03.03.2017
The Afro-Eurasian blueprint for Neo-Ottomanism was
revealed in the previous two parts of this research, so now the work will take
a turn towards examining the opportunities and challenges that could
realistically impact on Turkey’s forthcoming Great Power expansion and
strategic plans. In order to make this as easy as possible for the reader to go
through, the following information will be organized in any given order
according to bullet points that summarize each main concept and then briefly
elaborate a bit more about them:
Opportunities
*The “Federalization” Of Syria:
If the Syrian Arab Republic is carved up into a
collection of quasi-independent identity-focused statelets, then it’ll be much
easier for Neo-Ottoman Turkey to expand its own potentially forthcoming
federalized administrative-political apparatus to incorporate “Syrian
Kurdistan” and “Sunnistan”, conditional on the former being run by a KDP-like
pro-Turkish leader/party, and the latter achieving cross-border sub-state
political connectivity with its co-confessionals in Iraq or expanding to the
point of abutting Jordan.
* The “Federalization” Of Cyprus:
Turkey is striving to see to it that the island is
reunified through a federal arrangement which would grant the Northern Cypriot
statelet influence over the unified country’s economic affairs, which would
then allow Ankara to de-facto be able to leverage its influence in gaining a
stake in the Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline. If Turkey can become a party to
this project – no matter to which indirect degree it is, such as through
Northern Cyprus – then it will be able to greatly expand its influence in the
entire region and by extent through Greece and Southern/Southeastern Europe as
well.
* The Tripartite:
The trilateral strategic coordination between Russia,
Turkey, and Iran is advantageous for Ankara in this context because it
preserves stable relations with Tehran and improves the chances that an
Iran-Turkey pipeline could one day be commissioned. This is still a very
distant prospect, however, but it’s nevertheless important for Turkey to safeguard
this route in order to leave open the possibility of receiving Turkmen gas via
Iran and then re-exporting it to the EU via TANAP and/or Nabucco.
Challenges
* Syrian Resistance:
If the patriots continue to resist the War of Terror
on Syria and hold out against the dangerously real de-facto “federalization” of
their country (whether as part of an intentional or inadvertent consequence of
the conflict resolution process), then this would throw a wrench into Turkey’s
Neo-Ottoman plans by drastically diminishing the possibility that “Syrian
Kurdistan” and “Sunnistan” would be swallowed up by a revived and federalized
Caliphate. It would also make it so that the only hope for building the
Qatar-Turkey pipeline would rest with Iraq and via transit across “Iraqi
Kurdistan” and its version of “Sunnistan”, though this could be disrupted by
pro-Iranian Shiite forces if Turkish-Iranian relations begin to sour.
* The Tripartite Falls Apart:
Turkey’s American and “Israeli” allies are pressuring
it to break ranks with Iran and force Russia into a choice between Ankara and
Tehran, of which it’s widely expected that Moscow would side with Ankara when it comes
to Syria while still retaining moderately positive relations with Tehran in
general.
Any sort of substantial step in this direction would
destroy the likelihood of an Iran-Turkey pipeline to feed into TANP and/or
Nabucco, though Ankara might figure that this could be an ‘acceptable
sacrifice’ if it believes that the PKK Insurgency might take a long time to
totally quell anyhow.
It might also be nudged in this direction if a deal is
made between Ankara, Washington, and Tel Aviv to guarantee Turkey’s de-facto
participation in the Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline as compensation, with the
US and “Israel” promising to push Nicosia to accept the federalization of the
island which would enable this.
* “Sunni Civil/Cold War”:
Identified as a scenario nearly half a year ago in a previous piece of research, the author believes that there’s a
chance that Turkey and Saudi Arabia could become rivals for MENA’s Sunnis,
though this eventuality seems less likely nowadays after Erdogan’s latest visit to the Gulf and the negative trend in Turkish-Iranian
relations.
In the event that a strategic dilemma develops between
both of them, potentially relating to Ankara’s patronage of the Muslim
Brotherhood and Doha’s subversive utilization of its shared proxy against
Riyadh, then the two Great Powers might enter into unfriendly competition with
one another that could possibly see the Saudis dispatching Wahhabi jihadis
against Turkey.
* Nagorno-Karabakh Re-Erupts:
If a Continuation War occurs in Nagorno-Karabakh,
possibly started by “EuroMaidan”-like Armenian nationalists which seize power
in Yerevan sometime in the future, then it would run the risk of prompting a
Russian-Turkish crisis over the two sides’ contradictory mutual security
obligations to Armenia and Azerbaijan, respectively. Moreover, the Armenians
might damage the BTC Pipeline to the extent that it might take an indefinitely
long period of time to eventually fix, which would totally undermine Turkey’s
Neo-Ottoman ambitions in trying to become an energy crossroads superpower.
* The Constitutional Amendments Fail:
Overlooked amidst the grander scenarios being
presented in this section, if the Turkish people reject Erdogan’s proposed
constitutional amendments for enacting a strong presidential system in the
country, then it would instantly stop internal/domestic Neo-Ottomanism and
prompt the government to scrambling in finding other ways for bringing this
about. Although seemingly unlikely, it can’t be ruled out that this won’t
happen.
* Coup And Civil War:
If the US manages to do the supposedly impossible and
pulls off a coup against Erdogan, then the country would probably enter into
civil war as the Islamists fight against the Secularists and the whole
Neo-Ottoman project suddenly unravels. There seems to be no way that Erodgan’s
supporters would allow a coup government to undo the perceived progress that
their leader has made over the past decade, and the subsequent conflict would
fundamentally transform every level of Turkish society.
On a related tangent, if the PKK Insurgency intensifies
and gets wildly out of control, this would both prevent the future construction
of an Iran-Turkey pipeline and also send destabilizing shocks all throughout
the country which could dangerously reverberate in unimaginable ways, thereby
further undermining the state and potentially contributing to the
abovementioned civil war scenario.
* Somali Mission Creep:
Although not too important of a factor in the grand
scheme of things, Turkey needs to avoid having its Somalian base become the target of different terrorist groups,
as this might pull Ankara deeper into the decades-long quagmire in the country.
However, considering that there are reports that Turkish-ally Qatar holds powerful influence
over Al Shabaab, this is unlikely except in the event that Daesh takes over
parts of the country and carries out these attacks instead.
In that case, Turkey and its Somalian hosts might feel
compelled to separate the “good” anti-Daesh Al Shabaab from the “bad”
pro-terrorist ones and apparently replicate what seems to be the popular trend in both Syria and Afghanistan vis-à-vis Jaysh
Islam and the Taliban, respectively.
* Greek-Turkish War:
The escalation of bilateral tensions to the point of
war could prompt a situation whereby neither party is interested in going
forward with the TANAP project. If Turkey doesn’t yet have influence on the Eastern
Mediterranean Pipeline by that time through the federalization of Cyprus, then
Greece will vengefully do everything in its power to prevent this from
happening.
There’s a distinct possibility for TANAP to be
rerouted through a future Nabucco pipeline, which would still take years to
build in any case, but that might also not happen if Sofia sides with Athens
out of Orthodox solidarity and/or returns to being under Russian influence to
the degree that it objects to any project which could weaken Moscow’s
Balkan/Turkish Stream sway over the region.
No comments:
Post a Comment