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Al-Ahram Weekly Online
7 - 13 March 2002
Issue No.576
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875
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The axis of evil -- from another angle
Turkey has joined forces with the United States and Israel in a bid to rearrange the
Middle East. Galal Nassar believes their alliance to be the true axis of evil
Standing at the doorsteps of the White House, following an audience with US
President George W. Bush last month, Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit proudly
announced that Turkey is now a "global" force. Turkey is now an established partner
in the US efforts to rearrange international politics, fight terror, and smother the
evil
threesome of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. But evil is in the eye of the beholder. For
Arabs and Middle Easterners in general, the emerging security pact of the United
States, Israel and Turkey holds woeful consequences.
Turkey is still facing a grinding economic crisis. Still, the Ecevit-Bush talks were
only
marginally concerned with such minor bilateral issues. Rather, the two men focused
on momentous international tasks, on regions where the United States intends to
make a move or two, get the global chessboard sorted out, and generally make life
easier for itself and those ready to play along. Turkey is more than ready. Ankara will
lead the international forces after the end of the UK command mandate in
Afghanistan. It has a finger in other global pies: Central Asia, the Middle East, the
Mediterranean, the Balkans, Cyprus, the Aegean Sea, the Caucasus plateau, the oil
of the Caspian sea. And just out of the oven, the main course in this sumptuous
global banquet is the joint offensive against Iraq.
Plans for an imminent offensive against Saddam Hussein's regime are afoot. Ecevit
reviewed these plans during his Washington visit. Military planners envisage
supplying the 70,000 Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq, and the smaller force of
irregular fighters in southern Iraq, with weapons and money and sending them
against Saddam Hussein, with aerial US support. In a later stage, US Special Forces
and columns of Turkish tanks would march on Baghdad. A cooperation agreement
signed recently by Washington and Ankara sets the groundwork for such military
action.
Bush and Ecevit seem to have finalised plans for a joint offensive against Baghdad.
They are likely to have discussed ways of imposing a strategic military, economic,
and political blockade on Tehran. That is two-thirds of the axis of evil taken care of.
North Korea can be left to the devices of closer neighbours in the Asia-Pacific rim.
What we have here is not an axis of evil under attack; rather, what we have is an
axis of evil in the making. Cooperation among the United States, Israel and Turkey
has been sharpened through successive security and military agreements. Turkey's
role is central to the plans of this axis. It is the thin end of the wedge that can
take the
axis to places it could not have gone, at least not so easily. Turkey, with its Islamic
creed, secular constitution, imperial history and European location, can act as a
primary scalpel in the reconstructive surgery the United States envisages for the
Middle East. It is a role Turkey has been auditioning for for some time through its
previous cooperation agreements with Israel. The distinctive feature of Turkish
foreign policy right now is its desire to promote its national interests, even at the
expense of its traditional loyalties and historic commitments.
The conflict between secularism and fundamentalism within Turkey has made it a
model for historic contradictions. The rivalry between secularists and traditionalists,
between state institutions and conventional loyalties, is not new to the region. But it
has assumed a heightened urgency in Turkey, where the Islamist Refah Party has
once made a successful bid for the country's government. Turkey is somewhat
schizophrenic in matters of identity, strategy and priority. Its current alliances
reflect
the swing of a disturbing pendulum, with perilous implications.
Turkey, situated at the edge of the world's arguably most industrialised continent on
earth, seems ready to sacrifice its entire Islamic and Arab links for a
geopolitical/military threesome with the United States and Israel. The army, patron of
the Turkish constitution, is an active supporter of these new strategic bonds.
Turkey's military institution played a key role in consolidating ties with Israel.
Senior
military commanders have actively sponsored training and cooperation programmes
with Israel. These same commanders are now spearheading the campaign against
Syria, Iran, and Iraq; their pretext being that all of these countries support the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its perceived "terror."
The implications of the Turkish-Israeli-US axis are alarming for the Arabs. Turkey is
the wild card that can effectively upset the regional odds. Let us look at the
agreements, security arrangements and plans that have so far been forged by the
United States, Turkey and Israel. The essence of the security cooperation agreement
between the United States and Israel, and the earlier military cooperation agreement
between Turkey and Israel, reflect changes in the US strategy in the Middle East.
These changes are reminiscent of the 1950s attempts to reshape the region through
the formation of collective security pacts. The course of military alliances in the
region is definitely changing. Israel, Turkey and the United States are holding
periodic naval drills in the Mediterranean, the latest of which was a few days ago,
following Ecevit's visit to Washington. Arab countries, while monitoring such actions
closely, are making little secret of their displeasure.
>From the Arab and Iranian point of view, this is the new axis of evil, for it
>presents a
direct threat to Arab and Iranian national security. The threat could not have been
worse-timed, for it comes at one of the lowest points of the Middle East peace
process. The Turkish-Israeli-US axis opens the Turkish aerial space to the Israeli air
force. It can thus provide Israel with a chance to attack any country in the Arab
region, particularly next-door Syria and Iraq. Iran, mindful of the Israeli attack on
the
Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, cannot miss the significance of such arrangement for
the safety of its own nuclear installations and arms industry.
