TURKEY-IRAN STRATEGIC PARTNERS?

As Turkey’s quest to join the EU evaporates it is gradually turning its back on the West in favor of strategic partnerships with Iran and Syria who have voiced support for a Turkish invasion of Iraq. Such an invasion could come at any time despite US pleas for restraint when Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visited Washington on November 5.
He warned by Bush Administration figures that an invasion of Iraq could lead to a wider conflict that would benefit America’s enemies in the region. At the same time, his top general, Yasar Buyukanit, told journalists in the Turkish capital, Ankara, that Turkey was a great state and did not need anyone’s approval to invade Iraq. Buyukanit said the US had only been consulted about Turkish plans in order to avoid the possibility of “friendly fire” between US and Turkish soldiers once an invasion began. As far as he was concerned, invasion plans were merely waiting approval.
Iran has cleverly stoked Turkish anger towards the US by persuading the Turks that America has not done enough to stop Kurdish guerillas from the PKK – Kurdistan Workers Party - attacking Turkey from mountains bordering northern Iraq and Turkey. Iran shares Turkey’s disdain for the PKK which has also carried out attacks inside Iran. The Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has admitted his government has held meetings with the Turks to discuss a bi-lateral approach to combating the PKK threat. In a call to the Turkish prime minister, he said Iran fully understood Turkey’s concern with the continued threat from inside Iraq. He complained that the United States was playing a double game by covertly supporting Kurdish insurgents to create disharmony among states in the region.
In a move that further angered Washington, Iran brought Syria into the mix by encouraging it to reach out to Turkey over the PKK issue. Syria’s foreign minister, Walid Mouallem lost no time issuing a statement that his country backed Turkey’s right to strike back at PKK terrorists who threatened not only Turkey but Iran and Syria.
For some time, these three countries have kept a close eye on other events in Iraq, especially US moves to incorporate the oil rich city of Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Regional Government, which is closely tied to the US. Washington wants the Kurds to control the massive oil reserves in northern Iraq, fearing they could fall under the jurisdiction of a future Iraqi Shiite government with close links to Iran. The Bush Administration will go to any lengths to achieve this goal even if it means dividing Iraq into three regions - Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and the Shiites mostly in the south. While Iran is concerned about Kirkuk being transferred to the Kurds so too is Turkey, which has warned the US that Kirkuk would provide Kurds with the means to create a powerful state on its borders with the power to reach out to disgruntled millions of Kurds residing in Turkey and Iran.
All in all, Iran has cleverly courted Turkey by identifying Turkish concerns with issues that conflict with US and Western policy in the region. But it is not just on that level that the two nations have grown closer together. They have become serious trading partners with trade levels between the two now above the $7 billion mark and expected to reach over $15 billion in 2008/2009. Turkey has also been negotiating to have natural gas piped from Iran into Europe, making European countries less dependent on Russian supplies from the Caspian. That would help make Turkey a bigger regional player.
Perhaps, it was only a matter of time before Turkey, facing EU rejection and a drift from decades of secular rule, would turn its eyes east to the Muslim world in an effort to become a big player. An indication this was happening was the developing Iran relationship, which had previously been one of enmity going back to the days of the Ottoman Empire when Turks limited the spread what was then the Persian (now Iran) rule of the Safavi dynasty.
A sure sign the US is worried about Turkey’s alliance with Iran was the November 10 visit to Ankara by the Saudi King Abdullah Aziz, a close ally of the United. His visit to Turkey last year was the first by a Saudi rule for more than four decades. The irony of his two visits were not lost on historians who pointed out that Saudi Arabia had been at the apex of the Arab revolt that led to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, yet now a Saudi King was coming to plead for Turkey’s help in moderating Iranian influence, which the Saudis like the US and Israel regarded as a pernicious. Even though his visit appealed to Washington, it nevertheless cemented Turkey’s assertion it was a major player in the Islamic world. It also demonstrated that the Saudis supported Turkey’s drift from secularism to better relations with Islam. Abdullah cautiously voiced his fears that Turkey could unwittingly become a means for Iran to expand Shiite influence inside Iraq at the expense of the Sunnis whom the Saudis support. But he was careful not to be seen to be dictating to Turkey. In order to conceal the fact Iran was the primary reason for his state visit, he advocated changes in rules governing the numbers of Turkish pilgrims permitted to attend the yearly religious Haj in Mecca, which is controlled by Saudi Arabia. Last year, almost half a million Turkish Muslims applied to make the pilgrimage but the Saudis officially insisted on allowing only 70,000. With applications for next year’s Haj expected to be close to one million, the Saudi ruler promised to negotiate a higher quota.
