By Halil Karaveli
It is by no means certain that Turkey expected, or initially sought, Bashar al-Assad’s fall. Turkey may have decided to unleash the jihadists in the first place in order to exert pressure on Assad. Be that as it may, Turkey’s objectives in Syria are unchanged while their realization remains as uncertain tody as they were before Assad’s fall. If anything, Turkey’s prospects are gloomier. What now looms for Turkey in a disintegrating Syria is a strategic disaster, with the emergence of a Kurdish proto-state backed by the United States and Israel.
BACKGROUND: When Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an offshoot of al Qaeda that is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations and the United States, on December 8 ended President Bashar al-Assad’s twenty four year old rule (as well as putting an end to the Arab nationalist Baath Party’s sixty one year old rule) a more than a decade old Turkish goal was belatedly fulfilled.
When Syria’s Sunni majority rose against Assad during the Arab Spring, Turkey – notwithstanding that then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had cultivated a close, personal relation with Bashar al-Assad – appropriated the Sunni cause. Turkey threw its weight behind the Muslim Brotherhood, thwarted American efforts to empower non-Islamist opposition groups, provided crucial sanctuary for Sunni jihadist rebels and exacerbated Syria’s sectarian strife.
Erdoğan and his Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, an Islamist intellectual who had gained prominence as the author of an influential treatise that made the case for Islamist-expansionist Turkish foreign policy, envisioned a Middle East where Muslim Brotherhood regimes would proliferate with Turkish support and provide Turkey with “strategic depth.” “We will continue to be the master, the leader, and the servant of this new Middle East,” Davutoğlu vowed.
But Turkey was disappointed. President Barack Obama resisted Erdoğan’s insistent calls to arm the Sunni rebels and to intervene in Syria together with Turkey. Obama was particularly concerned about genocide against the Alawite minority, the sect to which the Assads belong. Turkey nonetheless remained adamant in its support for the Sunni jihadists who in fact would have succeeded in overthrowing Assad already in 2015-16 had it not been for the indiscriminate bombing campaigns of the Russian air force and for the intervention of the Iranian Republican Guard forces and Hezbollah militias. Now, with Iranian power degraded and Hezbollah devastated by Israel, and Russia exhausted by its war against Ukraine, Assad was defenseless and the geopolitical environment propitious for the Sunni jihadist power-grab.
But Turkey is chastened by what proved to be a disastrous intervention in Syria. Turkey’s sponsorship of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, not only in Syria but also in Egypt, earned it the hostility of leading Sunni conservative Arab powers, chief among them Egypt that in retaliation (after its Muslim Brotherhood president was overthrown in a military coup) partnered with Greece, Cyprus and Israel to block Turkey’s moves in the eastern Mediterranean. Turkey has since worked hard to regain the trust of the dominant Arab powers of the Middle East.
Meanwhile, Turkey found itself hosting more than five million Syrian refugees whose presence has generated widespread anti-immigrant sentiment and is costing the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) significant electoral support. And the implosion of Syria, for which Turkey bears a heavy responsibility, opened for the establishment of Kurdish self government under the auspices of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the terrorist-designated group that has fought an insurgency against Turkey since 1984.
IMPLICATIONS: The jihadists that overran the Assad regime benefited from Turkey’s indirect support. HTS was protected by the Turkish military in the northwestern Syrian town of Idlib, and it is likely that its emergence out of its sanctuary in late November was approved by Turkey. But Turkey’s proxy is the smaller Syrian National Army that is sidelined by HTS, and there is little reason to assume that the relationship between Ankara and HTS will be smooth. “Syria is too important a country to be left to HTS,” wrote one prominent Turkish pro-AKP political commentator.
Unlike what was the case a decade ago, Turkey’s involvement in Syria is no longer ideologically motivated, and Turkey is eager not to jeopardize its newly restored position as a politically responsible power in the region. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan was quick to emphasize the need for a Syrian government that is pluralistic, embracing all ethnic and religious groups. This is in stark contrast to Turkey’s position a decade ago, when it exhibited scant sympathy for the fears of Syria’s Alawite, Christian and Kurdish minorities. While early statements by the jihadists show that their leadership is keenly aware of the need to appear moderate, their avowed conversion to pluralism can hardly be taken at face value.
It is in fact by no means certain that Turkey expected, or initially sought, Assad’s fall. As late as December 5, when the jihadists took Hama, Turkey’s National Security Council called on Assad to “come to an agreement with the legitimate opposition.” Indeed, Turkey had recently been exploring an accommodation with Assad, trying to induce him to accept a return of refugees. Assad however made clear that he would not contemplate any deal as long as Turkish troops remained in Syria. Turkey may have decided to unleash the jihadists in the first place in order to exert pressure on him. Be that as it may, Turkey’s objectives in Syria are unchanged while their realization remains as uncertain today as it was before Assad’s fall.
