twins.

But all’s not lost. The Obama administration should actively promote alternative energy corridors which will prevent Iranian gas from reaching major markets while addressing Asia’s and Europe’s energy needs. One potential gas-pipeline project is the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline. The project can supply Pakistan and India as much gas at a lower construction cost, while providing the impoverished Afghan government with a steady revenue stream in the form of transit fees. Most important, TAPI would allow Turkmenistan to sell its gas to India, enriching two U.S. allies (Afghanistan and Pakistan) rather than selling the same gas to Europe, enriching a U.S. enemy (Iran).

Washington should therefore impress upon Islamabad, recipient of $1 billion-plus yearly of U.S. aid, to adopt TAPI rather than the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline.

If the United States aims to stop Iran’s ambitions for regional hegemony, it is also in its interest to advance Europe’s and India’s use of renewable electricity and even coal rather than natural gas. And if those two markets insist on using gas, this gas should come in the form of liquefied natural gas (LNG) which can be imported from any gas exporter rather than in the form of Iranian gas.

The United States should cooperate with India on the development of a thorium nuclear fuel cycle rather than the commonly used highly problematic uranium-based nuclear fuel cycle. Thorium cannot be used as bomb material in any way; its fuel cycle is inherently incapable of causing a meltdown; its waste material consists mostly of 233-uranium, which can be recycled as fuel; its waste material is radiotoxic for tens of years, as opposed to the thousands of years with today’s standard radioactive waste; and it exists in greater abundance than uranium.

Only this month India announced that it has designed a new version of its advanced heavy water atomic reactor which will use thorium and low-enriched uranium (instead of highly enriched uranium) as fuel. At a time when the entire Middle East is going nuclear, this is a major opportunity for the United States to cooperate with India—after Australia, India and the United States have the second- and third-largest reserves of thorium—on advancing a safe pathway to globally-used peaceful nuclear power.

Finally, the United States should curb its enthusiasm toward Nabucco, take a more sober look at it and see the project for what it is: an economic lifeline for Iran. While this ambitious pipeline project may serve the interests of some European countries it would inevitably undermine those of the United States. Here the United States will find commonality of interests with Russia, the main opponent of Nabucco.

Nabucco was Verdi’s opera about the difficult plight of Jews under the ancient Persian Gulf ruler, Nebuchadnezzar. What an historical irony it would be if this eponymous pipeline ended up emboldening a modern regional ruler, one with much more sinister plans.

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From MESH Admin

Here in Cambridge, we rather enjoyed this little exercise in comparing part of the Middle East to the northeastern United States. It was done a couple of years back by Andy Carvin, National Public Radio’s senior product manager for online communities, who simply overlaid Google maps of the two regions, on the same scale. The result gives one a sense of proportion—to be exact, how small an area this part of the Middle East is. (If you can’t see the clip embedded above, go here.)

While the world’s eyes are focused on Iran and Pakistan, little attention has been paid to the two countries’ decision from last week to move ahead with their plans to connect their economies via a natural gas pipeline. What may seem like a standard energy project could have profound implications for the geopolitics of energy in the 21st century and for the future of south Asia, as well as for America’s ability to check Iran’s hegemony in the Persian Gulf.

For both Iran and Pakistan, the pipeline project would be highly beneficial. Iran sees in the pipeline not only an economic lifeline at a time when the United States and its European allies are trying to weaken it economically, but also an opportunity, should the pipeline be extended to India, to create an unbreakable long-term political and economic dependence of one billion Indian customers on its gas.

Pakistan, for its part, views the pipeline as the solution to its energy security challenge. Pakistan’s domestic gas production is falling and its import dependence is growing by leaps and bounds. By connecting itself with the world’s second-largest gas reserve, Pakistan would guarantee reliable supply for decades to come. If the pipeline were to be extended to India it could also be an instrument for stability in often tense Pakistan-India relations as well as a source of revenue for Islamabad through transit fees.

For the Obama administration, the signing of the pipeline deal is a diplomatic setback which could undermine its policy of weakening Iran economically. Unlike the Bush administration, which vocally opposed the project, the Obama team chose to remain mute, either in order to facilitate rapprochement with Tehran or due to its reluctance to burden U.S.-Pakistan relations at a volatile time when the Taliban is at Islamabad’s gate. Should the worst happen and a Taliban-style regime take over Pakistan, the economies of the world’s most radical Shiite state and that of what could be the world’s most radical Sunni state would be connected to each other for decades to come, like conjoined twins.

But all’s not lost for the United States. Years would elapse between the signing of the deal and the actual running of gas in the pipe. Baluchistan, where the pipeline is supposed to run, is one of Pakistan’s poorest and most restive provinces. In recent years it has been a battleground of militias belonging to Baluch tribes who hate the government of Tehran as much as they hate the one in Islamabad. Taliban or Al Qaeda members who have reportedly moved from the tribal border region to Baluchistan and who are known for their dislike of both governments may find common ground with the Baluch. One can rest assured that the Baluch Liberation Army (which for years has conducted sporadic attacks against water pipelines, power transmission lines and gas installations), and Al Qaeda members (who perfected the art of pipeline sabotage in Iraq) would not spare the Iran-Pakistan pipeline, causing delays in construction and perhaps even termination of the project altogether.

Open U.S. support for those opposition groups is unthinkable, as any collaboration—overt or covert—would severely cripple our relations with Islamabad. What the United States can do is minimize the pipeline’s damage to its strategic objectives by ensuring that it ends in Pakistan and does not extend further into India, as both Iran and Pakistan wish. To date, India has been hesitant to join the project and entrust its energy future in the hands of its unstable neighbors. The deterioration in the India-Pakistan relations following the terror attacks in Mumbai has effectively taken the project off the table. But this could easily change in the future as India’s energy crunch deepens: some 400 million Indians already suffer from energy poverty. This is what the Obama administration should preempt today, by increasing energy cooperation with India. Pressure on India to curtail its use of coal for power generation may help reduce carbon emissions, but it could force India to shift to cleaner burning natural gas and hence drive it right into the welcoming arms of Iran.

It is in the interest of the United States to help India increase its share of nuclear power and renewable energy while constructing liquefied natural gas terminals along the coasts of the Indian subcontinent to allow diversity of supply. Without active U.S. participation in the effort to alleviate India’s energy poverty, Iran could soon become to India what Russia is to Europe.

There is a natural tendency to reify countries and think of them as unitary entities, often indicated by calling countries “nations” and presuming a homogeneity and uniformity among the population. But this reification and assumption of homogeneity are almost always inaccurate and misleading. In the case of Iran, it would be a great error to think of the population as being homogeneous, for the people of Iran are in fact quite diverse. There are ethnic, linguistic, organizational, and religious differences among Iranians. (To enlarge any map in this post, click on it.)