But the introduction of a religious issue did not obscure the fact that King Abdullah’s trip was made at the behest of the US and Israel who have been leading an international clamor for the total isolation of Iran. In a sign that Turkey was not prepared to take that path, the county’s president, Abdul Gul, a devout Muslim, said Turkey’s greatest asset was that it could serve as a bridge between Europe and the East. In other words, it did not serve one master. He added that his nation was an important part of the Muslin world and “the revered traditions of the East.” That was exactly what Iran and Syria wanted to hear. The Saudis must now sit back and watch US policy vis a vis Kurdish northern Iraq, worried that if it conflicts with Turkish interests, the Turks will draw even closer to Iran and Syria.

WHITE HOUSE WARNS FRANCE OVER ARMS DEAL

Just when it seemed France and the United States were repairing soured relations that had their origins in France’s opposition to the Iraq war, there have been sharp exchanges between the White House and the Elysee Palace.
The US is angry that an arms deal involving two French companies could lead to China’s air force acquiring a military edge over its counterpart in Taiwan. As far as Washington is concerned, the deal is also a breach of the EU embargo on sales of military hardware to the Chinese. Strangely enough, the arms deal is not with China though it would be a potential beneficiary. It is with Pakistan, which is involved with China in a joint project to build the JF-17, a multi-operational fighter on order for the Chinese military. Pakistan approached the French companies to purchase the most advanced radar and air-to-air missiles for the fighter and got the go ahead from the French government. Pakistan assured the French that its role in the project was to handle the avionics, including the radar and missile while the Chinese concentrated on hardware. After a contract was signed, no mention of it was made to Washington which keeps a watching brief on all things connected with China’s weapons procurement. However, when details of the deal were leaked by someone in Pakistan, the Pentagon immediately contacted President Bush and he had harsh words with his French counterpart, Nicholas Sarkozy.
President Bush is to said to have pointed out that Taiwan was already using French built Mirage fighters with the same kind of radar and missiles the French were about to sell off to Pakistan. If China were to get its hands on the source codes used to integrate the radar and missiles into the fighter jet, the Chinese military could incorporate those codes into its J-10 fighters, thereby giving them an edge over Taiwan’s Mirage fighters.
After that exchange, the French Defense Minister, Herve Morin told journalists he knew of no arms deal with Pakistan, and the two French companies at the heart of the issue refused to answer questions about it. European defense experts had harsh words for the French. Andrew Neill, a British military specialist on Asia predicted a severe rebuke for the French from the Bush administration. Like others, Neill saw the episode as yet another devious attempt by China to exploit what appeared to be a regular arms deal with Pakistan in order to find a way the EU and US embargos on sales of hi-tech military equipment to China’s Peoples’ Liberation Army. Other experts pointed to the fact that it was not only the US and Taiwan that would be justified in demanding that the French jettison the deal but also India, which has as much justification as Taiwan for seeing that its neighbor, China, does not suddenly acquire a military advantage in the skies.
