Interesting NY Times article on the Turkish nostalgia for the Ottoman past.  Obviously such nostalgia is not uncommon and often bears limited touch to reality.  Even the Taliban claims that they want to create the ideal conditions that supposedly existed under the Rashidun Caliphate, overlooking the fact that the last three of those Caliphs were assassinated (and the last two assassinations were political).  Even in the United States people nostalgically look back to life in the 50s or the alleged nobility in public life under the Founding Fathers.

As far as nostalgic dreams go the Turks sure have a lot to daydream about.  For the descendants of a steppe tribe whose conquest of Anatolia was almost accidental they blazed their way across the global stage.  The battle of Manzikert was a Turkish victory because of a comedy of errors and treachery and even then with the Byzantine army almost intact did not have to be one of the major turning points in history.  But the Byzantines lapsed into one of their ill timed episodic civil wars and in the ensuing decade most of Anatolia was lost for ever.  Numerous opportunities to reverse the flow were wasted in the coming century.  With the Byzantine Empire reduced to a hollow shell after the disastrous Fourth Crusade, the stage was set for the Ottomans.  The Ottoman rise was meteoric.  From a minor tribe in northwestern Anatolia in the early 1300s they had conquered the Balkans and most of Anatolia in 100 years.  After a brief setback at the hands of Timur, the next 120 years saw the conquest of Constantinople, Syria, Egypt and Hungary, the humiliation of the new Safavid Persian Empire and the first siege of Vienna.

The long decline that lasted the next 350 years (interspersed with occasional flickers of strength) commenced with the death of Suleiman the Magnificent.  Gradually many of the European and North African conquests were lost.  The Empire survived largely because, like Austria-Hungary, nobody could agree who would fill the vacuum.  The coup de grace was delivered by World War I.  Outrage at the humiliations imposed by the Treaty of Sevres gave rise to the nationalist movement under Ataturk and the elimination of the dynasty.

It is dangerous to romanticize Ottoman rule too much.   Read the rest of this entry »

If Turkey did not have enough on its plate in the battle between its secularists and Islamists for the loyalties of the Turkish people, American creationists are now lending a hand by providing support for the opponents of the theory of evolution.  Stymied in their attempts to have their latest god waved a magic wand theory (euphemistically named Intelligent Design) included in American science books instead of philosophy or religion books they are increasingly making contact with science ignorant religious zealots in the Muslim world.  And they have set up a creation museum in Kentucky to promote their literal interpretation of the Bible as science.  Unfortunately, in a country that can sometimes be maddeningly ignorant on a host of issues they have had some success.  Only 39% of the country now believes in evolution and 36% have no opinion, a tribute to the success of their insidious attempts to change state educational curriculums to “teach the controversy” aided by politicians (including those with biology degrees) shamelessly catering to their base .

Foreign Affairs has a post up about Turkey leaving the West.  To some extent it is not surprising.  While people in the West and even previous Pakistani dictator Musharraf praised the Turkish model of secularism as a guide of the Middle East, it has always had an air of artificiality to it.  The aggressive elimination of religion from the Turkish public sphere was influenced by the admiration of the founder of the Turkish Republic Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his fellow officers for the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.  It was also made possible by his iconic status as the defender of the Turkish state following World War I.  As a result it has not been easy to replicate.

The Foreign Policy article however seems excessively alarmist.  For a different tone see here.  In recent years Turkish attempts to engage with the West and  to join the European Union have been repeatedly rebuffed.  It is not surprising that Turkey would want to reorient its foreign policy that has it stuck between Asia and Europe and yet a member of neither.

It is hard to see how a democratically elected Turkish government can totally ignore domestic opinion, which after repeated rebuffs by Europe and outraged by George W. Bush’s unilateral invasion of Iraq, turned very hostile to the United States in the last decade.  The Turkish reaction is yet another example of just how big was the public-relations disaster created by the Israeli military action in Gaza at the beginning of the year.  Turkey’s recent actions also demonstrate the folly of  an approach to foreign policy that eschews active diplomacy.  Countries will follow what they deem to be their best interest and the support, even of allies, should not be taken for granted.

An interesting read in Foreign Policy this week about the souring of tires between Israel and its only Muslim ally, Turkey. The last decade has seen a significant decline in support for Israel in most of the world except Washington, and even there Benjamin Netenyahu found it hard to drum up support in the usual corners earlier this year.

