PYD checkpoint in Afrin during Syrian Kurdistan rebellion, 2012.Wikiommons/ScottBobb. Some rights reserved.'War is the
continuation of politics by other means', Clausewitz famously remarked. Nowhere
is this maxim better in display than in Turkey’s current dual-offensive against
the ‘Islamic State’, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and Kurdistan Workers Party
(PKK).
For rather than
being a policy U-turn, as it has generally been described in mainstream media, this
offensive is essentially a new tactic by Turkey's ruling 'Justice and
Development Party' (AKP) to extricate its grand strategy of domestic entrenchment
and regional hegemony from a structural impasse central to which is the advancements
of the Kurdish revolution in Turkey and Syria.
This is why and how.
AKP and neo-Ottoman restoration
The AKP came to
power in 2002. It supplanted the crisis-stricken Kemalist ruling class on a
platform of social conservatism, fighting governmental corruption, and economic
neoliberalism. It soon managed to curb the military's interference in politics,
and more importantly, generate sustained economic growth, which led to an
increase in its parliamentary majority in subsequent elections.
Emboldened by its
successes the AKP adopted an ambitious strategy to end Turkey's traditional regional
isolation and over-dependence on the US, and turn the country into a key
regional and global power – a project grandiosely described as
‘neo-Ottomanism'. This was rooted in the AKP’s peculiar blend of Islamist
transnationalism and Turkish nationalism.
Neo-Ottomanism
rested on Turkey's central location in the Afro-Euroasian landmass, the soft
power of the AKP's 'moderate Islam', and, the geo-strategic deployment of the over-accumulating
Turkish capital in the region.
Initially the AKP
sought to establish Turkey as the transit route of choice for Russian, central
Asian, and Iranian natural gas to Europe. This required the resolution of the
ongoing conflict with the PKK in the country's southeastern regions, through
which the proposed transit routes had to pass.
Resolving the
Kurdish question would also attract Kurdish votes, which the AKP needed in its
domestic political entrenchment vis-à-vis its Kemalist opposition, and later,
the Gülen movement, a Sufi-oriented brand of Islamism that dominated the police
and judiciary in the early years of the AKP rule, which was later attacked by
the AKP, however, who came to see it as a ‘parallel state’ and danger to the
AKP’s monopoly of power.
During the same period
the PKK had revised its separatist program and advocated a non-state solution
to the Kurdish question through 'democratic confederalism', a synthetic model
of gender-egalitarian and eco-conscious communal socialism where the
identitarian hierarchy of the nation-state was to be replaced by a social
contract among equal and mutually recognized cultural communities.
These developments
paved the way for peace talks between the AKP government and the PKK, which culminated
in a ceasefire in 2013.
During the same
period the AKP also established a 'strategic partnership' with Masoud Barzani's
Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK), the party which increasingly dominated Iraqi
Kurdistan.
This partnership gave
Turkey a near monopoly over Iraqi Kurdistan's market, particularly its
construction sector in real estate and expanding oil industry infrastructure.
Turkey also became the exclusive transit route for the export of the Iraqi
Kurdistan's oil, increasingly the lifeline for the Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG) – dominated by the PDK – given the KRG’s unresolved dispute
with Baghdad over the federal budget.
Equally
importantly, Barzani also shared the AKP's objective of containing the PKK whose
socialist-libertarian project was a threat to his tribal authoritarian politics.
Arab Spring: an opportunity turns
into a threat
Then came the Arab
Spring.
Armed with its 'neo-liberalism
with an Islamic face', restless Turkish capital, and a symbolic anti-Israeli
stance, the AKP believed it could utilize seismic political changes in the
region as a fast track to regional hegemony.
But the initial
successes of the AKP's fellow Islamists were short-lived. Morsi was ousted in
Egypt, Islamists lost power in Tunisia, and Libya plunged into civil war.
Left with Syria to
contend with the AKP completely reversed its erstwhile 'zero problems with
neighbours' policy and made a strategic commitment to the overthrow of Bashar
Assad.
Thus, the AKP turned
Turkey into the main conduit of military and financial support for Syria's
armed Sunni opposition groups including ISIS, and foreign jihadists, which
earned Turkey growing international isolation and recrimination.
But as the
conflict prolonged, Turkey faced a more immediate, and potentially dangerous
challenge: the growing power of the Syrian Kurds who had close political and
ideological links with the PKK. Led by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), Syrian
Kurds established three autonomous cantons and self-defense forces known as YPG
and YPJ, which quickly emerged as the most effective anti-ISIS force in Syria.
The rise of the
Syrian Kurds diminished Turkey's influence in Syria, weakened the AKP's
position vis-a-vis the PKK, and challenged the influence of Barzani's PDK both
in Syria and Iraq, where pro-PKK forces also played a key role in the anti-ISIS
campaign.
Thus, Turkish
policy duly shifted towards the containment of the Syrian Kurds through a
policy of 'active neutrality' towards ISIS. This reached a climax during the siege
of Kobane by ISIS when Turkey prevented reinforcements reaching the town while
the AKP’s leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gleefully declared 'Kobane will fall'.