The actions of the French highlighted a recurring fault line in France’s relationship with the United States. On the one hand, the new French President, Nicholas Sarkozy, appears to be everything his predecessor, Jacques Chirac was not but in others ways he is a traditionalist. For example, he supports Washington’s tougher line against Iran yet gives his backing to a French foreign policy that seeks in some ways to detach Europe from the US, especially in terms of the EU’s relationship with countries like China. France has been particularly vocal within the EU in arguing that the US should not be allowed to determine how Europe interacts with China, which offers a large market to EU products. The French defense industry has also lobbied hard for a lifting of the EU embargo, arguing that France is missing out on billions of dollars and that sooner or later China is going to acquire the hi-tech military equipment it needs through third parties, especially the Russian defense industry. That view has not convinced everyone in France that the embargo is counterproductive. Several leading commentators have argued that the more hi-tech materials China acquires, even in the field of civilian aircraft design, the quicker China will develop an edge over its competitors, including EU nations like France.
From a US perspective, White House intervention may have forced a re-think by the French but even if that is the case it will not be known for months. In the meantime, the episode raises another danger, namely how much the developing strategic relationship between China and Pakistan - as well as joint military projects the two nations have undertaken - will compromise US security and undermine its efforts to prevent China acquiring certain types of hi-tech military software and hardware.

A WOMAN WITH ENEMIES ON ALL SIDES

When Benazir Bhutto returned to her native Pakistan on October 19 after a decade in exile in Britain and the Middle East, terrorists killed 130 of her supporters in an attempt to assassinate her. The irony, however, is that she has so many enemies even she finds it difficult to name the perpetrators.
The Taliban and Al Qaeda have her name at the top of their assassination lists but so too have many smaller Islamic terror groups. She became Public Enemy No 1 for jihadists after she declared her support for the US war on terrorism and promised that if she negotiated a power sharing deal with Pakistan’s leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, she would work with the US to hunt down Bin Laden and other terrorists on Pakistani soil. That promise represented a radical departure from the present policy that forbids US troops from pursuing terrorists across the Afghan border into Pakistan.
According to Mrs. Bhutto, her enemies include elements within the ISI –Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence – as well as senior figures in the army. She alleges they conspired in the recent attack on her life. She has never flinched from criticizing the ISI, which created the Taliban. She believes ISI agents continue to foment strife in her country and in Afghanistan. In her view, the ISI should be purged of dangerous elements that were forced into retirement after 9/11 but have since drifted back into its ranks. She reckons they see her as a threat because she would return the country to democracy and refuse to appease Islamic militants and terrorists.
While she is a charismatic figure – once described by Time as one of the most powerful women in the world and by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s most popular politician – her political life has rarely been without controversy. She was born in 1953 into a wealthy Muslim family in Karachi, yet was nonetheless educated at several leading Convent schools. Later she studied at Harvard and at Oxford University where she distinguished herself by becoming the first Asian woman to be president of the famed Oxford Union. She was known as highly articulate, politically astute and very western in her social and political views. Her love of politics derived from her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who served as Pakistan’s president (1971-1973) and as its prime minister (1973 – 1977). Prior to 1971, he was a foreign minister and UN representative and in all his political dealings he proved to be a very controversial figure. During the Cold War, he did energy deals with the Soviets, and turned Pakistan away from the West, in particular the US. At the same time, he courted China. He is credited with making Pakistan a nuclear power.
Like his daughter, he made many enemies, and if his writings before his death are to be believed, he angered the US by taking Pakistan down the nuclear road. Before his death, he wrote that in 1976 Henry Kissinger warned him “we will make an example of you.” Whether or not the US had a hand in his downfall, he had a penchant for ruling with an iron fist and alienating friends and foes alike. He angered the army when he appointed a new chief of staff, General Zia ul-Haq, who was not first in line for the job. He also antagonized Muslim leaders, who believed he was rigging elections to guarantee the dominance of his PPP- Pakistan People’s Party. In 1997, Zia al-Huq, the general he appointed to the top job, seized power and had him arrested. Nine months later, Zia, despite pleas from leaders across the globe, had Ali Bhutto hanged on a guilty verdict delivered by the country’s Supreme Court. Bhutto’s supporters continue to argue that the charges against him of murdering a political opponent, corruption and election rigging were falsified.
