- Turkey's decision to take the lead in the NATO mission
against Libya is a bold example of its determination to play the leading
role in the region and within NATO itself, says Eric Walberg
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- Turkey continues its struggle to rein in the trigger-happy
Franco-Anglo-American coalition intent on invading Libya. From the start,
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed the idea of a no-fly-zone
as "such nonsense. What does NATO have to do with Libya?" But
his NATO colleagues pushed ahead and achieved UN Security Council Resolution
1973 on 17 March, authorising "all necessary measures" against
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and the establishment of a no-fly zone.
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- While Turkey did not condemn the resolution outright,
it has sharply condemned French airstrikes on Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's
forces, initially vetoing the proposal that NATO take over the no-fly-zone
operation. On Thursday, 24 March, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu
met with NATO's top military commander US Admiral James Stavridis in Ankara
and finally acceded to US pressure to support the NATO no-fly-zone on the
condition that "the rules of engagement in Libya must be restricted
to protecting civilians, enforcing the arms embargo and no-fly zone, and
the provision of humanitarian aid," excluding any further air strikes
against Gaddafi's ground forces.
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- Erdogan has an unlikely ally in United States President
Barack Obama. More cautious than gung-ho Franco-Anglo leaders, Obama does
not want a repeat of the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, preferring
to share the blame for the future fallout with its NATO colleagues. After
Davutoglu's meeting with Stavridis last week, US Ambassador to Turkey Francis
Ricciardone said the US and Turkey share almost the same views on military
action in Libya, agreeing that the most important thing was to protect
the people of Libya, and that Turkey had a unique role in the region and
a special expertise because of historical and cultural reasons.
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- But NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen insisted
the day after Davutoglu met Stavridis that there will still be a "coalition
operation and a NATO operation", and air strikes targetting Gaddafi
forces continued over angry Turkish protests, showing the disarray among
the NATO members. The death toll from the air strikes is already over 100.
"Davut" is fighting Goliath, so to speak, and the world is now
routing for the plucky NATO David.
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- In an interview with the Guardian Sunday, Erdogan fought
back against his nemesis French President Nicolas Sarkozy, saying Turkey
was ready to act as a mediator to broker an early ceasefire in Libya within
the framework of NATO, the Arab League and African Union. He warned that
a drawn-out conflict risked turning the country into a "second Iraq"
or "another Afghanistan" with devastating repercussions both
for Libya and the NATO states leading the intervention.
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- He was clearly referring to both 9/11 and the invasions
of Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq was "still paying a price" 20 years
after the Gulf war of 1991. "When western forces entered Afghanistan
nearly 10 years ago, people were talking of it being over in days, and
people said the same in Iraq. But a million have died and a civilisation
has as good as collapsed. We don't want to see a similar picture in Libya.
There is a civil war in Libya and we have to bring that to an end."
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- Turkey is the only NATO member that still has both an
embassy in the Libyan capital Tripoli and a consul functioning in Benghazi.
Erdogan is in personal contact with Gaddafi, and has now publicly called
on him to step down and allow for meaningful negotiations with the Benghazi-based
opposition Transitional National Council. Turkey is about to take over
the running of the Benghazi harbour and airport to facilitate humanitarian
aid, in agreement with NATO, pre-empting any Franco-Anglo-American plan
to use it as a base to launch a ground-force invasion. Erdogan said in
reference to the emerging "no-drive zone" policy: "Turkey's
role will be to withdraw from Libya as soon as possible" and "restore
the unity and integrity of the country based on the democratic demands
of the people." Mincing no words, Erdogan said that "this deployment
should not be carried out for Libya's oil."
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- Turkey's remarkable ability to resist the Western drive
to invade Libya is the fruit of the past decade of growing Turkish assertiveness
both in the Middle East, in relations with the US, and further afield.
Throughout the Cold War, Turkey was a close ally of the US and Western
Europe. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia quickly became its largest
trading partner and Turkey lost its faux strategic importance as a NATO
outpost. But this was in fact a plus it was now able to forge its
own rational relations with its neighbours and the world at large, "the
renewal of the natural flow of history" as Davutoglu explained at
the Leaders of Change Summit earlier this month in Istanbul.