HDP: AKP's coup de grâce
Amidst all this
turmoil, the AKP's all-important domestic policy of constitutional entrenchment
through establishing a presidential system with extensive power for the presidency,
came to a grinding halt in the June 2015 elections in which the AKP lost its
parliamentary majority.
The AKP's
electoral defeat was largely due to the unexpected success of the Kurdish-led
but nationally constituted Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
The HDP offered a pluralist
and inclusive election manifesto in which Kurdish demands for cultural and
political rights were incorporated into a wider programme for radical democracy
and the empowerment of women and marginalized social groups. This gave the HDP
a nationwide appeal beyond its Kurdish heartland, attracting many left and
left-liberal Turkish voters.
Another
contributory factor was the Turkish aftershock of the Arab Spring, that is, the
Gezi Park protest movement in 2013. It united democratic forces opposed to the
AKP's growing authoritarianism and aggressive neoliberalism. The police
brutality gave the Turkish protesters a small taste of what the Kurds had been
enduring for decades, and paved the way for a closer understanding and
cooperation between sections of the Turkish secular and left opposition, and
the Kurds, which boosted the HDP's election campaign.
In the event, the
HDP won more than 13% of the votes despite a sustained campaign of provocation,
intimidation and subversion by the government.
Blood for votes
Concurrently, the
Syrian Kurds achieved major victories over ISIS. The watershed was the
liberation of the border town of Tal Abyaz, which deprived ISIS of its key logistical
route to Turkey. The Kurds were now poised to advance further to the west and
incorporate their third isolated canton of Afrin near Aleppo to the now
interlinked Kobane and Jezira cantons in the northeast.
This would create
a geographically contiguous Kurdish semi-state stretching from the border of Iraqi
Kurdistan with Turkey and Iran, where the PKK has its bases, to the
Mediterranean; and seriously endanger Turkey’s ambitions in Syria, and the wider
region.
It could also remove
Iraqi Kurdistan from Turkey’s geo-political orbit by offering it an alternative
route for exporting its oil, and strategically weaken the AKP’s key Kurdish
partner Barzani’s PDK.
Moreover, the
successful conclusion of the nuclear talks between Iran and the west exacerbated
Turkey’s regional isolation and seemed to further diminish its role in the
region.
It is against this
complex background of interlocking domestic, regional, and international
developments that the AKP has launched its attacks on ISIS and the PKK, the
latter evidently being the main target. In doing so the AKP has four main
objectives.
First, it seeks to
decisively win the likely snap elections in November by attracting Turkish
ultra-nationalist voters through projecting a strong anti-Kurdish image.
Second, it hopes
to directly check the growth of Kurdish power in Syria by formally joining the
US-led anti-ISIS coalition, given that the AKP's wager on ISIS to contain the
Kurds has failed.
Third, by entering
the Syrian fray, Turkey also wants to re-optimize relations with the US, which
in return for access to Turkish airbases has reportedly acceded to the Turkish
demand for creating a 'safe zone' along parts of Turkish-Syrian border, which
Turkey hopes will become a barrier to the Kurds' further advance.
And finally, the
bombing campaign against the PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan also aims to boost the AKP’s
key ally there, Massoud Barzani, who is currently seeking an unconstitutional
third term in office as the region’s president. A Turkish bombing campaign
inside Iraqi Kurdistan is intended to strengthen his position by convincing the
people and main political parties that given his links to the AKP, Barzani is
the leader who can handle the Turks best under such unstable circumstances.
What next?
The AKP's anti-Kurdish
and anti-left campaign and macho-chauvinist propaganda is unlikely to
re-attract Kurdish conservatives whose disillusionment with the AKP over Kobane
is being reinforced by the current bombing campaign of Kurdistan. The AKP’s
bloody ploy is also unlikely to sway Turkish nationalist voters away from their
traditional parties. So unless AKP’s care-taker government closes down the HDP,
which the HDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş
claims is on the AKP’s agenda, the early elections
might not produce the AKP’s intended result. But the closure is already being
opposed by the main opposition party ‘Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Moreover, Turkey's
current, US-demanded distinction between the PKK and the Syrian Kurds, who have
been receiving coalition air-support against ISIS, and the proposed 'ISIS-free
zone' might in fact aid the Syrian Kurds' attempt at reaching their currently
isolated canton of Afrin near Aleppo. This possibility is reinforced by the
strong reluctance of both US and Turkey to deploy ground troops inside Syria,
and by the fact that the Syrian Kurds have established cordial relations with a
number of Arab opposition forces such as Burkan al-Furat.
Furthermore, as
the experience of the previous 30 years demonstrates, the PKK cannot be
militarily eliminated. And no state has ever been able to exercise direct
control over the Qandil Mountains where the PKK has been based for the past 20
years or so.
Finally, the Kurds
are highly unlikely to relent in their fight against ISIS, which is an existential
threat to them. But most ordinary Kurds, if not all Kurdish political parties,
will certainly consider the US support for Turkey's bombing of the PKK as yet
another demonstration of America’s treachery.
So all in all, the
AKP’s active war with the PKK and passive war against the Syrian Kurds involves
high risks and could easily backfire and spell the end of its political power
domestically while severely undermining Turkey’s ability to exercise influence
in Syria.
As Clausewitz also
noted, ‘everything is very simple in War, but the simplest thing is difficult’.