Erdogan’s ‘Too Big to Fall’ Gamble Pays Off, But Carries Risks
Erdogan’s ‘Too Big to Fall’ Gamble Pays Off, But Carries Risks
(Bloomberg) -- President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long based his dealings with the U.S. and Europe on a bet: That threats to cut his country loose or crush its economy won’t be followed through, because Turkey is simply too strategically important.
That calculation appears to have held true when it comes to the 120-hour pause that Erdogan agreed to on Thursday for his offensive in northern Syria.
Having ignored a threat from President Donald Trump to “obliterate” the Turkish economy, Erdogan secured what he interpreted as U.S. agreement to establish a Turkish-controlled buffer zone, cleared of U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters, which is what he had set out to create with his military operation. The U.S. also promised to halt further sanctions.
Syria fits a broader pattern. Erdogan has for years sought to capitalize on Turkey’s position as the second-largest military in the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, its strategic location stretching from Iran and the Caucasus to Europe, its control of the straits that connect the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and its ability to funnel waves of refugees to Europe.
Even so, there are risks from Erdogan’s too-big-to-fall gamble.
In part that’s because the Turkish and U.S. positions differ widely on the scope of the truce, while three of the main forces on the battlefield -- the Kurds, the Syrian government and Russia -- weren’t even at the table.
But, more importantly, Turkish-U.S. ties have become dependent on the “mutual political crush” that Erdogan shares with Trump, says Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Erdogan said Friday he won’t forget a letter from Trump that warned him not to be a “fool,” for pushing hard against the Kurds, and vowed to respond to what he said was a missive out of line with diplomatic courtesies. But he also said he understood the U.S. president was “under pressure,” adding “I am just taking care of my relationship with Trump.”
Elsewhere, especially in Congress and at the Pentagon, Turkey has lost powerful friends who once advanced its interests in Washington. That matters as U.S. foreign policy making fractures.
“This is a very deep problem,” rooted in a long list of grievances, said Cagaptay. In Syria, he added, Turkey and the U.S. have allied with each others’ “terrorist” enemies to pursue security goals: Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist extremists, and fighters linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, respectively.
“DoD and the Hill are two power centers that could upset the apple cart in the relationship going forward,” said Cagaptay, referring to the Pentagon and Congress.
The sanctions Trump imposed on Turkey this week were largely symbolic. But both the House and Senate are considering far tougher, bipartisan penalties, some of which may still be imposed.
A proposal from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham would target Turkey’s financial institutions, its energy sector, leaders, and any U.S. person who buys sovereign Turkish debt. With $180 billion of short term debt to finance each year, that would be catastrophic for Turkey’s economy.
After Thursday’s deal, Graham said he remained “ready to come and hit Turkey hard if they don’t get out of Syria and reset the table.”
U.S. prosecutors this week issued a long-awaited indictment against Halkbank, one of Turkey’s largest, for its alleged role in a plot to circumvent U.S. sanctions against Iran. Less egregious cases against other foreign banks resulted in multi-billion dollar fines that would destroy the bank. Pence said Halkbank was not part of Thursday’s deal with Erdogan.
The relationship has been souring on both sides, especially since a failed 2016 coup attempt against Erdogan. Many Turks -- with encouragement from state controlled media -- believe the U.S. was complicit. Criticizing the U.S. is a political winner for Erdogan. His attack on the U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters in Syria has, so far, won domestic support, too.
“Erdogan has scored points at home for standing up against the U.S. to order the incursion after months of diplomatic wrangling, and fueled nationalist sentiment,” said Emin Demirel, author of several books about the Kurdish conflict and jihadist groups.
Oil Drilling
To date, Erdogan’s gamble that Turkey is too important for the West to risk losing has allowed him to buck complaints and threats over everything from mass imprisonments to the destruction of democratic institutions, drilling for oil in waters claimed by Cyprus, and the purchase of NATO-non compatible S-400 missile defense systems from Russia. His actions in Syria are just the latest example.
In separate interviews, three senior Turkish officials outlined the government’s confidence that the U.S. and other Western countries cannot afford to risk a break with Turkey. The officials, who were not authorized to speak with media, cited the country’s strategic location.
Those considerations hark back to the need to prevent Turkey, along with Greece, from being pulled into the Soviet sphere of influence after World War II. Today, not only is there no mechanism to eject Turkey from NATO (even if its other 28 members wanted to), the country hosts early warning radar for the alliance’s missile defense system and, at Incirlik airbase, approximately 50 U.S. nuclear weapons.
Europe Question
According to the officials, Turkey is working to reduce its dependency on the West for arms. In 1975, the U.S. imposed an arms embargo following Turkey’s occupation of northern Cyprus, grounding half the Turkish air force as spare parts dwindled.
Turkey has even more leverage when it comes to the EU. Erdogan has recently repeated threats to send millions of refugees toward Europe, if leaders persisted in branding his military operation in Syria an “invasion.” Refugee sea crossings from Turkey to Greece were already increasing this year.
Whether this mutual dependency would survive a collapse of the Syrian truce, however, remains uncertain.
EU Council President Donald Tusk on Friday said he did not want fresh tensions with Turkey, even as he called for Erdogan to withdraw fully from Syria. “The so-called cease-fire, this is not what we expected,” he told reporters in Brussels. “In fact, it’s not a cease-fire, it’s a demand of capitulation of the Kurds.”
French President Emmanuel Macron went further.
“I consider what has happened in the past days a heavy mistake by the West and by NATO,” he said in Brussels. “It questions also the functioning of NATO. Sorry to say that but we cannot hide it.”
--With assistance from John Ainger, Patrick Donahue, Helene Fouquet and Onur Ant.
To contact the reporters on this story: Marc Champion in London at mchampion7@bloomberg.net;Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara at shacaoglu@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net, Mark Williams
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