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- After the Justice and Development (AK) Party came to
power in 2002, Turkey's foreign policies became more self-assertive, more
sympathetic to the Muslim world. Despite well-grounded fears of a military
coup, the new Prime Minister Erdogan refused to allow the US to launch
its invasion of Iraq from NATO bases in Turkey, to the fury of the Pentagon.
Turkey had unwillingly hosted the Iraqi no-fly-zone after the 1991 Gulf
War which in fact aided Turkey's Kurdish separatists, making the arrival
of the AK and a new role for Turkey within NATO inevitable.
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- In Afghanistan, while Turkey never recognised the Taliban
as the official government in the late 1990s, it did not participate in
the US invasion in 2001, and afterwards positioned itself as a low-key
but vital ally in the "war against terrorism" there, providing
1800 troops in strictly noncombat roles, such as providing security around
Kabul and training troops, "not with paternalism or the imperial arrogance
of an occupying power," according to Aydemir Erman, Turkey's coordinator
for Afghanistan from 1991-2003, writing in the Christian Science Monitor
last year.
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- In 2007 it began a trilateral programme of cooperation
with Afghan and Pakistan political, military and intelligence organisations,
and has just finished a training programme this week with Afghan and Pakistani
soldiers in urban warfare. According to Turkish Parliamentary Deputy Burhan
Kayatürk, Turkey, which has the goodwill of the Afghani people, "can
help win the hearts and minds of the Afghani people, who like the Turkish
soldiers" and can "steer them away from militancy by strengthening
the infrastructure in education, health and industry".
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- "As a historically trusted friend of the Afghan
people, Turkey, alone among members of the NATO alliance, has a 'soft power'
ingredient in its arsenal that is key to winning the hearts and minds of
the population. No Afghan was ever killed by a Turkish bullet" and
"no Afghan trained by Turks has ever betrayed his country," claims
Erman.
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- Just as Turkey is pulling its weight in Afghanistan in
its own way, it is not standing on the sidelines in the Libya crisis today,
providing the NATO operation with five ships and one submarine to enforce
an arms embargo and a squadron of fighter jets to enforce a narrowly defined
no-fly-zone, the most significant contribution of all NATO members, but
on the condition that no Libyans are killed, whoever they support.
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- A holier-than-thou approach at this point would merely
compound the disaster that imperial bungling is heading for, leaving the
West in control when the inevitable end comes, and Turkey out in the political
(and economic) cold. Much more sensible to shoulder some of the responsibility,
come to some kind of agreement however flawed with the US,
Britain and France, and make sure that the Turkish position is at least
taken into account in the conduct of the operation and the aftermath.
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- The latest Turkish move is a gamble, but politics is
not for the faint-of-heart. "The enemies of the Arabs are banking
on always being a step or two ahead of Arabs in their plans and operations,"
writes Libyan American writer Husayn Al-Kurdi. Turkey's move to position
itself as a mediator in the current Western onslaught against Libya is
a valiant attempt to keep one step ahead of the "enemies of the Arabs".
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- When the dust finally settles on Gaddafi's quixotic socialist
Jumhuriya, it is the Turks who are the only conceivable power to help usher
in a legitimate post-Gaddafi regime. As in the invasions of Afghanistan
and Iraq, the West has groomed its chosen successor to Gaddafi, self-proclaimed
Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril, already issuing directives from Benghazi.
Assuming the Western invasion succeeds and he is declared the new Libyan
leader, he and his cohorts will still have to gain credibility among Libyans.
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- This will not be any easy strategy to pull off. French
faux pas abound. Sarkozy's interior minister, Claude Guéant, praised
the French president for "leading a Crusade" against Gaddafi.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin correctly damned the invasion using
the very same "C" word, compounding the roi's nakedness. Jibril
is the darling of the French potentate, but considering Sarkozy's own abysmal
standing in France (the far right National Front Party's Marine Le Pen
outpolls him) Jibril would be wise to make Ankara his first stop if he
prevails.
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- So what is the fate of UNSC Resolution 1973? Will Turkey
prevail, bring an end to the violent Western-backed attempt to overthrow
Gaddafi and mediate a peaceful transition to democracy, or will the NATO
big guns prevail and bring the unending horrors unleashed by Bush junior
in Afghanistan and Iraq? NATO schemers drunk on military power are creating
a new source of terror. Erdogan and Davutoglu are trying to pull their
irons out of the fire.
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- ***
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- Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/
You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com<http://ericwalberg.com/>/
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