While refugees have started to return, they will not continue to do so, and the flows may indeed be reversed, if stability and peaceful coexistence among Syria’s different ethnic and religious groups proves elusive and divisions are exacerbated. Indeed, Alawites are now seeking refuge in Lebanon. “From Turkey’s perspective, the new element of risk and peril is a collapse of the Syrian state,” says Sinan Ülgen, a former Turkish diplomat. He points out that “the fragmentation of the political unity of Syria could lead to the emergence of a proto-state of the Kurdish entity, with the likely backing of the U.S. and Israel.”
Indeed, the Kurds were quick to take advantage of Assad’s fall, expanding their territory to the east and south, even though they were expelled from Manbij to the west of Euphrates by Turkey’s proxy militia, the Syrian National Army. The Kurds, who are estimated to represent between 10 to 15 percent of the population, are now in control of a third of Syria, including most of its oil fields. Importantly, they control the border to Iraq, making them indispensable in preventing Iran from infiltrating Syria with Shiite militias from Iraq and in blunting any future attempts by Iran to once again use Syria as a conduit for arms shipments to Hezbollah in Lebanon. This strategic position makes the Kurds a natural and invaluable ally of Israel.
Israel, which has taken the opportunity since December 8 to obliterate Syria’s military hardware and infrastructure, has a stake in a diminished, crippled Syria. An independent Rojava would not only have the benefit of leaving Syria’s Sunni Arabs in control of little more than a rump state – while the Alawites might also seek to carve out an entity in their coastal heartland. It would also provide Israel with a reliable ally at the strategic junction of Anatolia, Mesopotamia and the Levant. On November 10, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that the Kurdish people “are our natural ally.” Describing the Kurds as victims of Iranian and Turkish oppression, Saar argued that Israel “must reach out and strengthen our ties with them.”
The Kurds, in turn, sense that this is their moment. In a statement published on October 22, Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party assessed that “the encirclement of Iran in a ring of war has raised the possibility that the Kurdish people will play a decisive role.” On October 14, the pro-PKK daily Yeni Özgür Politika republished an old article by Abdullah Öcalan, in which the PKK leader enjoins the Kurds to enter into an alliance with the United States and Israel against Turkey.
In 2012, when the PKK-affiliated Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) first wrested control of parts of northeastern Syria, Turkish-supported jihadists of Jabhat al-Nusra, the predecessor of HTS, crossed the border from Turkey into Syria to attack the Kurds. Today though, Turkey cannot rely on HTS to check the Kurds. HTS is eager to endear itself to the U.S and Israel, and will not necessarily do Turkey’s bidding. On December 13, Turkey's Foreign Minister Fidan stated that "the elimination of YPG is our strategic objective" and that Turkey expects its "Syrian brethren" to take steps to dismantle YPG, expell its commanders - including those who are Syrian citizens - and restore full territorial control. On December 15, Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler said that liquidation of YPG is Turkey's priority and that it will be achieved sooner or later. Yet, the fall of Assad has not provided Turkey with any new instruments to solve its Kurdish conundrum in Syria. On the contrary, what now looms for Turkey in a disintegrating Syria is a strategic disaster.
CONCLUSIONS: It was clear months before Assad’s fall that the Turkish state elite had come to increasingly fear the consequences of the war and chaos in the Middle East and in particular that the Kurds were poised to take advantage of Israel’s ascendancy and its degradation of Iran’s power. On October 22, Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the far right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), a key ally of Erdoğan whose party members populate the state bureaucracy and the judiciary, made the stunning proposition that the PKK leader Öcalan should be granted parole if he renounces violence and disbands the organization. Bahçeli praised Ottoman diversity that has otherwise been anathema to Turkish nationalists, and called on the Kurds to join hands with the Turks. On November 17, MHP deputy chairman Yaşar Yıldırım explained that Bahçeli believes that he had to take this initiative to prevent the loss of territory for Turkey.
Bahçeli may not have foreseen that Assad was going to fall when he did, but the strategic imperative that compelled him to offer Öcalan the possibility of parole has now become more apparent. To avoid the looming strategic disaster in Syria, Turkey needs to convince emboldened Kurds in Turkey and Syria that their best bet is an alliance with the Turks. That is a tall order.
Halil Karaveli is a Senior Fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center and the Editor of the Turkey Analyst. He is the author of Why Turkey is Authoritarian: From Atatürk to Erdoğan (Pluto Press)