Diversity in Iran. The core population of Persian civilization consists of the Persian (Farsi)- speaking city and village dwellers who tend to occupy central Iran. These Persians make up about half of the population. Generally on the geographical peripheries of the country are a number of important populations who differ ethnically and linguistically from Persians:

• In the south around Bandar Abbas and the southwest in Khuzistan, are Arabic-speaking populations.
• In the southwest, in Fars province, are important Turkic-speaking peoples.
• In the west are Lurs, an important population speaking Luri.
• In the west northwest are Kurds, speaking Kurdish.
• In the northwest are the Azeri Turks, speaking Turkish.
• In the northeast are Turkmen, also speaking a Turkish language.
• In the southeast are Baluch, speaking Baluchi.

It is noteworthy that many of these populations have ethnic compatriots across the boundaries of Iran:

• Arabs in Iraq and across the Gulf.
• Kurds in Iraq and Turkey.
• Azeris in the Republic of Azerbaijan.
• Turkmen in Central Asia.
• Baluch in Pakistan.

One important difference between the Persian heartland and the periphery, is that the Persians are urban dwellers or village peasants, while most of the other populations are tribal: some of the Arabs, the Turks of Fars, the Lurs, the Kurds, some Azeris, the Turkmen, and the Baluch. Tribes are political organizations designed to provide protection and security for their members, and mobilization against enemies. Tribes have a strong preference for independence, and strive always to stay out of the clutches of the state. However, modern times and modern military technology, combined with state antipathy, have undercut tribal independence and integrated tribal populations, to a greater or lesser degree, within state structures. Nonetheless, tribal structures remain, and can be activated if circumstances permit.

One major cultural unifying factor in Iran is religion. Some 90 percent of Iranians are Shi’a Muslims, traditional enemies of the Sunni majority in the Arab world and elsewhere. Shi’ism cuts across ethnic boundaries, providing a commonality for most Iranians. Under the Islamic Republic, Shi’ism has become a central focus of culture and governance. There are small minorities of Christians and Jews, a somewhat larger group of Baha’is, but the great bulk of the non-Shi’a are Sunni.

Sectarian politics: internal and external. The cultural, linguistic, organizational, and religious diversity of Iran is not, however cause for celebration on the part of the rulers of the Islamic Republic and their agents. Diversity, plurality, and difference do not fit the vision, the duty, and the mandate of the Islamic Republic. Rather, the Islamic Republic has for its raison d’etre the advancement, exclusively, of Shi’a Islam. This is believed to be God’s mandate to the Islamic Republic. Consequently, “inclusion” is not a value in its own right, but is only possible within the parameters of Shi’a domination.

Furthermore, religion aside, non-Persian ethnicities, speakers of Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, Turkman, Baluchi, as well as tribal peoples are suspect in regard to their loyalty to the state. The Islamic Republic only established its control after military campaigns against the tribes, the Kurds, the Turkmen, and the Baluch—just as Mohammed Reza Shah had to do, and just as Reza Shah before him had to do. Each fall of a regime in Iran is followed by declarations of independence by ethnic groups and tribes around the country, and must be suppressed militarily if the new government is to take effective control. So the diffidence of the Islamic Republic toward these groups is historically grounded.

The Islamic Republic is not fully satisfied by the imposition of Shi’a dominance in Iran; it acts to extend Shi’a dominance outside of its borders. Two effective campaigns along this line are the alliance with the Alawites of Syria and the financial, military, and political support for Lebanese Shiites especially through Hezbollah. It is even prepared, as the new champion of Islam, to extend its influence through support of Sunnis, such as Hamas, as long as the alliance is directed against more distant enemies, such as the Jews of Israel. Iranian envoys and missionaries in Africa carry the good Shi’a word to more distant lands, such as Northern Nigeria, backed by financial and other aid. The Sunni stalwarts, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, appear to the on the defensive against Iranian-backed Shi’a incursions.

State-minority relations: Baluchistan. Baluchistan, the larger part of the Province of Sistan and Baluchistan, is the most alien region of Iran. It is geographically farthest from the centers of governance. Its deserts are shaped by the most extremely arid climate (the unpopulated central desert aside). The population deviates from the Persian majority in the Islamic Republic in ethnicity, language, organization, and religion: Baluchi ethnicity; Baluchi language, tribal organization, and Sunni Islam. It is the least developed and poorest province. Furthermore, it abuts on the east the vast Pakistani Baluchistan with its much larger population of Baluch, and on the south the Indian Ocean, which opens Iran’s borders in the region to vulnerabilities.

What to do with this unpromising and potentially threatening region? The Islamic Republic, perhaps following the example of the Chinese in Tibet and Inner Mongolia, decided to flood Baluchistan with Shi’a Persians. But how to do this? A brainstorm led the Islamic Republic to make Baluchistan a center of university education—this in a land which some decades before had not even a primary school or madresseh. Universities were built and have drawn staff and multitudes of students from the Persian heartlands. Now the University of Sistan and Baluchistan is the second-largest university in Iran, and has branches in Baluchi towns that were little more than oases. There is even an international university on the southern coast.

With the flood of government money, and the new incoming population to accommodate, Baluchistan has undergone a lightning-fast urbanization. The provincial capital, before the Islamic Republic no more than 10,000 in population, has now reached half a million. Farther south, small villages or artificial government posts now can boast, along with their universities, more than 50,000 residents. Many Baluch from the countryside, formerly nomadic pastoralists, have moved to the towns and cities to take jobs in various support services.

Governance in Baluchistan is largely by Shi’a Persians for Shi’a Persians. Shi’a religious authorities are present, and Shi’a rituals and displays are prominent. It has been alleged recently that Shi’a missionaries are active among the Baluch. The Sunni Baluch do not appreciate this imposition of Shi’ism in Baluchistan.

It also appears that Baluch are not favoured for posts and jobs. According to Dr. M. Hossein Bor, in a recent briefing to the U.S. Congress,

A practice widely used to discriminate against Baluch and other minorities is Gozinesh meaning selection, an ideological test requiring applicants to universities and candidates for government jobs to demonstrate allegiance to Shia Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran including the concept of Vilayat-e Faghih (Governance of Religious Jurist), a concept not adhered to by Sunnis. This practice has been used to exclude Baluch from admission to universities or employment by government ever since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979.

In the world of business, many Baluch work for Shi’a Persians, which adds a class dimension to relations between Persians and Baluch.

To insure government control, there are a large military presence and frequent roadblocks. This has been heightened due to a small but effective insurgency by the Jundallah (”Soldiers of God”), also called the People’s Resistence Movement of Iran, run by Abdulmalak Rigi, from the Rigi tribe of the Sarhad region. During the past several years, the Jundallah has attacked and killed military personnel (26 in two attacks this January), kidnapped military personnel, and recently set off a suicide car bomb at a police facility in Saravan. The Jundallah stands for greater respect for Sunni Islam within the Islamic Republic and, presumably, better treatment of Baluch in Baluchistan. The Jundallah is not a mass movement, and many Baluch remain ambivalent about it. But it does signal the potential for something larger, something that the Islamic Republic would wish to avoid. However, in a recent speech, Supreme Leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attributed the insurgency to outside interference:

Those evil people at the border areas of Iran with Pakistan… We have recordings of some of these evil people, and we know that they are connected to Americans. They talk to them via wireless radio, and get their orders from them. These are evil, murderous terrorists, who are connected to American officers in a neighboring country. Unfortunately, this is still going on.