Israel does have the right to protect itself and its citizens from attacks and Hamas and Hezbollah’s part in the tragedy unfolding in the region should not be overlooked. However, what a large part of the world has balked at is the disproportionate Israeli response, a refusal to alleviate the human catastrophe in Gaza and a failure of the hardliners who constitute the Israeli government to appreciate that the right of the Jewish state to survive cannot mean carte blanche in keeping the Palestinians in a subjugated state for eternity.

The United States in Vietnam struggled to sustain popular support after images like the infamous picture of the 9 year old girl on fire after a napalm attack were transmitted to television sets worldwide. Winning the propaganda war today is harder. In an age where a cell phone can transmit the horrifying images instantaneously worldwide, anti-insurgency operations that appear cavalier about civilian casualties inflame world opinion. That appears to have led to the Israeli-Turkish breach.

This does not excuse the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah who have cynically exploited the suffering of their people for political gain. But as the stronger power (not to mention as a party to international treaty obligations regarding human rights) public opinion place a greater burden on Israel. Hamas’s bad acts cannot act as automatic exculpation for any Israeli action.  Winning this propaganda war will require positive actions from Israel and its friends in delineating the procedures and responses on Israel’s legitimate self defense needs, instead of the reflexive and tedious accusations of anti-semitism that were hurled when the Goldstone Report was released that only serve to harden opinion against Israel.

If the Balkans were the tinderbox of the late 19^th and early 20th centuries, the Caucasus contends for “honors” since the fall of the Soviet Union.  Starting with the Armenian-Azeri war over Nagorno-Karabakh and the Georgian conflicts with Abkhazia and Ossetia and then the brutal Russian wars with Chechnya blood has flown in the Caucasus with troubling regularity.  With a signing of an agreement to establish diplomatic ties and open borders, Turkey and Armenia have taken a major step to resolve one of the older conflicts in the region.

Armenia’s (and Georgia’s) location has contributed to its troubled history over the past 2000 years.  After a brief moment of imperial glory under Tigranes the Great, the country would be the subject of numerous wars between the Roman Empire and Parthia.  This rivalry would be passed on to their Byazntine and Sassanid Persian/Arab/Seljuk Turkish neighbors.  After the establishment of the Ottoman Empire the region would be the subject of numerous wars with Safavid Persia and then the Russian Empire.  It was the latter rivalry during the First World War that led to one of the greatest humanitarian tragedies in history.

Worried about an Armenian fifth column in the face of Russian military advances the Turkish government forcibly deported large Armenian populations.  In the ensuing massacres and deportation an estimated 1.5 million Armenians died.  Armenians and most of Western Europe termed this genocide.  The Turkish Republic vehemently opposes the designation of “genocide” arguing a lack of intent or organized slaughter of the Armenians who mostly died due to starvation in war time.

I first learned about the vehemence of these positions in my college days when the Usenet group soc.history was rendered unusable for over a 5 year period by repeated postings on the subject by a small group of Armenians and Turks.  Turkish sensitivities on the subject remain touchy with an acknowledgment of the deaths as genocide on Turkish soil leading to prosecutions for insulting Turkishness.  Likewise the Armenian Diaspora, particularly the influential American component, has aggressively pushed for recognition of the deaths as genocide.  The bruised national egos and the ghosts of the dead have long made any rational discussion of the subject between the aggrieved parties close to impossible.

And then oil stepped in to complicate the picture.  The discovery of oil in Azerbaijan with whom Armenia went to war over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh made the complicated traditional American sympathy for the Armenian position (often the product of domestic politics with respect to the Armenian Diaspora) with self interest in the need for Azeri oil.  Armenia is a logical transit point for the oil pipeline intended for the Black Sea.  Complicating matters further is the Turkish diplomacy in the post-Soviet world directed at enhancing common cultural ties with their ethnic cousins in Central Asia and Azerbaijan.

Saturday’s agreement is a major first step towards cooling down the temperature in the region (and improving Western access to the all important oil).  Many more steps need to be taken and it still remains to see if the ghosts of the past will continue to spook an attempt to step into the sunlight.  If Turkey and Armenia (and Azerbaijan) do resolve their differences it will be a positive example to their Georgian, Abkhazian and Ossetian neighbors to follow.