Erdogan fights to retain power

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 27 April 2023

 

Recent events have not been playing to the advantage of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and there seems a real chance that he and his AK party may not emerge victorious from the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for May 14. 

Erdogan certainly hopes to be re-elected, if only to preside over the celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey, which take place later this year.  Modern Turkey came into existence on October 29, 1923 under its first president, Mustafa Kemal. His great achievement was to replace the creaky, autocratic, religion-based rule of the Ottoman past with a secular westernized form of administration.  He was later formally endowed by parliament with the title Ataturk, Father of the Turks. 

For the past twenty years the country has been ruled by Erdogan, first as prime minister and from 2014 as president.  Erdogan, a strong adherent of the Muslim Brotherhood, has spent much of his time attempting to reverse some of Ataturk’s achievement. Exhibiting authoritarian tendencies from the start, Erdogan’s rule has degenerated into something approaching autocracy – a development accelerated after the anti-government coup of July 2016, some aspects of which remain unclear.

Having jailed thousands of political opponents, journalists and leading public figures, Erdogan has also systematically restricted impartial coverage of national and international events by the media.  According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), about 90 per cent of Turkey's national media is now under government control.  In March the government refused to renew the broadcasting licence of the German media outlet Deutsche Welle.

Even so, Erdogan’s power is still subject to certain restrictions.  Much to their credit, those operating Turkey’s electoral system have succeeded in remaining largely independent of government interference.  Operating under close supervision, the electoral process in Turkey has managed to stay relatively free and fair.

Erdogan and his party have fallen in the public’s estimation for a number of reasons.  After the violent earthquakes of February 6 left millions of Turks homeless, both president and ruling party were widely criticized for their long-term failure to reform the country’s building regulations in advance of the disaster.  They were also condemned for mishandling the search and rescue efforts afterwards, while questions have been asked about how precisely the huge sums raised by a so-called earthquake tax imposed since 2002 (approximately $4.7 billion in total), have been disposed of.

Inflation in Turkey, out of control for a long time, officially stood in March at just above 50%, which is bad enough, but financial experts are saying the true rate is over 100%.   Starting in early 2021 the Turkish lira began to fall sharply in value.  By January 2022 the currency had lost 83% of its value, and the decline continued.  Over the year to February 2023, it had lost a further 40% against the American dollar. 

It has steadied in recent months, as has the rate of inflation, but the extended cost-of-living crisis has gripped all Turkish households and squeezed earnings and savings.  This is why Erdogan launched his re-election campaign with a party pledge to slash inflation to single digits and boost economic growth.

Erdogan’s main opponent in the presidential poll is Kemal Kilicdaroglu.  Unlike previous presidential elections when Erdogan faced a disunited opposition, Kilicdaroglu is fighting as a unity candidate for six opposition parties.  He also has the unofficial backing of Turkey's pro-Kurdish HDP which, because of a court case alleging links to Kurdish militants, is running for parliament under the banner of another party, the Green Left.

 Kilicdaroglu’s Nation's Alliance, also known as the Table of Six, is united in its desire to return Turkey from the presidential system created under Erdogan to one led by parliament. To change the system, they need to win 400 of Turkey's 600 MPs or, to take a proposal to a referendum, at least 360.  As for the presidential election, any candidate that can secure more than half the vote is the outright winner. Failing that, the race goes to a run-off two weeks later. In that event whichever party had won the parliamentary vote would be best placed to gain the presidency.

Kilicdaroglu’s chances of winning the election outright in the first round may have been dented by the decision of a former center-left party colleague, Muharrem Ince, to join the presidential race.  Ince runs the secular nationalist Homeland Party and has a strong presence on social media.  Young voters in particular are said to have been impressed by his dance moves on TikTok.

Pre-election polls are notoriously unreliable.  Recent surveys published online, though lacking information about the numbers polled or the methods employed, all show Kilicdaroglu leading Erdogan.  The results of a poll published on April 14 showed Kilicdaroglu with 50.3% as against Erdogan’s 43.8%.  A poll by the organization Politpro published on April 22 gave Kilicdaroglu 47.7% and Erdogan 43%.  If these figures really indicate the nation’s voting intentions, then Kilicdaroglu stands a chance of winning the presidency in the first round. 

