The Climate in Washington on Turkey

Everyone agrees that after a half-century of trust and alliance, problems have arisen between Turkey and the United States. And it is clear that tying these problems solely to the Bush administration isn’t completely accurate. Just look at Obama. He has been in the White House for two years, has beliefs totally antithetical to Bush’s and made his first visit to Turkey in order to reach out to the Muslim world. Yet just as the Turkish public opinion’s negative feelings toward the U.S. haven’t changed, the issues causing conflict between these two countries have not been left behind.

While Bush was pushing to go into Iraq, Turkish-U.S. disagreement was at its peak. Now we witness an America preparing to leave Iraq, yet many of these negative issues remain.

Before the start of the Iraq war, the U.S. was being governed by a hubristic neo-conservative elite, while Ankara was determined to facilitate an atmosphere of peace in the region. Obviously, forging agreement between these two parties proved to be difficult. But today, the governments in each capital display parallel approaches toward foreign policy regarding the Middle East. This time the major issue is Iran, which has both parties at an impasse.

This situation shows that the issues bruising bilateral relations bear a structural component that can sometimes supersede White House policy. After all, a look at Congress’ Resolution on the Armenian Genocide, the U.N. Security Council vote, the Mavi Marmara incident and the missile defense system conflict leaves a pretty clear impression: In order to see that bilateral relations are suffering, you don’t need to be an expert. But perhaps the experts can give us an idea about how deep this conflict runs.

Ian Lesser, one of Washington’s Turkey-watchers, claims that relations are even worse than they were during the March 1, 2003 crisis, when Turkey denied the United States important logistical support in the Iraq War. Have relations really disintegrated this much, or are we witnessing normal disagreements prone to arise between allies?

I spent four days in Washington looking for the answer to this question. I spoke with former diplomats who served in Turkey, experts from think-tanks and Turks who follow Beltway politics closely. The people I spoke with all offered a diagnosis and policy recommendations.

On a positive note, I didn’t speak with anyone who was as pessimistic as Ian Lesser. However, everyone admits that there are serious problems in bilateral relations. Another point of consensus is that Obama, to put it lightly, is miffed at the fact that even after he kept his pledge not to refer to the Armenian Genocide, and after he made an investment in relations by choosing Turkey as the first visit of his term, there has been little reciprocation from the Turkish side.

And Obama is not the only person feeling disappointed. Both Hillary Clinton and Philip Gordon feel that the efforts they made to help draft protocols for peace with Armenia have gone to waste. The people I spoke with in Washington place the blame for this failure on Turkey’s inability to stand against the pressure from Azerbaijan and on Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, personally. Only a few people criticized the U.S. for not adding Baku to the process.

In terms of who is most responsible for the bilateral problems, Congress, influenced by its friends in Tel Aviv, is at the top of the list. Here, many circles hold that Turkey is compromising Israel’s security. And it is feared that with Republican victories in the midterm elections, the anti-Turkey climate will get even worse in the House of Representatives, where support for Israel is strongest.

Intelligent observers are not influenced by “9/11 Syndrome,” which seems to induce the conviction that Turkey’s orientation has changed and is now in the same category as Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. But these observers acknowledge that this thesis has been highly persuasive.

It seems that the State Department is next on the list of disgruntled parties. This has a lot to do with the issues arising over Iran and Turkey’s behavior at the U.N. Security Council. After State comes the Pentagon — which takes a more positive outlook because of Turkey’s cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan, and its diligence in counteracting terrorism. And despite everything, the actor still most positive about bilateral relations is the White House. The best evidence for this is Obama’s consistent refusal to take a harder stance against Turkey. Even against the advice of his inner circle, Obama continues to look at Turkey with a focus on the long-run.

An issue nearly everyone points out is that despite a number of top-level meetings, there is real dysfunction in communications between the two capitals. It is said that convention mandates that negotiators in top positions refrain from making negative statements about bilateral negotiations — these criticisms are to be left to lower functionaries. This convention has been a cause of miscommunication, and a major reason the two sides have been unable to understand each other’s concerns during the Iran nuclear crisis. I’ll continue my diagnosis and make policy recommendations in my next installment.