Our thoughts today continue to be with the people of Israel dealing with the horrific fire in the Carmel Forest.
I saw this morning that PM Netanyahu and PM Erdogan of Turkey spoke this morning for the first time. Netanyahu thanked Erdogan for sending planes to help Israel fight the forest fire. The Turkish assistance was among the first aid to arrive in Israel. Now, you may say, “Turkey needed to do something!” Yet, there was no expectation that they would. Relations have fallen to such depths in recent months that I doubt there would have been much surprise had Turkey sent no aid. In the JPost article, Netanyahu said, “I really appreciate Turkey’s help, we will find a way to express our appreciation” and that this action “will serve as an opening to improve relations between Israel and Turkey.”
This got me thinking about how the Wikileaks documents have affected Erdogan specifically. I am not saying that any change in attitude has resulted in assistance coming from Turkey. My friend, Barry Rubin, pointed out that Israel sent a lot of aid when Turkey was struck by a big Earthquake. Thus, it is unlikely that Turkey sending aid to Israel is the result of any new policy toward Israel as such.
That all said, for some time now, Turkey and Iran have been building a friendship. Erdogan has tried to become a player among the leaders of the Arab League nations and has had a view of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the Israel-Arab conflict that is in line with Iran’s and Syria’s. One thing that the Wikileaks documents have demonstrated conclusively is that most of the Arab League’s leaders do not share this view, especially concerning the Israel-Arab conflict. Â In fact, what they perceive is not an Israel-Arab conflict, but instead they see a conflict in which those Arab nations allied with the West are on the same side as Israel against Iran and its “emirates.”
In the Wikileaks documents, Erdogan does not come across well. He is described, among other things, as avoiding any sources of information that were not Islamist. One must wonder whether or not this reliance on Islamist sources, especially if any significant portion of them came from Iran, misled Erdogan into believing what he wanted to believe was true, reinforcing his anti-Israel and anti-Western attitudes and strengthening his pro-Iran convictions. It seems likely that this is the case. Erdogan may even have come to believe that by standing up for Iran against America and Israel, he would be seen as a hero in the Arab and Muslim world.
One may ask, how could he have come to believe this? The answer is simple. No one among the rest of the Western allied Arab leaders would tell him what they really believed because they worried it would get back to Iran. They didn’t trust Erdogan. They saw him, not as a leader of the Muslim world, but as a lackey of Iran, an assistant to the Islamist radical enemy. So Erdogan could go forth under a delusion that he was supported by more than Syria and Iran.
Fast forward a few months to the State Department Wikileaks. Suddenly Erdogan is confronted with the truth. The rug has been yanked out from under him and the blindfold removed from his face. He was not being respected for his pro-Iran anti-Western stance, but being disrespected. He was totally wrong about how most Arab leaders felt about Iran and for that matter, about Israel.
I’m not about to say that Erdogan is going to shed his Islamist underpinnings and become a lover of Zion, nor am I going to say that things are going to vastly improve between Turkey, America, and Israel overnight. Erdogan could decide to make a firmer stand with Iran. However, Erdogan believed himself to be the potential restorer of the Ottoman Caliphate, as the major leader of the Arab and broader Muslim worlds. It must be difficult to find out that most view him, not as a hero, but as Mini-Me to Ahmadinejad’s Doctor Evil even though in stature Ahmadinejad would give Napoleon a run for his money as shortest dictator.
Dr. Evil and Mini-Me
This is of course is unless they cast Assad of Syria (Baby Dorktator) in the role of Mini-Me in which case Erdogan becomes…wait for it…
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Fat Bastard
Might make you reassess your political life a bit.
Chappy Chanukah!
Rabbi, superb piece. But you’ve violated one of Meryl’s unwritten rules:
Any reference to Bashar Assad must include at least one use of the term “Dorktator.”
I believe Meryl coined it, and is quite insistent on its use.
J.
You’re right. Fixed that.
The Arab governments are hostile to Iran and its ambitions but are the Arab people? I think Erdogan will see that they are infavor of anything that hurts Israel and the US, even if it comes from Persian Shi’a heretics in Iran.
Over the longer term, on the other hand, hostility between Iran and Turkey is vitually inevitable. The Iranians see themselves as the regional hegemon. Persian imperialism is part and parcel of their Islamism. Similarly the Turks see themselves as regional hegemon-in-becoming. They look to recover the old Ottoman hegemony, even if not direct rule over the various Arab states. Plus, Turks and Persia have a centuries old tradition of hostility. And radical Sunni Islamists are not known for their toleance for Shi’a. If those two states ever got their wish and thrust the USA out of the region, and especially if they ever managed to destroy Israel, there would be a regional war that would be absolutely devastating. It would make the Iraq-Iran War of the 80s seem small potatoes by comparison.