Balkanization of Iraq and Turkey's real concerns

The Balkanization of Iraq has become more evident than ever with the recent sectarian violence, unleashed by last month's bombing of the Shiite Askariya shrine. Iraq is moving closer to a civil war and almost unavoidable disintegration, prompting serious but less-mentioned worries in Turkey. The generally accepted interpretation of Turkey's insistence on the unity of Iraq has been that an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq might in turn stoke separatist feelings among Turkey's own Kurds. This interpretation might hold some truth, but only when looking at the issue from such a limited perspective that overshadows Turkey's other concerns, which include important strategic assessments, and further limits understanding the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party's Iraq policy. One of Turkey's strategic concerns is that Iraq's disintegration would break down the historical geostrategic balance between two of the region's important players, Turkey and Iran. It was Turkey's former special Iraq representative who made public, in an interview with London based daily el-Hayat last year, this less-known Turkish concern in preserving Iraq's unity. He stressed Turkey's worry was not a so-called fear of Kurdish separatism but preserving the strategic balance in the region which is maintained by Iraq's unity. "The division of Iraq would break this balance," Koruturk stressed. Quite surprisingly Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish prime minister's chief foreign policy advisor who has challenged several traditional lines of Turkish foreign policy, is not taking a different position on this issue. Let me revisit his 680-page book, titled Strategic Depth, which constitutes a guideline for the ruling AK Party's foreign policy. Davutoglu, in his book, compares Turkish-Iranian relations in historical and geo-strategic terms with German-French relations. He points out that there are both competition and cooperation elements that exist in this relationship, and further underlines the following: "The meeting and confrontation line of these two Western Asian powers (Turkey and Iran) has traditionally been the area including today's Iraq and eastern Anatolia, the line between Diyarbakir and Baghdad." (Strategic Depth, page 429) Davutoglu compares this region as the Alsace-Lorraine in German-French relations and concludes that a geostrategic division and instability in Iraq is fueling greater competition between Turkey and Iran. A second related and important concern for the Turkish government, as was also disclosed by Czech Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda last week, is the "increasing Iranian influence in Iraq." Svoboda in a conference at Chatham House quoted Gul as saying that if the U.S.-led coalition forces leave Iraq, then an Iranian-type radical Islam would be strengthened in Iraq and then Tehran would also be able to export this to Turkey. Although the Turkish foreign minister strongly denied remarks on Iran's regime export, and said that such an idea is totally irrelevant, he confirmed his worry about the power vacuum in Iraq. And this refers to another less-mentioned but serious worry held by the AK Party government, the "Shiite Crescent." That is to say a Shiite-dominated Iraqi government or a new Shiite breakaway state that is aligned with Iran, and connected to Syrian and Lebanese Shiites. This concern, which is shared by most of the Sunni Arab world, is an important element also shaping the AK Party's policy towards Iraq. After all, some analysts would argue that despite all the concerns, Iraq has always been an artificial country with a troublesome history and following the rise in sectarian violence, the breakup of Iraq into three is an inevitable outcome. Some advisors of the Bush administration may also view this as an acceptable solution since in this way Israel would be surrounded by small countries that would never form a bloc against Israel. But for the Turkish government this no doubt would be a nightmare.