That leaves open the question of whether, if Erdogan were to lose, he would agree to a peaceful transfer of power.  In 2019, when his party lost the municipal election in Istanbul, he insisted on a re-run, only to be shocked when the voters not only re-elected the original winner, Ekrem Imamoglu, but by a much larger margin.  Imamoglu will not be participating in the forthcoming presidential poll. Found guilty of insulting public officials, he was sentenced last December to 31 months in jail and barred from all political activity.  Yet according to a very recent report in Le Monde he is not languishing in some prison cell, but has been criss-crossing the country for weeks receiving a rapturous reception.  The paper did not divulge how he has evaded incarceration.

Public opinion polls add to the excitement, but the only votes that count are the ones at the ballot box. There are several weeks yet before the elections and, as the saying goes, a week is a very long time in politics.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and in the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Turkish Elections: Will Erdogan hold onto power?", 27 April 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-741329

Published in Eurasia Review, 29 April 2023:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/29042023-erdogan-fights-to-retain-power-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 1 May 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/erdogan-fights-to-retain-power/

Published in Jewish Business News, 29 April 2023:

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2023/04/29/erdogan-struggles-to-maintain-control/

The Arab world prepares to readmit Assad

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 20 April 2023

 Assad visiting UAE in March 2023 is greeted by President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan

          Nothing succeeds like success. Despite every prediction to the contrary, Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, was not swept away during the Arab Spring but, with the considerable support of Russia and Iran, has clung to power.  In an utterly ruthless, no-holds-barred civil war, which included the use of deadly chemical weapons against his own people, Assad gained, and now maintains, control over some 70% of sovereign Syria.  in the process some 7 million Syrians have fled the country, while another 7 million are displaced. Even so, the Assad regime, ostracized by the Arab world since 2011 but having survived, seems to be edging its way back into acceptance. 

November 12, 2011 was the day the Arab League, appalled by the brutality of the Assad government’s reaction to the popular protests of the Arab Spring, suspended Syria’s membership and imposed sanctions. Shortly afterwards, as civil war erupted, the US and Europe added their own stringent sanctions on the Syrian government, and on companies connected to the Assad family in particular. 

Open disunity within the Arab family was not to the liking of several nation states, and efforts to rehabilitate Assad and his regime began as far back as 2018, when the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain reopened their embassies in Damascus. In 2020 Oman took the further step of becoming the first Gulf state to reinstate its ambassador to Syria. 

More recently Jordan has been taking the initiative. Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi has said he aims to find an Arab solution to the overwhelming political, military, economic and humanitarian crisis that besets Syria, but in full coordination with the UN.   The initiative aims to launch Arab efforts to engage in dialogue with the Syrian government to resolve the crisis and address its humanitarian, security, and political problems.   “Jordan will present the initiative to Arab countries,” one source is reported to have said, “which will, in turn, set their conditions for restoring diplomatic relations with Syria.”

On March 25 Qatar, which has rejected previous calls to reinstate Syria to the Arab League, announced its support for the Jordanian initiative. In close coordination with the UAE and Egypt, Jordan hopes to achieve consensus on the initiative ahead of the Arab League summit in Riyadh on May 19.

As is not unusual in politics, it was an entirely extraneous event that gave the rehabilitation process an unexpected impetus.  The deadly earthquakes of February 6, which killed some 6,000 people in Syria, provided the opportunity for a number of Arab states to re-engage with Assad while contributing disaster relief. The diplomatic floodgates opened.  The UAE took the opportunity to normalize relations with Damascus, while in the aftermath of the quake Assad received the foreign ministers of the UAE, Jordan, and Egypt on separate occasions.  On March 19, Assad paid a state visit to Abu Dhabi, the second in two years, and met with UAE’s President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. 

On April 1, Syria’s Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad arrived in Cairo to talk with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, amid reports that a summit meeting between Egypt‘s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Assad was being prepared.  Sources in Jordan confirmed that a similar meeting between King Abdullah and Assad was also being considered.

A further boost toward reconciliation followed the rapprochement in March between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Assad's main backer.  Now rumors are widespread that Saudi Arabia, which once supplied arms to the rebels seeking to oust Assad, will invite him to the Arab League summit it will be hosting in May. Lifting his suspension would seal Assad’s rehabilitation in the Arab world. 

            This would not please the US, which for a dozen years has held firm to its mantra “Assad must go.”  On the other hand, some softening of its hard line has been detected of late.

