SPEAKING
FREELY Turkey's Syria policy fits a
classic role By Emad Abdullah
Ayasrah
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say. Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
In Turkey, not all
opinion on what is happening in Syria reflects the
ideological viewpoint of the ruling party. While
the Justice and Development Party (AKP) supports
the West's plan to resolve the crisis, its
political opposition does not.
The
positions are a repeat of what this author would
call a "polarization of reversed roles". The AKP's
Islamic orientation would suggest it should oppose
Western policies.The leftist Republican People's
Party (the party of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk), the
army and other secularists in Turkey are shunning
their role
as historic allies of the
West.
This picture takes us back to events
nearly a decade ago, specifically to the 2003 Iraq
war, when the AKP - which had just been elected to
power - supported Washington in the Iraq war, with
the great irony that the Turkish military and
secularists opposed the conflict.
The
truth in 2003 was that the recently elected AKP
did not want to engage in the war in Iraq, but at
the same time it did want external support to
strengthen its position and weaken its internal
opponents. So it deliberately supported the policy
of the United States against Iraq and thus had
reversed a classical point of view that did not
comply with the policies of the United States.
The opponents of the ruling party and the
secular Turkish army also didn’t take the side
they were expected to take - they had always
supported the US agenda in the region and opposed
the engagement of Turkey in that war - and did so
in order to maintain their role as opposition to
put further pressure on the ruling party.
This led to the polarized roles that are
being repeated today. Both parties played a role
opposing their classical ideology in 2003. At that
time, this benefited the ruling AKP, after it
returned to opposing the war, and through the
Turkish parliament derailing a vote on the
deployment of foreign troops and sending Turkish
troops abroad. Thus the AKP avoided the war and at
the same time absorbed the momentum of the
opposition. It was found out later that this is
what the Islamic Party wanted from the beginning,
with the support of the United States succeeding
in settling an internal political battle with the
Turkish military and secularists.
This
fallout ultimately created a positive atmosphere
between the various political groups and people in
Turkey, and the decision not to go to war appeared
a collective agreement across the political
spectrum.
What the AKP did was a practical
and successful application of the "Theory of
Reversed Roles", which shows its effectiveness and
use in the face of a new situations or decisive
decisions like war and hard economic choices, and
particularly in circumstances where the government
expects great opposition.
The two
positions strategy is used to absorb the momentum
of opposition. In other words, if a government or
a political group in power takes a position that
goes against its point of view or ideology in a
matter, that leaves political opponents with only
two options: to support the decision, as might be
expected, or to go against it, preserving their
role as opposition. In this case both parties have
reversed their role and each one of them stood on
the other’s side ideology.
Later, if the
government intended to change its position again
either directly or through collateral pathways to
make it more coherent with ideology, the classical
political opponents in this case would be less
enthusiastic in opposing that position as it would
be otherwise expected. This will give the decision
more power and influences the consensus positively
- the government usually can benefit from both the
initial and the final position.
Turkey
today is in a sensitive situation over the Syrian
crisis. But it is to be expected in the event that
a military intervention is planned for Syria, that
the AKP will use the same strategy to avoid a war
on Syria as it did in Iraq.
Emad
Abdullah Ayasrah is an academic and political
analyst.
Speaking Freely is an Asia
Times Online feature that allows guest writers to
have their say.Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing. Articles submitted for this section
allow our readers to express their opinions and do
not necessarily meet the same editorial standards
of Asia Times Online's regular contributors.
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