The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic gives no indication he has reflected on the situation and treatment of Baluch in Baluchistan.

Minorities around Iran. Baluchistan is an extreme case, but one that reflects problems of minorities throughout Iran. Baha’is and Jews are under constant pressure, and are regarded as suspect by the Islamic Republic. So too with any national minorities, such as Kurds. All of these have seen arrests, disappearances, and executions for alleged anti-regime activities. But this should not be surprising, when opposition newspapers are shut down and Shi’a Persians with views differing from the Islamic Republic also are arrested, made to disappear, or turn up dead on the side of roads, and so on.

The position of minorities in Iran has not gone unnoticed outside of Iran. Baluchi nationalists in Pakistan regard Iranian Baluchistan as Occupied West Baluchistan. Saudi newspapers have recently denounced Iranian treatment of Sunnis and Arabs; the following is from the leading Saudi daily, Al-Watan:

Although a million and a half of Tehran’s native residents are Sunni, they do not have a single mosque in which to pray, or [a single] center in which to congregate…. A Sunni Muslim citizen cannot hold a senior position in the [Iranian] state, even if he is very knowledgeable and enjoys broad public support.…

Intense [efforts] are underway to ‘Persianize’ the Arab region of Khuzestan (Arabistan), and the oil-rich city of Al-Ahwaz, [although] it is situated in the southwest of Iran where the majority of population is Sunni Arab. This is being done by evicting Arab residents, particularly Sunnis, from their homes, and settling families of Persian origin in their place. Sunni regions, in both western and eastern Iran (i.e. in Baluchistan), are being subjected to a policy of intentional marginalization, [implemented by non-] development and by excluding their residents from [government] positions.

This racist attitude applies not only to Sunnis but to all Arabs [in Iran]….

In Iran, Arab and Sunni clerics and leaders are killed, [Arab] social activists are arrested, and there are attempts to restrict the Arab culture, yet international human rights organizations remain silent – as though they are in league with the regime of the mullahs.

Iran’s neighbors are watching Iran’s treatment of its minorities, as they watch Iran’s manoeuvres in the wider world of Persian-Arab and Shi’a-Sunni relations. Persian interference in Saudi Arabia through its Shi’a minority, could be met with counter-measures among the Sunnis of Iran. The ambitions of Baluchi, Kurdish, Turkish and other nationalists, both inside and on the borders of Iran, might begin to draw support from major Sunni powers if the Islamic Republic’s external initiatives tread too heavily upon their toes. The Islamic Republic has been looking at openings in other countries in the wider region to advance its influence and its goals. But now other countries are looking at potential openings in Iran as point of leverage on the Islamic Republic. What is good for the Persian goose,…

The rulers of Iran have got and stayed where they are because they are true believers. The weakness of their strength is their relations with the others. Being true believers, they cannot appreciate diversity, and have failed to be inclusive. The danger for the Islamic Republic is that the others, perhaps with external encouragement and support, turn from resentment to dissidence to outright rebellion and insurgency. Since the founding of the Islamic Republic, the others in Iran have not had much of a say. They may find new ways to speak.

This post was originally presented at the conference on “The Future of Iran as a Regional Power,” March 30-31, 2009, organized by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), and jointly sponsored by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, National Defence Canada, and the Privy Council Office. It is published here with the permission of Academic Outreach, CSIS.

The appointment of Dennis Ross as “Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for The Gulf and Southwest Asia” (announcement here) has caused some puzzlement, in part because the geographic focus of his title seems fuzzy. This is especially so for “Southwest Asia.”

On the face of it, “Southwest Asia” looks like a geographic reference, and it has always had a few enthusiasts among geographers. It’s also been favored by those who deem it less Eurocentric than “Middle East” or “Near East.” (Maybe it is, but since Asia as a continent is a European idea, calling any region “Southwest Asia” hardly solves the problem.) Once there was even a maverick academic program, at SUNY Binghamton, called the Program in Southwest Asian and North African Studies (SWANA for short). But “Southwest Asia” got no traction in American academe, and even the SUNY program eventually swapped SWANA for MENA (Middle East and North Africa).

So when did “Southwest Asia” finally get its big break, and begin to turn up in high places as a near-synonym for the Middle East? “From the moment of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979,” wrote U.S. diplomat and strategist John C. Campbell, “Washington began to talk of ‘Southwest Asia’ instead of the Middle East as the area of crisis and of American concern.” Cold War strategists wished to emphasize that the region was crucial not because it was east of us, but because it was immediately southwest of the Soviet Union, which had a plan to push through to the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. The sooner Americans started thinking about the region as “Southwest Asia,” the sooner they would grasp the nature of the threat.

National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski effected the shift in labeling. Two days after the Soviet invasion, he warned President Jimmy Carter that “the collapse of the balance of power in Southwest Asia… could produce Soviet presence right down on the edge of the Arabian and Oman Gulfs.” Carter, reeling from the combined effects of the invasion and the Iran hostage crisis, opened a dramatic television address to the nation some days later with these words: “I come to you this evening to discuss important and rapidly changing circumstances in Southwest Asia.” Carter proceeded to warn Americans of “a threat of further Soviet expansion into neighboring countries in Southwest Asia.” A month later, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee jumped on board, and held a series of landmark hearings later published as “U.S. Security Interests and Policies in Southwest Asia.”

“A new name has been devised to cover these counties on which attention has been concentrated during the past 12 months,” wrote the military historian Sir Michael Howard in Foreign Affairs a year later. “Southwest Asia: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and the oil-bearing states bordering what now must tactfully be termed simply ‘the Gulf,’ all constituting a politically seismic zone of incalculable explosive potential.” Campbell later gave a similar definition: “‘Southwest Asia’ includes everything from the eastern fringes of the Arab world to the western limits of the Indian subcontinent.” (Campbell also added that “roughly, it is Zbigniew Brzezinski’s ‘arc of crisis.’” Brzezinski had coined that phrase a year before the Soviet invasion, and it figured prominently in a January 1979 story in TIME magazine, whose cover showed a Soviet bear looming over the Persian Gulf. TIME explained that Brzezinski’s “arc of crisis” consisted of “the nations that stretch across the southern flank of the Soviet Union from the Indian subcontinent to Turkey, and southward through the Arabian Peninsula to the Horn of Africa.”)