In March, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Barbara Leaf, reiterated that Washington opposes any normalization of the Syrian regime without serious progress toward UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which in 2015 laid out a roadmap for a political settlement to end the crisis.  That Resolution called for negotiations between the government and those fighting it, free and fair elections, and the drafting of a new constitution.

None of that has taken place.  According to the current constitution no president may serve more than two consecutive 7-year terms.  In 2021 Assad was sworn in for his fourth term, following a presidential election procedure in which he claims to have won some 95% of the vote.

            However, Leaf went so far as to suggest that if Arab states did engage with Assad, it should involve a quid pro quo in terms of Assad moving toward Resolution 2254.  “What we are reading from what the Americans are saying,” an Arab diplomat commented, ”is ‘we are not against the initiatives you are doing …Let the Arabs try, and let us see what the results are’.” 

            Leaf was, however, skeptical of the claim by some states that re-engaging with Assad could detach Syria from Iran, whose militias helped turn the tide of the 12-year civil war in Assad’s favor.  Yet, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Arab nations in talks with Assad are offering him a deal that would restore ties between Syria and much of the Middle East while potentially curbing the influence of Iran. They are proposing aid worth billions of dollars to help rebuild Syria after the country’s 12-year civil war, and have pledged to lobby the US and European powers to lift sanctions on Assad’s government.  In exchange, Assad would engage with the Syrian political opposition, accept Arab troops to protect returning refugees, crack down on illicit drug smuggling and ask Iran to stop expanding its footprint in the nation. 

Whether Assad can be prized away from Iran is an open question. There must certainly be considerable attraction in the prospect of being accepted again within the Arab family – Iran, of course, is not an Arab nation. The question is how close toward the conditions of UN Resolution 2254 Assad feels able to move while not forfeiting his grasp on power. 

One acid test of whether real change is afoot will be whether Assad is offered a seat at the Arab League meeting scheduled for May 19, and whether he actually attends.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 20 April 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-739706

Published in Eurasia Review, 25 April 2023:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/21042023-the-arab-world-prepares-to-readmit-assad-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 25 April 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/the-arab-world-prepares-to-readmit-assad/

Published in Jewish Business News, 22 April 2023

https://jewishbusinessnews.com/2023/04/22/the-arab-world-prepares-to-readmit-assad/

How real is the Saudi-Iranian thaw?

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 10 April 2023

          Saudi Arabia and Iran have been rivals for religious and political power ever since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979.  Their antagonism is a visible expression of the deep chasm that divides Islam into its two main branches, Sunni and Shia.  The extremists of each side regard the other as apostates, heretics and infidels.  Even so, arms-length diplomatic relations were maintained, with a short hiatus between 1987 and 1990 instigated by Saudi Arabia, but they were decisively severed by Iran on January 2, 2016 and remained so for seven years.

            A fact rarely mentioned is that Saudi Arabia, the very epicenter of the Sunni Muslim branch of Islam, is home to more than two million Shia Muslims.  This large minority – estimated at between 10% to 15% of the total population – lives largely in the Eastern Province in the Qatif and al-Ahsa governorates. 

Saudi’s Shia minority, who frequently complained of being treated as second-class citizens, found a champion in the early 2000s in Sheikh Nimr Bagir al-Nimr, a Shia cleric.  In 2009 he began demanding that the government respect Saudi Shia rights.  He backed this by threatening to split the oil-rich Qatif and al-Ahsa regions from Saudi Arabia and unite them with Shia-majority Bahrain.

Saudi authorities responded by arresting al-Nimr and 35 others. Two years later, in 2011, Al-Nimr took a leading role in the Arab Spring uprising in Saudi Arabia.  Saudi police again arrested him during what they described as an "exchange of gunfire."  On October 15, 2014 he faced Saudi’s Specialized Criminal Court and was sentenced to death. On news of Al-Nimr’s execution along with 46 others on January 2, 2016, Iran severed diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. 

Recently, to the surprise of many, China stepped forward as an honest broker, and its good offices resulted in an agreement between the long-standing adversaries.  On March 10, 2023 Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to renew diplomatic relations and refrain from interfering in each other’s domestic affairs.  April 6 saw the foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia meeting in Beijing for the first formal gathering of their top diplomats in more than seven years. 

How true, deep and lasting can this reconciliation be? 

The immediate prospects are not bright.  In Yemen, even after the agreement, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels mounted an attack in the oil-rich Marib province.  Worse, ten days after the Saudi-Iran agreement the Houthis unleashed a barrage of drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, targeting a liquefied natural gas plant, water desalination plant, oil facility and power station.  Over the past few years the Houthis have fired literally hundreds of missiles into the heart of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital. 

The problem that Iran poses to the civilized world stems entirely from the Islamic revolutionary regime that the nation wished on itself back in 1979.  Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini became Supreme Leader in December 1979.  His philosophy, which he set out nearly 40 years before, required the immediate imposition of strict Sharia law domestically, and a foreign policy aimed at spreading the Shi’ite interpretation of Islam across the globe by whatever means were deemed expedient. 

“We shall export our revolution to the whole world,” he declared. “Until the cry 'There is no god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle.”

Pursuit of this fundamental objective has involved the state – acting either directly or through proxy militant bodies – in a succession of bombings, rocket attacks, assassinations and acts of terror directed not only against Western targets, but against non-Shia Muslims as well. “To kill the infidels,” declared Khomeini, “is one of the noblest missions Allah has reserved for mankind.” 

With Islam’s two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, within its borders, the Saudi kingdom sees itself as the leader of the Muslim world – a claim hotly contested by Iran. In 1987, when tensions reached breaking point during the Hajj, Khomeini declared that Mecca was in the hands of “a band of heretics”.  Now, in restoring diplomatic relations with Sunni leaders whom they regard as heretics, Iran's leadership may be making a pragmatic political move.  It is scarcely likely to represent a sincere beating of swords into ploughshares.

In his extensive writings on Islamic philosophy, law and ethics, Khomeini affirmed repeatedly that the foundation stone of his ideology, the very objective of his revolution, was to impose Shia Islam on the whole world. 

“We wish to cause the corrupt roots of Zionism, Capitalism and Communism to wither throughout the world,” he declared.  “We wish, as does God almighty, to destroy the systems which are based on these three foundations, and to promote the Islamic order of the Prophet.”

One wonders if communist China has noted that it is explicitly included among the targeted enemies of Iran’s Islamic revolution, that it has been pin-pointed by the regime for destruction?  China may yet find its new ally biting the hand that feeds it.

Iran’s leaders want to destroy the world as we know it.  They want to overthrow Western-style democracy of which America is the prime exponent, to wipe out the state of Israel, to eliminate communism, to impose Shia Islam first on the Muslim world, and then on the world entire, and to achieve political dominance in the Middle East. They believe that any means are justified in the struggle to achieve their aims – God-given aims, as they perceive them.  In pursuing them they are prepared to bluff, trick and cheat, and to undertake or facilitate acts of terror regardless of the deaths or injuries inflicted. 

For 44 years world leaders have been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to recognize the quintessential purposes that motivated the leader of Iran’s Islamic revolution of 1979, or to appreciate that these same objectives have driven the regime ever since and continue to do so.  Saudi leaders no doubt believe that restoring diplomatic relations is a useful political ploy, but surely appreciate that the deal is superficial and cannot begin to touch the real problems that the Iranian regime poses to the Saudi kingdom and the rest of the world. 

The Sunni Arab world recognized some time ago who its main enemy was.  The Abraham Accords are one outcome. Saudi Arabia is widely perceived as on the brink of joining the association.  Would its new reconciliation with Iran withstand the shock?

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 10 April 2023:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-738817

Published in Eurasia Review, 15 April 2023:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/14042023-how-real-is-the-saudi-iranian-thaw-oped/

Published in the MPC Journal, 16 April 2023:

https://mpc-journal.org/how-real-is-the-saudi-iranian-thaw/

Smotrich and Palestinians

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 4 April 2023

          The political stance, words and actions of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich are not, I admit, to my taste. Yet, without justifying them, I find two provocative incidents in which he was recently involved worthy of comment.

On Sunday, March 19, he participated in a gala evening in Paris, organized by "Israel is Forever," a French Jewish association close to the far right.   When he rose to speak, he stood behind a lectern displaying a flag depicting a greatly expanded Israel which included the occupied West Bank, Gaza, and most of Jordan.