The new axis aims to encircle the Middle East from the north. Israel has been
making parallel efforts to encircle the region from the south, through cooperation with
Eritrea, Ethiopia and other African states. This sits well with the new Israeli
security
doctrine. It also interlocks nicely with other security pacts being forged in Central
Asia, the Caspian Sea and the Indian subcontinent, in which other regional players,
such as India, the interim government in Kabul, and a number of Central Asian
countries, are involved.
The emerging axis of Israel, the United States, and Turkey is particularly worrying,
considering Turkey's intentions regarding Syria, Iraq and Iran. Turkey has been
engaged in a long-running duel with the PKK, the rebel force that aims to form an
independent Kurdish state in south-eastern Turkey. The confrontation costs Turkey
several billions of dollars every year, deepens ethnic divisions and generally
complicates political life in Turkey. In a sense, there is some similarity between
Turkish and Israeli troubles, and their corresponding methods of trouble- shooting.
The two countries are now busy developing common devices of monitoring and
knocking out regional threats. And just to add a doctrinal twist to the realpolitik,
politicians of both countries often note how they are the only two democratic
countries in the region and that their interests and security problems mesh.
Turkey has granted Israel listening posts from which to monitor any military moves in
the region, particularly in Syria and Iraq. Israel's intelligence service is thus
becoming
increasingly able to conduct electronic espionage and gather better information about
Syria, Iraq, and Iran. In return, Israel is giving Turkey satellites imagery and
electronic devices to help the latter pinpoint PKK locations in southeast Anatolia and
northern Iraq.
A complete overhaul is under way of the Turkish air force, through a programme
costing $650 million that Israel is implementing with direct financial backing of the
US. In the context of Turkish-Israeli naval cooperation, joint sea patrols are being
operated by the two sides to allegedly avert the occurrence of hostile acts in the
eastern Mediterranean, and as a supplementary act to the activities of the US Sixth
Fleet in the region. This perhaps sheds some light on the nature of the US role in this
equation. The United States aims to boost the Turkish-Israeli ability to serve US aims
and interests. It also wants to reinforce Israel's air, sea and land dominance, by
giving it the freedom to use Turkish territories in offensives against Iraq, Syria, and
Iran. This would ensure for Israel an effective psychological deterrence against Arab
countries in general. Israel has deployed its F-16s in a Turkish airbase, practically
taking over an entire section of the base. The number of Israeli pilots conducting
training in Turkey is likely to increase over the next few months.
Turkey is as enthusiastic as Israel and the US about this new type of alliance, for
several reasons.
Israel is the key to the heart of the United States. Anyone who secures Israel's
pleasure would be in Washington's good books. Turkey hopes to obtain US financial
aid with the help of the Jewish lobby in the United States.
Turkey believes that Israel's expertise in fighting the intifada can help it in its
bid to
defeat Kurdish rebels. Turkey is also developing a taste for Israel's sophisticated
military technology. It can definitely obtain some of the technological leftovers of
Israel's arms industry in return for turning the heat on Iraq, Syria, and Iran.
By pressuring Syria and Iraq, Turkey hopes to dissuade the latter from aiding the
PKK. Turkey blames Syria for training PKK members and harbouring PKK leaders.
This strategic alliance with Israel and the United States is expected to strengthen the
hand of the army-supported secularist camp in Turkish politics.
Recently, a Turkish newspaper noted that the "aim of the Israeli-Turkish-US
manoeuvres is to build a tripartite alliance which can be activated rapidly in the case
of a threat from Iraq or Iran, as well as in the event of a crisis in the Gulf."
Israel has disclosed to Turkey the technological secrets of the Russian MiG-29
fighter plane -- the most sophisticated warplane owned by Syria. Israel had been able
to examine three models of the planes that it received from a Western country, most
likely Germany (East Germany used to own the same type of planes). This will help
Turkey adapt the electronic devices on its F-4 and F-16 planes to be more effective
against the MiG-29s.
Turkey and Israel are discussing a joint project to upgrade Turkish M-60c tanks and
also to produce 800 Israeli Mk3 tanks in Turkey. Turkey has just launched a 25-year,
$150 billion plan to modernise its armed forces.
How would the Arabs, and Iran, get out of this fix? There is a number of ways. One is
to bolster Arab-Iranian ties. There are signs that closer ties are developing between
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria on one hand and the Iranians on the other. An
Egyptian-Syrian-Iranian-Gulf axis may emerge to confront the Israeli- Turkish-US
one. Egypt and other Arab countries have agreed to attend the Islamic summit in
Tehran. Iranian officials are regularly exchanging visits with officials of several
Arab
countries, particularly Abu Dhabi.
A second line of defence is to appeal to Turkey's cultural heritage; that is, to
persuade it that its historic bonds and traditional loyalties matter. Arab pressures
may
range from moral persuasion to a collective boycott of Turkish goods and economic
interests.
The Arabs and Iran may also be tempted to play the Kurdish card. Syria, Iraq and
Iran all have leverage in the Kurdish question and can use it to reach some
understanding with Turkey. This prospect is perhaps the reason why Turkish military
commanders are so eager to get into Iraq and eliminate this bargaining chip for
good. There is more to the prospective invasion of Iraq than meets the eye.
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