BY SEMIH IDIZ
AKSAM- Columnist Semih Idiz comments on Washington’s plans in the postwar period. A summary of his column is as follows:
Both reports in the US press and my conversations with US officials show that Washington is trying to develop its postwar strategy and define Turkey’s new role in its plans. First let’s evaluate the military dimension. A piece in yesterday’s New York Times shows that the US wants to withdraw its soldiers from Iraq as soon as possible. Therefore it’s planning to establish four strategic bases in the country and will request the ‘right for long-term access’ in order to amass soldiers and equipment there.
The US wants to establish a military footprint there in short order. However, it’s trying to do this without losing any military efficiency and by maximizing its strategic leverage in the region. If the US manages to get its four Iraqi bases, clearly the strategic importance of its bases in Turkey, particularly Incirlik, would be diminished. Of course this doesn’t mean that Washington would give up this base, because after all it has an established presence in Incirlik and it wouldn’t want to lose the advantages of this situation.
However, Turkey’s strategic military importance for the US will be lessened by these developments. As the war in Iraq showed, bad developments could lie ahead for Turkey as Washington and Ankara’s strategic interests come to loggerheads. However, a fall in Turkey’s strategic importance doesn’t necessarily mean a fall in its political importance. We can see this from the placating messages sent recently by the US to Turkey.
In sum, Turkey’s features as an ‘exemplar country’ with its secular and democratic structure have gained importance in line with Washington’s political calculations for the future. At this point the importance of the defeated proposal on deploying US soldiers emerges, but this time in another sense. US officials I spoke with said certain things, one of which can be summed up as follows:
The no vote by nearly 90 of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) 365 deputies shows that the majority of the party doesn’t favor ideological Islam, to the relief of the US. Now Washington will focus on the reforms promised by the AKP. The more they are implemented, the more Turkey’s stature as an exemplar country will increase. Actually we saw an example of this in US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s statement that if Turkey meets the Copenhagen criteria, the US would like the European Union to start negotiations at the end of 2004. We shouldn’t ignore the nuances here: Previously Washington had been pushing Turkey’s EU membership due to its geostrategic importance, but has now started to talk about the Copenhagen criteria so as to underline its political importance. During these calculations of Washington, Ankara’s own thoughts are not yet clear. I hope the clues to this will emerge in the coming days.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION