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Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Turkey and Syria

Such “prudence,” “restraint,” and “patience”—the administration is fond of these words—can be commendable when a situation is messy or murky. But neither applies in Syria. This is an easy call: We have a chance to eliminate one of America’s worst enemies in the region—the linchpin of Iran’s alliances and terrorist apparatus. We have a chance […]

Such “prudence,” “restraint,” and “patience”—the administration is fond of these words—can be commendable when a situation is messy or murky. But neither applies in Syria. This is an easy call: We have a chance to eliminate one of America’s worst enemies in the region—the linchpin of Iran’s alliances and terrorist apparatus. We have a chance to traumatize Tehran: The world will look a lot more precarious to supreme leader Ali Khamenei and a lot more hopeful to the millions behind Iran’s pro-democracy Green Movement if Bashar al-Assad goes down. The importance of Syria to Iranian foreign policy and internal politics cannot be overstated. ~Reuel Marc Gerecht

Gerecht certainly tries his best to overstate it. One thing that seems clear is that Assad’s fall is not going to have much effect on the hopes of the Green movement. How would that work exactly? Are we supposed to believe that the opposition will gain in popularity and strength because Iran suffers a strategic setback? That seems implausible. It also doesn’t follow that Assad’s fall will mean that Syria ceases to be in Iran’s orbit. An unstable, chaotic Syria would be vulnerable to continued Iranian influence in any case. The Syrian military obviously has a vested interest in preserving the regime if it can, and it also has built up significant ties with its counterpart in Iran. That isn’t going to go away anytime soon. That’s the heart of the problem: no one has any idea what might follow if the current leadership is removed. There could be nothing murkier than the Syrian situation.

Gerecht proposes Turkish intervention to create a “buffer zone” in northern Syria. Turkey could do this, but Gerecht doesn’t explain why its government would. There is no explanation of how Washington could entice an Erdogan government that it has repeatedly dismissed and ignored for years on every significant regional issue to take military action against its neighbor. Turkey opposed intervening in Libya, and wanted no part of it, but its view and its interests were ignored once again. Gerecht does cite growing popular outrage and feelings of sectarian solidarity in Turkey as motivations for Turkish action, but these are hardly good reasons. The argument is notable for one other thing. This must be the first time that someone writing for The Weekly Standard has insisted that Erdogan make policy decisions for the sake of assuaging Turkish public opinion. For all the warnings of neo-Ottomanism in Erdogan’s Turkey coming from the right these days, it is quite strange to hear calls for armed Turkish intervention in a former Ottoman territory.

If Turkey were to intervene, it would damage a relationship with Iran that has been a major part of the “zero problems” foreign policy it has pursued over the last several years. Meir Javedanfar believes that Turkey can afford to ignore Iranian complaints and pressure Assad even more, but this assumes that Erdogan is willing to jeopardize another relationship along with the one with Assad that he has already abandoned. In fact, Turkey has nothing to gain from any of this, and the U.S. has done everything it could in the last year and a half to give Erdogan no reason to take such a risk on our behalf.

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