Benazir was 24 when her father was executed and to this day she blames elements in the ISI and army for plotting against him and manufacturing false charges that resulted in his death. After he died, she was placed under house arrest for several years before being transferred to solitary confinement in a remote prison. She later wrote about the nightmare in solitary during which her hair fell out, skin peeled off her face and hands, and she was constantly bitten by mosquitoes, spiders and ants. After three years, she was released and fled to Britain where she kept her political profile high with rallies demanding an end to military rule in her country. Gen. Zia, who had her father executed, died in a mysterious plane crash in 1988 only months after he had a change of heart about military and promised the return of democracy. Benazir Bhutto was determined to go back, and told friends if she rose to power she would deal harshly with those who hanged her father.
In December 1988 she became the first prime minister of a Muslim state and immediately lifted some of the more draconian laws limiting trade unions and student activism. But her enemies within the ISI and the army were soon plotting her downfall and her hold on power lasted less than two years. Like her father before her, she was removed from office by a president who was also chief of staff of the army. He deemed her corrupt and unfit for office. Her husband, to whom she had given cabinet status, was arrested and held for two years on corruption charges. It was alleged that he had taken kickback from international defense companies and that he and Benazir had moved millions of dollars into secret accounts abroad, including Switzerland. She alleged it was a plot to take her down and she fought back, returning to power as prime minister in 1993.
By then, Islamic radicals throughout the country were opposed to her leftist views and her tendency to look to the West in shaping her foreign policy. By 1996, she was again in a political dog fight with familiar enemies, including shadowy figures in the ISI and the upper echelons of the army. She and her husband were again accused of corruption, a now familiar accusation in the Bhutto family history. Her husband, like her father, was charged with hiding money abroad and authorizing the assassination of political rivals. While he remained in custody, she again went into political exile in London and subsequently Dubai. In her absence
In 2004, she had secret meetings with Pakistan’s leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf and that led to her husband’s release from prison even though Pakistani investigators claimed they had traced secret bank accounts overseas into which Benazir Bhutto’s husband had laundered hundreds of millions of dollars. Her talks with Musharraf were initiated by the US and Britain in the belief that if Musharraf was able to share power with her, he could relinquish his role as commander in chief of the army, but remain as president until a successor was found. Elections would be held in which Bhutto would undoubtedly be elected prime minister. Those talks with Musharraf gained momentum this past year and may well bear fruit in the months ahead. They are part of a US-led strategy to return democracy to Pakistan while putting in place a stable leadership. The US fear is that if militants came to power they would have access to the country’s nuclear trigger. Benazir Bhutto has so far impressed President Bush. He liked what he heard during a White House meeting with her in January this year. But he must know, as do close observers of the turmoil in Pakistan, that her most pressing problem may be staying alive long enough to achieve her goals. With the enemies she has, her life will be in constant danger. And, if she is right, some of the danger may come from those designated to protect her – generals and members of her country’s intelligence services.

NEW IRAN SANCTIONS PRECURSOR TO WAR?

The new wave of sanctions imposed by the State Department and Treasury on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Defense Ministry are likely to have as little economic impact as the US sanctions already in place. They could, however, represent a last ditch effort by the White House to bring Iran to heel before a “shock and awe” attack is ordered against Iran’s nuclear and military facilities.
The reality is that the new sanctions do not have the backing of Russia and China. As for the EU, it has not given its wholehearted support to the latest US move. Behind closed doors in the corridors of power in Brussels and Strasbourg, diplomats have expressed disapproval and alarm at White House policy on the Middle East. The EU needs Iran if it is to achieve a goal of reducing its dependence on Russian oil and gas. To that end, it has had talks with the Iranians about the viability of a gas pipeline. EU leaders see a pipeline as a necessary move, fearing that in the event of a new Cold War, Russia could turn off the energy taps and use natural resources as a powerful diplomatic tool.
Iran’s considerable oil and gas reserves have made it a valuable international trading partner for all but the US. Any move by Washington against Iran that could hurt Russia and China economically would be viewed in Moscow and Beijing with concern. Russia’s disapproval of the latest sanctions was evident in a comment by Russian leader, Vladimir Putin that President Bush was like a man “running around with a razor blade in his hand.”