This “Southwest Asia,” then, wasn’t a geographic reference at all, but a strategic one with a Cold War application. Not surprisingly, both the CIA and the Pentagon quickly picked up the term and ran with it. The CIA established a Southwest Asia Analytic Center, which produced papers like “The Soviets and the Tribes of Southwest Asia.” The Defense Department acted similarly, applying “Southwest Asia” (SWA) to a large area centered in the Gulf, but extending far beyond it. “Southwest Asia” is now the core of CENTCOM’s “Area of Responsibility” (AOR), which runs from Kazakhstan to Kenya.

Which brings us back to the Ross appointment at the State Department. “Southwest Asia” isn’t much used at State, which still prefers “Middle East” and hasn’t even given up entirely on “Near East.” (”Southwest Asia” is regularly used only in the Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, where it includes Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka.) After the Ross announcement, journalists wanted to know exactly what Ross’s own area of responsibility covered. In particular, did it include Afghanistan and Pakistan, the original entry point to “Southwest Asia” of the Cold War strategists? Hadn’t responsibllity for both countries already been given to Richard Holbrooke, named only a month earlier as Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan?

At first, even the acting State Department spokesman, Robert Wood, didn’t know just what “Southwest Asia” included, which made for an embarrassing exchange at the Department’s daily press briefing. (Question: “You guys named an envoy for Southwest Asia. I presume that you know what countries that includes.” Wood: “Yes. Of course, we know. I just—I don’t have the list to run off—you know, right off the top of my head here.”

But the next day, Wood had an answer:

MR. WOOD: Let me give you my best—our best read of this. From our standpoint, the countries that make up areas of the Gulf and Southwest Asia include Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen, and those are the countries.

QUESTION: Not—not Afghanistan and Pakistan?

MR. WOOD: Look, Ambassador Ross will look at the entire region, should he be asked to, including Afghanistan. But this is something that would be worked out. You were—you asked the question yesterday about Ambassador Holbrooke and whether there was going to be some kind of, I don’t know, conflict over who is working in—on that particular issues in that country.

Look, Ambassador Ross and Ambassador Holbrooke will work together where necessary if they need to, if there’s some kind of overlap. But that’s, in essence, the State Department’s geographical breakdown of Southwest Asia.

QUESTION: Okay. So it does not—it is not the same breakdown as the military uses?

MR. WOOD: No, the military uses a different breakdown, but I’d have to refer you to them for their specific breakdown.

QUESTION: So it doesn’t include Jordan? It doesn’t include—

MR. WOOD: I just gave you the breakdown as I—as the State Department breaks it down.

QUESTION: So if Ambassador Ross is special envoy—special advisor for Gulf and Southwest Asia, what is the difference between Gulf and Southwest Asia?

MR. WOOD: Look—

QUESTION: For me, this is Gulf.

MR. WOOD: Well, it may be for you. For others, it may be different. I’d have to—I’ve given you what the Department’s position is with regard to the geographic makeup of the region.

Why did the State Department construe “Southwest Asia” so narrowly—so much so that it really is indistinguishable from “The Gulf”? That’s a matter for speculation. One report says Ross did have Afghanistan and Pakistan on the list of countries he thought belonged in the package. Holbrooke reportedly insisted they both be dropped, and got his way.

But it’s already clear that last week added yet another layer of confusion to the terminology the United States inflicts on the region to suit its own political, diplomatic, and strategic requirements. There is a “Near East” and a “Middle East” and a “Greater Middle East” (GME) and a “Middle East and North Africa” (MENA) and a “Broader Middle East and North Africa” (BMENA). And now, alongside the Defense Department’s greater “Southwest Asia,” we have the lesser “Southwest Asia” of the State Department as scaled down for Ross. (This is not to be confused with the “Southwest Asia” of the State Department’s own Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Not a single country in that bureau’s “Southwest Asia” is identical to Ross’s.) Of course, labels tend to slip and slide across the map over time, depending on circumstance. It’s just remarkable to see them slip and slide at one time, in one building.

Meanwhile, in Iran, there is no confusion, only outrage that the appointment of Ross mentions “The Gulf,” as opposed to the Persian Gulf. Iran has waged a persistent campaign to keep the Persian adjective firmly fastened to the Gulf. But the Iranian government won’t take offense at Iran’s inclusion in “Southwest Asia”—to the contrary. Last year a leading Iranian journalist wrote a column entitled “There Is No Middle East.” The message:

The people of Southwest Asia and North Africa should not use the appellation Middle East to describe their home region because it was coined by European imperialists. The use of such non-indigenous terms only serves to reinforce mental slavery and subjugation…. The vocabulary that we use influences our thought patterns. If Muslims use Eurocentric vocabulary, even when speaking our own languages, it will undermine our sense of identity. A better substitute for the Middle East/North Africa would be Southwest Asia/North Africa, which could be abbreviated as SWANA.

Don’t Persians know that the naming of Asia is owed to… the Greeks?.

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Below: Jimmy Carter delivers his January 4, 1980 televised address concerning the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. (There is a brief preface on the Iran hostages.) His White House diary records this as an “Address to the Nation on the situation in Southwest Asia.” Notice the prop in the opening shot: a globe positioned so as to show the region. Toward the end of this segment, the camera pans across a map. (If you cannot see the embedded clip, or wish to view the entire address, click here.)

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Is Iran trying to create a “Shiite crescent,” as its Arab critics insist, or is it a country merely interested in helping the oppressed in the Middle East, Sunnis and Shiites alike? That’s the question indirectly posed in this news report from Al-Jazeera in English (here, if you cannot view it above), and in many respects it’s a red herring. The truth is simpler. Iran will use all the instruments it can muster to advance its nationalist agenda in the region—Shiite solidarity in some countries, resistance to Israel or the United States in others, and popular displeasure with Arab regimes in yet others, with overlap possible in each.

Two things are interesting here. First, that Iran’s Arab rivals, realists to the bone, should tend to define Iranian behavior mainly in terms of ideology and sectarian affiliation. But that too is a red herring, because the Arab states realize that in competing with Iran, their principal comparative advantage remains Sunni sectarian mobilization. Iran, they know well, is as realist a state as any other, but one effective way of containing its power in the Middle East is to appeal to the ambient Sunni fear of a regional “Shiite threat,” no matter how vague and remote that concept may be.

A second thing interesting here is what Iran’s multi-layered ability to advance its regional interests means to the United States. There has been much talk of “engaging” Iran of late in Washington, and in and of itself that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Already, for example, this promise may have influenced the speech today of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in which he declared that Iran was prepared for a dialogue with America, provided it took place in “a fair atmosphere in which there is mutual respect.” But before we get any ideas that Ahmadinejad has truly warmed to such an opening, we might want to consider that the president felt a need to sound conciliatory because he couldn’t abandon that valuable card to his future rival in the presidential election, Muhammad Khatami.

The real question, however, is how does the United States engage Iran successfully when the Islamic Republic has proven so adept at advancing its national interests in intricate ways, and seems so much more clearheaded than the United States about the endgame? The Arabs have usually fought back by appealing to sectarian paranoia; but what can the United States do against an Iran that by all accounts is building a nuclear weapon in order to become a regional hegemon? An Iran that is indeed able to appeal to Shiites in Arab societies, perhaps most importantly in Lebanon? That can play on Arab sympathy for the Palestinians, while also influencing its allies in Iraq? And that can on occasion raise the domestic heat on American friends such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, because their societies question their legitimacy?

