Dear friends and colleagues,
My
colleague Jonathan Spyer has published a short and accurate evaluation
about the recent strategic shifts in the region which will undoubtedly
impact on all the local
actors but also beyond the Middle East.
You can see his paper at
http://www.meforum.org/3795/shifting-mideast-sands-reveal-new-alliances
Sorry for duplicates.
I agree to all of his observations but I would like to add three important points:
Turkey was considered at the beginning of the uprising in the Arab world as "the
role model" for the democratization of the Middle East and the most serious contender for the leadership of the Sunni world.
It
appears that the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's and his AKP government
strategy, tinted by a Neo-Ottoman flavor, has failed on all fronts.
Not
only the strategy of "zero problems with [Turkey's] neighbors" has
finished in serious troubles with all of them but the involvement in the
Syrian conflict threatens
the internal cohesion of the nation.
The
internal woes of Erdogan and his party, as epitomized by the June 2013
Gezi Park anti-government protests, the investigation of the corruption
at the highest officials
level and the destructive conflict with the former Islamist ally
Fethullah Gülen's Hizmet movement, have led him to even more
authoritarian measures and a public behavior that prompted the Turkish
Medical Association (TBB) to publish this Sunday a statement
expressing its worry "about the emotional well-being of Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan," described by the group as using “polarizing,
excluding and 'otherifying' language” against certain groups of people.
It
remains to be seen if the forthcoming March 30 municipal elections in
Turkey could sign a turn in Erdogan's and AKP's fortunes.
The Kurds
represent a new force in the region which could change the delicate
regional balance of power. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in
northern Iraq is the center of gravity of a new economically striving
subsystem functioning as a quasi-state and as a political center for the
other three parts of Kurdistan. For many
Kurds the KRG also provides safe haven from persecution and hardship in
their own countries, mainly Syria. The KRG has been providing bases for
the Kurdish guerrilla of the PKK from Turkey, the Party of Free Life of
Kurdistan (PJAK) and other groupings from
Iran, as well as an umbrella organization from Syria (See "The Kurdish
Question: The Elephant in the Room" by Ofra Bengio)
In
Syria, The Democratic Union Party (PYD), strongest Kurdish party
affiliated with the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia formed three
autonomous cantons in the
provinces of Hassakeh, Afrin and Kobane.
In
Turkey. the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) leaders make frequent
references to an independent Kurdistan and claim they will declare
democratic autonomy after the
March 30 municipal elections. Kurdish leaders say that they will unite
the Kurdish areas in Iran, Iraq and Syria and eliminate the borders.
Balkanization:
Besides and inside the major Sunni – Shia conflict there are several
other important sectarian conflicts which do not bode well for the
unity of the countries involved, mainly Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.
Possibly the only solution to these conflicts will follow the
Yugoslavian model.
Ely Karmon, PhD
Senior Research Scholar
International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and
The Institute for Policy and Strategy (IPS) at
The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC(
Herzlyia, Israel
Tel.: 972-9-9527277
Cell.: 972-52-2653306
Fax.: 972-9-9513073, 972-9-7716653
E-mail:
ekarmon@idc.ac.il
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