Nevertheless, Condoleezza Rice and the Treasury have hailed the latest sanctions, and the decision to brand the IRGC – Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps – a terrorist organization, as another powerful step in hurting Iran economically and forcing it to abandon its nuclear ambitions. The Bush Administration strategy appears to be predicated on several assertions that may not necessarily hold true. First, it believes that the Iranian leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is already so unpopular at home that any damage to his country’s economy will generate protests on the streets and force him out of office. History demonstrates, however, that sanctions rarely have the kind of political impact for which they are intended. In many instances, unpopular leaders have used sanctions to boost their approval ratings by making those who imposed the sanctions the real enemies of their people. One of the most glaring examples of the failure of sanctions over five decades is Cuba that sits just off the US coastline.
There is also the fact these new sanctions lack global back and cannot therefore be effective. Iran will still have business partners in China and Russia and will be able to exploit the international black market economy. The irony of the US move is that it has been forced to go it alone with these sanctions even though there is little international dispute about the risks if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, or that it has been meddling in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. It may be that the US has ignored what other countries realize and is that only a serious international coalition opposed to Iran’s role in Iraq and its efforts to go nuclear can have any hope of success and going it alone is pointless.
The result could that that this latest strategy will only serve to embolden Iran’s leadership. That could have serious consequences for Iran and global security. In 2008, when it becomes evident to George Bush and Dick Cheney that their Iran police failed they may opt for preemptive strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, or encourage Israel to undertake the strikes. As a result, Iran’s nuclear ambitions would be set back for five years but the price of oil would go sky high and Iran would retaliate. It would probably unleash Hezbollah to attack Israel and use Shia militias in Iraq to turn on the US military. In an ensuing tit-for-tat Israel could use the opportunity to invade Lebanon again and in Iraq the US military could find itself in the middle of a widening conflict without the manpower to respond.
As things stand now, this new batch of sanctions targets the Iranian Defense Ministry, the IRGC and its special operations Quds force, as well as three leading Iranian banks, which the US Treasury claims have been funding Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shia militias in Iraq and Hamas in Gaza. The banks are all state-owned and include Bank Saderat, Bank Mellat and Bank Melli. The aim of the sanctions is to deter international companies from doing business with the banks. Twenty Iranian companies closely aligned to the IRGC have also been identified as targets but they will still be able to conduct business with Russia, China and Arab states.
The US set its sights on the IRGC because it is one of the most powerful parts of the Iranian military apparatus. Numbering around 130,000 personnel, it has 105,000 soldiers organized into one marine brigade, six mechanized divisions and six infantry divisions. It also has its own air force, navy and missile units. But it is the elite Quds force that has most concerned the US military in Iraq because it has equipped and trained Shia militias and insurgents in the use of improvised explosive devices that have caused untold US casualties.
The Quds force was founded during the Iran-Iran war and one of its early leaders was the current Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It lost approximately one million soldiers during that conflict. It has since become a smaller, elite force designed to train Islamic movements such as Shia militias in Iraq, Hezbollah and Hamas. It even trained Iraqi Kurds to fight Saddam Hussein’s army. It is believed Quds helped Hezbollah develop the tactics that halted the Israeli army’s push into Lebanon in 2006. It is unlikely, sanctions of the kind now introduced will have any serious impact on the Quds or the IRGC, both of which have powerful allies at all levels of the Iranian government. While Russia and China remain opposed to these latest US moves and the EU remains lukewarm about US Middle east policy, Dick Cheney and George Bush will probably plot other strategies for dealing with Iran. Privately, George Bush has made it clear he will not leave office without ensuring Iran has no means of building a nuclear weapon. One has to ask if these latest sanctions represent his penultimate move before he authorizes stealth bombers to attack Iran’s nuclear and military facilities. Former British foreign secretary, Jack Straw has said that a year ago he would not have envisaged an attack on Iran, given that it would generate a “gargantuan mess.” But, now that he has seen what he calls the “horror” of Iraq he says he can easily conceive of an attack on Iran.