The simple answer is that, until now, we’re not quite sure. Amid all the talk of… well, talking to Iran, the Obama administration has yet to formulate a new and comprehensive policy toward the Islamic Republic. To talk is not a strategy; it’s just a verb. That doesn’t mean a brilliant scheme will not soon emerge from the catacombs of the National Security Council and the State Department. It doesn’t mean that Washington will inevitably be taken for a ride by the mullahs. But since we have an administration in Washington that has expressed its desire to break away from the allegedly “ideological” Bush years and return to the cooler pursuit of the national self-interest (”smart power.” as Hillary Clinton calls it), then we can probably assume that Tehran will test that ability to the limit.

The Al-Jazeera report is interesting because it limits itself to a conceptual template that the Iranians are glad to work within. For every Arab attack on the predominance of Shiite sectarian calculations in Iranian foreign policy, the Iranians can find a good refutation. The real issue is that Iran is as nationalist as any other state, and as flexible in balancing its ideological weapons with its political, financial, and military ones regionally. That will be an important lesson for the Obama administration to remember when or if it moves ahead in an exchange with Tehran. It should also provide a blueprint for how the U.S. should respond when trying to put Iran on the defensive. If Iran can play on several regional and international game boards, then Washington needs to match that. Now is Barack Obama’s opportunity to show that he has the subtlety that George W. Bush lacked.

Origins of cooperation. For the past two decades, cooperative relations between Turkey and Israel had been one of the constants of international relations in the Middle East. While it would be incorrect to describe those ties as equivalent to an alliance, they were close and multi-faceted. Turkey recognized Israel in 1949, the first Muslim majority state to do so, but it was at the beginning of the 1990s that the two countries began to develop close ties. Bringing them together was a shared opposition to Syria and, to a lesser extent, Iran. Turkish-Israeli cooperation against Syria replicated a common geopolitical pattern whereby two non-contiguous states align against their common neighbor. Syria’s support for the Kurdistan Workers Party (the PKK) and its military struggle against Turkish control of eastern Anatolia made Ankara eager to cooperate with Israel to contain Syria.

Although outside observers often overstated the degree of hostility between the Turkish Republic and Islamic Republic of Iran by extrapolating straight from their irreconcilable ideologies, a mutual interest in blocking Iran’s export of Islamic revolution and influence did also serve to bring Turkey and Israel together. The two shared a general antipathy to revisionist radicalism of any sort and were both (relatively) comfortable with the status-quo in the Middle East.

The fact that they enjoyed close ties to the United States facilitated their cooperation; indeed, their bilateral ties cannot be understood in isolation from their ties with America. Their pro-American orientation was reinforced by their identification with liberal democracy and even lent their relationship a broader “civilizational” sheen. Finally, their cooperation was complementary in very practical ways in a number of areas, ranging from the military-security field to planned projects to bring natural gas and water to Israel.

Beginnings of estrangement. Recent years, however, have seen a definite deterioration in Turkish-Israeli ties. Several reasons explain this, but perhaps the most fundamental lies in the post-9/11 shift in United States’ policy under George Bush from support of the status quo in the Middle East to revision of it through the toppling of multiple regimes in the Middle East, starting with Saddam Hussein’s. Although no one in Washington even imagined targeting the Turkish Republic in the project to remake the “Greater Middle East”—to the contrary, American policy makers saw the goal of creating more secular, democratic, and thus pro-American regimes as one complementary to Turkish interests—Turkish opinion across the board was profoundly skeptical of American motives and fearful of American plans.

Not a few Turks, including those in think tanks and the military, believed that the ultimate target of Operation Iraqi Freedom was not Middle Eastern despotism but the Turkish Republic. Once the United States was in Iraq, it would proceed to incite and agitate Kurdish groups inside Turkey. Then, in the name of democracy, it would detach Turkey’s eastern provinces to form a Kurdish state. By breaking the Middle East up into a greater number of smaller, more pliable, states, the United States could maintain its hegemony over the Middle East more easily. Because Israel, in turn, would be a prime beneficiary of this fracturing of Middle Eastern states, it was seen as complicit in this project.

It is an utterly fantastic, not to mention paranoid, reading of U.S. (and Israeli) policies and capabilities. But it is a worldview embedded in the institutions of the Turkish Republic, from the schools to the Turkish military. These institutions did not spring forth whole-cloth following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. Rather, they were forged in the long struggle to prevent the empire’s break-up and division. That struggle ultimately was successful to the extent that the new republic managed to retain control of Anatolia despite the intentions of the Great Powers to partition it, most notably in the Sykes-Picot (Sazonov) agreement of 1916 and the Treaty of Sevres of 1920.

The Turkish Republic, in other words, was the direct response to the problem of Ottoman decline. Indeed, the republic’s founding elites embraced secularism and Turkish nationalism—the two main pillars of republican ideology—not because of their intrinsic appeal but rather because they saw them as essential to arrest the process of break-up and partition. Secularism was needed to ensure the technological progress and economic growth that a strong state required, and nationalism was needed to maintain unity, bind the people to the state, and immunize society against dissension that more powerful states always looked to exploit.

The belief that outside forces are steadily and consciously working to undermine Turkey and divide it is thus almost hard-wired in Turkish institutions. The U.S. invasion of Iraq activated these circuits of suspicion. Pentagon national security strategy papers that spoke of maintaining America’s global hegemony through the suppression of peer competitors, maps in U.S. military journals showing a partitioned Turkey, a surge in PKK attacks inside Turkey, the U.S. military’s disinterest in cracking down on the PKK in Iraq, and reports of PKK acquisition of American arms, among other things, served to confirm the suspicions of many Turks that the United States was a new predatory “Great Power.” Far from being a trustworthy ally, the United States began to loom as the single greatest threat to the unity of their country.

Suspicion also fell upon Israel, primarily because it was the country in the region closest to the United States, but also because it was known to have cultivated ties to the Kurds of Iraq in the past and is presumed to have an interest in the break-up of Iraq and Iran. The result, in short, has been a steady deterioration in Turkish trust toward the United States and, by extension, to Israel.

Some pin the blame for this breakdown in trust on the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), and trace it to the AKP’s origins in Turkey’s Islamist movement. The reality is that the causes for distrust are both broader and deeper than the AKP or Turkey’s Islamist movement. It is worth noting that the AKP’s secularist-nationalist opponents commonly portray the party and its leaders, including Turkish President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as tools of American foreign policy, products of an American project to cultivate “moderate Islam.” Perhaps inevitably, they have even published books identifying Erdoğan and Gül as key actors in Zionist conspiracies against Turkey.

