The Gathering Storm in the Middle East

There is very little difference between what intelligence analysts do and what ordinary folks try to accomplish when they pick up a newspaper, listen to the evening news, or read the posts on this and other sites. In every case, wittingly or not, they attempt to separate the revealing details from the background noise.

That is what we should do with regard to the violent incident that took place when the Israelis boarded the six ships constituting the so-called Gaza Flotilla. Most of what we have learned in the aftermath is true and appalling but, in the long run, inconsequential.

The Israeli soldiers who landed on the Mavi Marmara (in Turkish, the Blue Sea of Marmara) in preparation for conducting the ship to an Israeli port – from which the goods being carried could be sent on to Gaza – were, in fact, ambushed, as Allison Kaplan Sommer indicates in her lucid analysis of the evidence that has become available, and all of the usual suspects quickly lined up to condemn Israel for crimes she did not commit.

This is a tiresome, all-too-predictable business reminiscent of the campaign launched in the wake of the clearing action undertaken some years ago at the Jennin refugee camp and of the campaign launched after the Israelis intervened in in 2008 to put an end to Hamas’ firing of missiles into Israel from their stronghold in Gaza. It is part and parcel of a long struggle on the part of the PLO in days gone by and of Hamas now to stage incidents and rally world public opinion against the Israelis for doing what they have to do to defend themselves.

I do not mean to say that the Israelis have never erred. They have. Nor would I want to be taken to suggest that they did not overstep in establishing some of the settlements set up on the West Bank. There, also, I believe they did wrong. But what they did in Jennin, in Gaza, and on the Mavi Marmara was a matter of self-defense. All of this should be obvious.

There is another aspect to this matter, however, that deserves much more attention. This time, the incident staged has a new wrinkle, and Ralph Peters has been virtually alone in recognizing its significance. There were six ships in the Gaza Flotilla. Only one of them was the source of any trouble, and it was a Turkish craft to a considerable degree manned by Turks. That Hamas and its allies should have staged such an incident is only what we should expect. That the Turkish government should have a hand in such a matter, as it evidently did -. that is disturbing in the extreme.

I lived in Turkey from 1984 to 1986, learned the language, and married a Muslim from Istanbul. In those years, as a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, I traveled throughout the country, visited Greece (which I knew tolerably well from previous trips), and spent some weeks in Cyprus on both sides of the green line. While in Istanbul, I came to have a deep appreciation for the Turks and for the accomplishments of Mustafa Kemal – the man who called himself Atatürk (“Father of the Turks”).

When the Greeks tried to take over Anatolia in the immediate aftermath of the First World War, it was this man Atatürk who defeated and drove them from the land. In the aftermath, he overthrew the Sultan, abolished the Caliphate, and established in Anatolia a secular republic modeled on the nation states of Europe. He taught the Turks that they were not simply Turkish-speaking Muslims; they were a people – and in the eight-and-a-half decades that have passed since he carried out his revolution, Turkey has conducted its affairs in a more or less admirable way.

Of course, when I lived in Turkey, I was aware that there was an Islamist underground fostered by the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia and supported as well, after the Iranian revolution at the very end of the 1970s, by the Ayatollah Khomeini and his minions. But in those days Turkey’s answer to the Muslim Brotherhood was of no great importance, and the nation stood behind the army, which was resolute in its defense of Turkish secularism.

I was last in Turkey in March, 2002. At that time, nothing seemed amiss. But a year later, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party came to power, and things began to change. Erdoğan was savvier than his Islamist predecessors, and he posed as a moderate – intent on cleaning up the corruption that had long bedeviled Turkish politics – and this to his credit he to a considerable extent accomplished. His administration also managed to stabilize the currency (an unheard-of feat), and they brought a measure of prosperity to the country that it had never experienced before and improved social services. They also initiated the process necessary for Turkey’s entrance into the European Union. This earned Erdoğan and his party re-election with an improved margin in 2007 and accolades abroad.

Then, after being re-elected, Erdoğan and his supporters began slowly but steadily to take over the state apparatus and to install Islamists in positions of responsibility that had always been reserved for the Kemalist admirers of Atatürk. They are now on the verge of completing that effort. A referendum is scheduled for 12 September, and if the Turkish people approve the proposal put forth by Erdoğan’s party, the Islamists will be able to pack the courts and rein in the military. Ordinarily, the latter would be a welcome move. But, in modern Turkey, the military has always been the mainstay of the secular regime. What we are witnessing is the gradual overthrow of the Kemalist republic, and what happened on the Mavi Marmara this past Monday, as well as the response of the Turkish government in the aftermath, is a sign of trouble to come.

I have argued elsewhere that Arab nationalism has run its course, that no one in the younger generation is committed to it, and that Islamic revivalism on something like the Iranian model is likely to become hegemonic in the Arab-speaking world. Turkish nationalism may also have run its course. If Recep Tayyip Erdoğan succeeds in his quest, there will be a major change in the balance of power in the Middle East. These days, apart from the Islamic Republic of Iran and its ally Syria, there is no state of any real significance in the Middle East that sponsors terrorism. But Turkey now appears to be coming down on the side of Hamas and Hezbollah, and that really matters. Turkey is a regional power of no mean importance. It has a first-rate army and a fine military tradition; and, when Turks throw themselves into a fight, they mean business. Turkey has weight.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, an epoch is about to come to an end. Soon, Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for nearly thirty years, will pass from the scene. I would not be surprised if his successor, responding to the impulses felt by the younger generation, were to ally himself with the Muslim Brotherhood. There is a storm gathering in the Middle East, and at the White House, alas, it is amateur hour, for the United States now has a President who appears to be blithely unaware of the consequences – or worse: unconcerned or even vaguely sympathetic to the transformation about to take place.