            That alone, without taking into account what he said, sparked immediate protests across the Arab world, and a diplomatic incident between Israel and Jordan. Smotrich's spokesperson claimed that the flag was "set decoration" arranged by the conference organizers, and that Smotrich was only a guest. All the same, next day Jordan summoned the Israeli ambassador to Amman to protest Smotrich endorsing the map. Jordan's foreign ministry warned that Smotrich's actions violated the Jordanian-Israel peace treaty. Israel's foreign ministry responded by asserting that it fully recognized Jordan's territorial integrity and stood by the treaty. Later Tzachi Hanegbi, head of Israel's National Security Council, spoke with Jordan's Foreign Minister to reaffirm Israel's commitment to the treaty.

            Two wrongs do not make a right, but it is perhaps worth pointing out that leading Palestinian organizations do precisely the same, in reverse.  Examine the flags of Fatah or bodies like the Palestine Liberation Front, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine or the Islamic Jihad movement, and they all feature maps of Mandate Palestine as a solid unit, with no sign of Israel. They portray their desired outcome to the Arab-Israel dispute, namely a Palestine “from the river to the sea”. Protests in support of the legitimacy and sovereignty of the State of Israel have been notable by their absence.

            Smotrich caused outrage, also, by his remarks denying the existence of a Palestinian people.  He maintained that the idea of Palestinian nationhood was invented in the past century in response to the Zionist movement to found modern-day Israel.

“Who was the first Palestinian king?” he asked, rhetorically.  “What language do the Palestinians have?  Was there ever a Palestinian currency? Is there a Palestinian history or culture? Nothing. There is no such thing as a Palestinian people.”

   The following day US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby objected to the comments, saying they would not help to calm tensions in the region.

“We utterly object to that kind of language,” he said.  “We don’t want to see any rhetoric, any action or rhetoric – quite frankly – that can stand in the way or become an obstacle to a viable two-state solution, and language like that does.”

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, called Smotrich’s remarks “racist,” and “an attempt to falsify history.”

The term “Palestinian”, though perfectly valid and comprehensible in contemporary terms, carries with it a whiff of political controversy.  Those sensitive to it point to the 1947 UN General Assembly Resolution 181.  In proposing the partition of Palestine into two states, it describes them as “independent Arab and Jewish States”. The term “Palestinian” does not appear. In fact this is scarcely surprising since, until Israel’s Declaration of Independence, all the inhabitants of this land were Palestinians.  In the 1930s the country’s radio station was called the Palestine Broadcasting Service (PBS), while its English-language newspaper did not change its name from “The Palestine Post” to “The Jerusalem Post” until as late as 1950.

This is why people of Smotrich’s persuasion describe the current emphasis on Palestinian identity and nationalism as a recent phenomenon. The argument has some validity. Both historically and in more recent times, the Arabs living in the area were regarded both by outsiders and by their own spokespeople as without a separate or distinct identity.  

Yasser Arafat, for example, regarded as the father of the “Palestinian people”, followed a pan-Arab line. The 1964 PLO charter defined the Arab inhabitants of Palestine as “an integral part of the Arab nation”.  In 1996 Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar said: “Islamic and traditional views reject the notion of establishing an independent Palestinian state. In the past there was no independent Palestinian state…This land is the property of all Muslims.” 

In 2002 Azmi Bishara, founder of the nationalist Balad Party, which had seats in the last Knesset but not in the current one, said: “My Palestinian identity never precedes my Arab identity…. I don’t think there is a Palestinian nation, there is [only] an Arab nation…. “

Today it is clear that the concept of Palestinian nationalism, having emerged, has flourished and become a political reality.  It has in fact overtaken the views of Arab leaders, expressed only comparatively recently, which have been submerged in the tidal wave of Palestinian nationalism.  Nowadays the Palestinian leadership downplay pan-Arab nationalism and exploit what has taken its place. 

It is precisely because Smotrich and other far-right politicians refuse to recognize political realities that, perhaps to their surprise, they engender such controversy.  Extremists in any field – political, religious, social – are so convinced of the justice of their cause that they reject the very concept of compromise, and feel justified in forcing what they believe to be the only correct course on others, regardless of what others think or feel.

Steam-rollering extremist ideologies, without regard to the effect on the beliefs or aspirations of others, is not acceptable in a 21st century democracy. Persuasion is the correct way, and if persuasion fails, then acceptance of the best compromise available.  Beliefs, however strongly held, are not ipso facto self-evident or immutable.  A little humility can go a long way.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online, 4 April 2023:

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-736296

Published in Eurasia Review, 7 April 2023 under the title: "The Provocative Mr Smotrich:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/07042023-the-provocative-mr-smotrich-oped/