Ankara’s growing unease with American behavior and intentions coincided with and stimulated a growing conviction that Turkey should engage its neighbors and play a more active role in its neighborhood, including the Middle East. Engagement would raise Turkey’s profile and provide it a hedge in case of any clash with the United States. Ankara’s pursuit of closer ties to Syria and Iran, however, in turn began to erode American and Israeli confidence in Turkey. Following Syria’s cessation of support for the PKK in 1999, Turkey’s relations with its southern neighbor shifted from confrontational to conciliatory. Although Ankara contends that building relations with Syria and Iran will allow Turkey to play a valuable role as mediator, Ankara’s rapprochement with Damascus and dealings with Tehran have unsettled American and Israeli policymakers concerned with isolating Syria and Iran. Tehran’s demonstrated willingness to attack PKK-affiliate bases inside Iraq, however, highlighted Washington’s passivity on Turkey’s predominant security concern and further sullied America’s reputation as a reliable ally.

As part of the effort to play a more active role in the Middle East, Erdoğan and his government have been noticeably sympathetic toward Hamas, condemning the assassinations of Hamas leaders, defending Hamas’s legitimacy as the elected representatives of the Palestinians, and receiving Hamas emissaries in Ankara. Defenders of this policy argue that by engaging Hamas, Turkey will ultimately be able to moderate it. Turkey will then be able to use its unique position as a Muslim country with long-standing ties to Israel to help broker a final resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Critics of Ankara’s policy contend that lending even moral support to Hamas only encourages it to stick to its avowed aim of destroying Israel, and they question what motivates Erdoğan and his government in their support of Hamas: Is it really a desire to play a more responsible role in the Middle East? Or it the reflection of religiously rooted sympathy for Hamas and antipathy toward Israel? Or is it a cunning populist politician’s instinct for what mobilizes his electoral base and delivers votes? Erdoğan’s failure to criticize Hamas beyond issuing stock phrases abjuring the use of force, combined with his emphatic condemnation of Israeli actions and religiously inflected language, suggest to some that the latter two motives are predominant.

The Turkish public’s sympathy for the Palestinians is long-standing, but it was never ardent. In the past two to three years, however, that sympathy has grown in inverse proportion to a decline in Israel’s reputation. Israel’s massive retaliation against Lebanon during its war with Hezbollah in 2006 gravely damaged Israel’s image across all sectors of the Turkish public. Turkish citizens watched during that summer as the Israeli armed forces pounded not just Hezbollah but targets throughout Lebanon, seemingly at will. Israel’s declaration that it held Lebanon responsible for Hezbollah’s provocations (Hezbollah being part of the Lebanon’s government) underscored that Israel’s punishment was willful and deliberate.

Israel’s use of overwhelming force against Gaza in its most recent campaign against Hamas further tarnished Israel’s reputation, as it generated images again of the gratuitous use of violence, this time against a Muslim people who were effectively defenseless. These images, along with with those of American “shock and awe” in Iraq, Abu Ghraib, and more recent operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere have all combined to reinforce the suggestion that the greatest threat to Turkey and regional peace and stability come from the United States and Israel.

Responding to Operation Cast Lead, Erdoğan employed exceptionally loaded language to condemn Israel’s operations in Gaza, describing them as “savagery,” “a crime against humanity,” and deserving of divine retribution. The Turkish Ministry of Education directed that schoolchildren should observe a minute of silence for the victims of Israeli arms in Gaza. These actions caused Turkey’s tiny Jewish community to feel besieged. Israeli officials responded with veiled hints that Jewish American organizations might withdraw their support for Turkish efforts to block passage through the U.S. Congress of a resolution recognizing an Armenian genocide.

Clash at Davos. The most spectacular episode in the deterioration of Turkish-Israeli relations took place this past week, when on January 29 Erdoğan and Israeli President Shimon Peres sat on a panel to discuss Gaza and Middle East peace at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Also sitting in on the panel were the UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon and the head of the Arab League, Amr Musa. (See the video clip here or at the end of this post.)

The panel was charged with tension from the beginning as first Moon, Erdoğan, and then Musa all directed criticism toward Israel. An exasperated Peres then ratcheted emotions up further, lecturing to Erdoğan in a dismissive tone at moments and shouting toward the end. His rambling presentation made the case for Israel poorly, the low-point being his citation of Husni Mubarak’s approval, as if the Egyptian president were a disinterested and impeccable moral authority. Peres came across alternately some times as condescending and at other times bewildered as to how some could find fault with Israel’s use of force.

When Peres finished, Erdoğan insisted on getting in the last word. Ignoring the request of the moderator David Ignatius to speak no more than a minute, he proceeded to lash into Peres, declaring that his shouting betrayed a guilty conscience and imputing to him expertise in killing children at beaches, before going on to cite the Torah’s prohibition against murder and throwing in criticisms of Israel from Israelis for good measure. Not content with blasting Peres, he declared that those audience members who applauded Peres too were guilty of a “crime against humanity.” Offended by Ignatius’ insistence that he stop speaking and let the panel conclude, Erdoğan stormed off.

The public exchange of such harsh and emotional words between leaders of two states that enjoy ostensibly close relations was extraordinary, perhaps unique in modern diplomatic history. Yet Erdoğan in a later press conference was wholly unrepentant, declaring that he was neither an effete “mon cher”diplomat, nor some “tribal leader” to be belittled but the Prime Minister of the Turkish Republic and had defended Turkey’s honor. Although afterwards Peres allegedly called Erdoğan in an attempt to smooth over the incident, it is difficult to see how the damage to Turkish-Israeli relations can be contained.

The fact that several thousand cheering supporters greeted Erdoğan upon his return to Istanbul is itself not very telling; Erdoğan is a charismatic politician and can easily rally that many on any given issue. More indicative is that columnists from a wide spectrum of newspapers and political positions have expressed their support for the frankness of Erdoğan’s message, if not his style of delivering it.

If, as many now predict, the U.S. Congress this spring does pass a resolution recognizing an Armenian genocide, the effect will not be to spur Turks to critically examine late Ottoman history. To the contrary, the Turkish public will interpret the resolution as nothing more than a cheap insult against the whole of Turkey delivered by an imperious America and facilitated by vindictive supporters of Israel. Because the issue commands considerable emotional resonance across all sectors of Turkish society, the possibility that Congress might pass the resolution right before Turkey’s municipal elections on March 29 could hand Erdoğan an irresistible opportunity to demagogue the issue. For one, playing up the issue would reinforce his contention that Turkey’s honor is under assault and that he is the man to defend it, thereby immunizing him against criticism that his habit of indulging in inflammatory drama has harmed Turkey’s image and interests. But more significant is that the issue would force even his hard-core opponents to rally behind him in a show of defiant national unity. The damage to Turkish-American and Turkish-Israeli relations could be considerable.

Salvaging the wreckage. If Turkish and Israeli policymakers are to salvage anything from Davos, they will have to start by acknowledging the uncomfortable reality that the opinions expressed by the leaders of the two countries were heartfelt and reflect the dominant public sentiments in their respective countries.

Polls demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of Israelis supported Operation Cast Lead. They did so not because they enjoy bombing Palestinians (Erdoğan’s claim at Davos that two former Israeli prime ministers boasted of receiving pleasure when riding into Palestine on tanks notwithstanding), but because they see Hamas as unremittingly hostile and bent on the destruction of their society. Whereas outsiders see Israel as a robust and powerful state and ask why they must resort to massive force so readily, Israelis themselves are acutely conscious of their small country’s vulnerabilities and believe they must demonstrate an unyielding will to defend themselves lest they lose the ability to deter their enemies.

If Erdoğan and other Turks truly aspire to a more influential role for their country in the region, they will have to address directly Hamas’s refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and condemn Hamas’s use of violence against innocents with the same intensity that they have condemned Israel’s. They might remind themselves that whereas the Kurdistan Workers Party (PPK) has never aimed for the destruction of Turkey, Ankara has consistently refused to negotiate with it. Turkey is indeed in a unique position to contribute to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but to do so it must act deliberately and responsibly.

For their part, Israeli officials would do well to recognize that, no matter how justified they believed Israel to be, the campaigns in Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2009 have done tremendous damage to Israel’s image in Turkey. The attempt to achieve absolute deterrence can be counter-productive. While anti-Semitism exists in Turkey and is a concern for the Turkey’s Jewish community, it cannot explain the recent broad declines in Turkish support for Israel.

In remarks addressed to Ankara on February 1, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni suggested, “It is possible to fix everything, we have to talk, put things on the table, keep our common interests as well as our differences in mind.” Livni’s proposal is sound, and Ankara would be wise to take it up, for the sake of Turkey’s relationship with Israel but also for the sake of the Palestinians and the rest of the region. A frightened and further isolated Israel is not one that will benefit Turkey or any of Israel’s neighbors.

Finally, given that Turkish-Israeli relations are bound up with bilateral American relations with both states, American officials have little choice but to be involved in repairing those ties. The Bush administration’s aborted project to remake the Middle East started a process of estrangement that inevitably spilled over into Turkish-Israeli relations. The rift in Turkish-Israeli relations, if not repaired soon, may develop into a chasm between America and Turkey.

MESH Pointer: See the subsequent thread, In the name of Islam: a liberal appeal.

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The recent Russian intervention in Georgia has made an American rapprochement with Iran highly desirable both for the United States and for the West as a whole. Israel has long opposed such a rapprochement, but this would also serve its interests too. Here’s why:

Europe has become increasingly dependent on Russia for natural gas supplies, and this dependence is only likely to increase. This would not be undesirable, except that Moscow has shown a proclivity for cutting back or halting gas shipments to states with which it has disagreements. To prevent Russia from acquiring leverage over Europe through greater control over its gas imports, the United States and many European governments have sought alternative gas supplies from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan through pipeline routes bypassing Russia.

Iran has enormous natural gas reserves. Iran could also serve as an alternative pipeline route for Azeri and Turkmen gas for transshipment through Turkey to reach Europe. But Iranian-American hostility has resulted in Washington acting to block American and discourage other Western investment in this Iranian gas pipeline option in favor of a route through the South Caucasus.

Continued Azeri-Armenian hostility over Nagorno-Karabakh, though, prevents pipelines being constructed from Azerbaijan through Armenia to Turkey. This has left Georgia as the sole available route for a gas pipeline from Azerbaijan (and possibly Turkmenistan) to Turkey and Europe that bypasses both Russia and Iran. (An oil pipeline is already carrying Azeri oil through Georgia to the Black Sea, while another carries it through Georgia all the way through Turkey to the Mediterranean.)

But Russia’s successful intervention in Georgia casts doubt on whether Georgia can serve as an alternative to Russia as a pipeline route. The ease with which Russian forces took control of both Abkhazia and South Ossetia, as well as pushed into Georgia proper, demonstrated how readily Moscow could disrupt pipelines through Georgia. There is also the possibility that Moscow could wait until a gas pipeline through Georgia is built, and then take over both the country and all pipelines through it. This would not just frustrate Europe’s efforts to reduce dependence on Russia for gas, but actually increase it. Just the possibility that this could occur may prevent the proposed gas pipeline from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey from being built.

How is Europe going to react to the problem of pipeline routes through Georgia being so vulnerable to disruption or takeover by Russia? Will Europe see dependence on Russia for its gas imports as inevitable and henceforward adjust its behavior so as not to antagonize Moscow? Or will Europe attempt to limits its dependence on Russia through seeking yet other suppliers and supply routes?

Past West European behavior suggests that Europe will do the latter. During the Cold War, when growing West European economies needed more gas but North Africa was seen as an unreliable supplier, Western Europe began to import gas from the Soviet Union. Further, it did this despite American objections at a time when Western Europe was dependent on the United States for protection against a possible Soviet attack.

Europe is now less dependent on the United States for security but increasingly dependent on the importation of gas. Europe, then, can be expected to do now what it did during the Cold War when it needed more gas and doubted the reliability of its existing suppliers: find alternative suppliers. Europe is now, in fact, attempting to increase its imports of gas via pipelines from North Africa as well as of liquefied natural gas (in both of which, by the way, Russia is trying to gain a stake).

Sooner or later, though, Europe is likely to seek to import gas from Iran, especially since: 1) the Iranians have already indicated their willingness to sell it to Europe; 2) Russia cannot interfere as easily in Iran as it can in Georgia; and 3) Iran can also serve as a transit route for gas from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

As Western Europe’s behavior with regard to gas imports from the Soviet Union during the Cold War demonstrated, Europe is likely to buy gas from Iran despite opposition from America (and, of course, Israel). If Europe is determined to buy Iranian gas, then the United States will face two choices: either it can attempt to prevent Europe from doing so, or it can work with Europe by attempting to normalize Iranian-American relations.

Attempting to prevent Europe from buying Iranian gas is highly inadvisable since not only are such efforts likely to fail, but will only result in worsening European-American relations. Nor will doing this result in Iran moderating its behavior toward Israel, since it is doubtful that Europe is going to let Israeli opposition stand in the way of furthering its efforts to reduce dependence on Russia for gas. Further, an American effort to prevent Europe from buying Iranian gas would prevent the United States from being able to exploit the increasing differences between Russia and Iran that can be expected to emerge, especially if Tehran is willing to serve as a transit corridor for Azeri and Turkmen gas.

An Iranian-American rapprochement, by contrast, would help preserve European-American relations as well as allow the United States to benefit from the Russian-Iranian differences that would arise from this. But would Iran moderate its behavior toward Israel for the sake of rapprochement with the United States, especially if an Iranian-European rapprochement seems likely even if Iranian-American hostility remains?

There is reason to believe that it would. For while Europe can provide Iran with much needed cash, Europe is neither willing nor able to provide Iran with help on its security problems to the extent that America can. And Iran has some very serious security problems, including:

1. an increasingly active Sunni opposition inside Iran to the Shi’a government there;
2. the likelihood that a resurgent Taliban will renew its hostility toward Iran, which it actively pursued prior to 9/11;
3. the possible spillover into Iran from the renewed sectarian conflict in Iraq that may well result as the American presence there declines; and
4. the growing Russian hostility toward Iran that can be expected to result from Tehran competing with it as a gas exporter as well as pipeline route for Azeri and Turkmen gas.

Tehran has little incentive to change its behavior toward Israel if Iranian-American hostility continues at a time when American intervention in Iran appears highly unlikely. By contrast, the United States has a far better chance of moderating Iranian behavior toward Israel as a condition for providing Tehran with assistance against the very real threats Iran faces than if the United States remains hostile toward Iran.

Where America’s interests lie, then, should be clear: Opposing European gas purchases from Iran will worsen European-American relations, give Russia further opportunity to exploit European-American differences, and do nothing to moderate Iranian behavior toward Israel. An American rapprochement with Iran, by contrast, would promote European-American cooperation, assist Europe in avoiding over-dependence on Russian gas and Russian-controlled pipelines from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and offer a better opportunity to moderate Iran’s behavior toward Israel.

There are two opposing coalitions in the Middle East today. On the one hand, there is a revisionist coalition comprised of Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah—a coalition dissatisfied with the distribution of power in the region, and dissatisfied with the current agenda-setters and frameworks for state action. These revisionists include states and non-state actors. Like other such coalitions in the region’s past century of history, they are using their ability to play spoiler on regional issues and within the domestic politics of certain Arab states, in order to force status-quo states to give them a greater share of attention and power.

Hezbollah’s dynamic leader, Hasan Nasrallah, and Iran’s populist president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, envision a region defined by unending “resistance” against Israel, the United States and status-quo Arab governments. Nasrallah and Ahmadinejad argue for the redemptive value of violence and offer the promise of justice and dignity for Arabs humiliated by decades of defeat at the hands of the West and Israel, and decades of humiliation and neglect at the hands of their own governments.

Against this group of revisionist actors is a looser coalition of status-quo actors who are trying to preserve the regional balance of power, including the role played by the United States. It is notable that today’s status-quo coalition, unlike any in the Middle East’s past since 1948, includes all the major Arab states alongside Israel and the United States.

Even on the streets of their own cities, moderate Sunni Arab leaders such as Egypt’s President Husni Mubarak, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah (all associates of the United States) are less popular than Nasrallah and Ahmadinejad. The radicals’ message of resistance is always combined with denunciations of Sunni Arab leaders for cowering under an American security umbrella and making humiliating deals with Israel, and for ignoring the plight of their own people. The revisionists’ critiques of Arab governments’ performance both regionally and domestically are echoed and reinforced by the narrative of the domestic Islamist opposition inside Egypt, Jordan, and the other Arab status-quo states.

This balance of forces in the region had its coming-out party in the 2006 Lebanon War, and the diplomacy and developments since that conflict all represent the efforts by regional revisionists to capitalize on the openings that conflict created for them, and by the status-quo states to recover and contain the revisionists’ influence.

Because of this regional face-off, and the imperative of containing this revisionist coalition of actors, America and her major Arab partners need one another more than ever. But Arab states are cooperating with America in the face of unprecedentedly high levels of public anti-American resentment and anger. America and the status-quo Arab states must attempt to cooperate in containing these regional threats at a time when each of them individually, and their partnership itself, are subject to widespread public resentment and opprobrium. And the regional revisionists are proving themselves very effective at wielding this public sentiment against both the Arab regimes and against Washington. That puts them in a real dilemma. Over time, in the absence of some kind of regional progress, this U.S.-Arab strategic cooperation on big regional issues like Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Israel will only survive if Arab governments are willing to repress that domestic resentment and anti-Americanism.

That is not a stable foundation for long-term relations, and it’s a situation that plays right into the arguments of regional radicals like Hasan Nasrallah as to why these regimes have to be overthrown: they sell out to the Americans, they make humiliating deals with Israel, and they don’t care about the people.

Washington and the Arab capitals are like two donkeys tied together on a cart: neither can stand without the other’s help, and neither can escape unless the other is also freed. The Arab regimes are implicated by our failed foreign policies in the region, and we are implicated by their failed domestic governance. If we don’t help each other, we are both in trouble, and we know it.

Escaping from the bind that the United States and its Arab friends are in in the Middle East today requires several things that seem in short supply in 2008: a commitment to sustaining our investments when many weary Americans would prefer to walk away from the table; new investments in issues like Arab-Israeli diplomacy even though the returns are likely to be meager at best; and a commitment to the long term, despite the urgency many feel for quick results.

Here are my thoughts on what such a policy must comprise:

• A renewed effort at Arab-Israeli peacemaking—not because the situation is ripe for resolution, but because a peace process is part of containing the regional revisionists and especially the efforts of Iran to plant both feet firmly in the heart of the Levant. A peace process will not solve all the problems of the Middle East. But a peace process is important because it creates tensions and disagreements among members of the revisionist coalition, weakening their impact on the region and on our regional allies.
• A continued U.S. commitment to security in the Persian Gulf. Despite Russia and China’s more energetic commercial efforts in the region, neither of these countries is eager to take over this job. The United States must continue to keep the Gulf open for all, and I am fairly confident it can be done peacefully. But it does require concerted multilateral diplomacy to deal with the Iranian nuclear program, to deal with Iraqi stabilization, and to help the GCC states build the capacity and will to play a greater role in Gulf security.
• Initiatives that will present a compelling narrative of progress, peace and prosperity to counter the narrative of rejection and resistance put forward by the revisionists. As I said, that suggests the value of efforts at Arab-Israeli peace, but it also suggests the need to present the vast majority of Arabs who live outside Palestine with the opportunity to shape their own future. This promise can only be fulfilled through far-reaching political, economic and social reforms that create a new relationship between Arab governments and their citizens.

Arab leaders keenly feel the threats from radical Islam within their own societies. They know that Islamists have capitalized on state failures and weaknesses, and that the critique put forward by local Islamists is magnified by the rising popularity of Iran and its allies. In this insecure environment, U.S. efforts to persuade at least some Arab leaders of the need to reform should resonate—if it is part of a broader regional agenda, and if it is accompanied by the right kind of incentives.

For now, most Arab regimes believe that the best way to manage the threat from domestic Islamist opposition is to focus on resolving regional conflicts like Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, relieving them of the burden of addressing domestic grievances. While the United States should work with them to resolve regional conflicts, the next president needs to help them understand that the best insulation against the destabilizing effects of regional revisionists and rising domestic Islamism is to repair the frayed social contract between citizens and the state.

Tamara Cofman Wittes made these remarks at a symposium on “After Bush: America’s Agenda in the Middle East,” convened by MESH at Harvard University on September 23.

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