The Turks are in a celebratory mood following the collapse of the Syrian government which they helped orchestrate.
The Turkish internet is overflowing today with Erdoğan videos like this one…
They are shared by proponents of Turkish nationalism, neo-Ottomanism or even territorial expansion who praise Erdoğan for Türkiye’s role in Assad’s fall & the ejection of Russia & Iran from Syria
🇹🇷🇸🇾 pic.twitter.com/5sXFLVsYMc
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 7, 2024
There’s a belief that all the refugees will be returned. The Kurds will be defeated once and for all, and Turkish President Recep Erdogan will rule Syria through proxy. It’s hard to see how any of that happens, however. As Moon of Alabama pointed out:
Türkiye had nurtured and pushed the al-Qaeda derived Hayat Tahrir al-Sham to take Aleppo. It did not expect it to go any further. The fall of Syria is now becoming a problem for Türkiye as the U.S. is taking control of it. Washington will try to use HTS for its own interests which are, said mildly, not necessary compatible with whatever Türkiye may want to do.
A primary target for Türkiye are the Kurdish insurgents within Türkiye and their support from the Kurds in Syria. Organized as the Syrian Democratic Forces the Kurds are sponsored and controlled by the United States. The SDF are already fighting Erdogan’s SNA and any further Turkish intrusion into Syria will be confronted by them.
The SDF, supported by the U.S. occupation of east-Syria, is in control of the major oil, gas and wheat fields in the east of the country. Anyone who wants to rule in Damascus will need access to those resources to be able to finance the state.
The Turkish economy, while not on Syrian levels, is in no shape to prop up a rump Syria. The country was seeing decades-long highs in inflation of 80-plus percent in recent years as Erdogan insisted on keeping low interest rates. It was in such bad shape that Seymour Hersh reported that Biden promised to lean on the IMF for an $11-13 billion line of credit to Türkiye in exchange for Ankara’s vote to allow Sweden into NATO. While the IMF loan didn’t come to pass, Erdogan reversed course on interest rates and inflation is down but still high (47 percent in November). The country is also now in recession.
At the same time, it’s more than likely the refugee problem gets even worse. Türkiye currently hosts upwards of 3 million Syrians, and while Ankara is hurriedly pushing them back into Syria and the media expresses concern that the loss of low-paid refugees will hurt the economy, that seems short-sighted.
Islamist extremist turned freedom fighter Abu Mohammad al-Jolani is having his inclusive message that encourages refugees to return home spread far and wide by Western and Turkish media. His record and that of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham which he leads does not — to put it mildly — support such statements however.
Nonetheless, wishful thinking abounds in Türkiye.
Turkish Exceptionalism
Viewed from afar, the atmosphere reminds me of when I was living and working in Istanbul 2015-2017 at TRT World. At that time Project Syria was well underway although running into problems. Still, there was an atmosphere of euphoria among the elite at TRT (you had to be a well-connected Turk to get a position there) that Türkiye was on the march, reclaiming its rightful position as leader of the Muslim Arab world (despite the country’s population being less than five percent Arab), and there was full support for neo-Ottoman aspirations to expand Turkish influence, if not territory.
That euphoria frequently ran into reality checks, such as after the shooting down of a down Russian fighter jet in November of 2015. Despite the initial excitement, Türkiye was eventually forced to apologize and even arrested the pilots who fired on the Russian aircraft after Moscow retaliated with economic measures and military action in Syria. It ended up being more of an embarrassment for Türkiye.
Euphoria returned a few months after the conclusion of that incident when Turkish direct military involvement began in Syria in August of 2016.
While some observers place nationalism and Islamism apart in Turkish politics, the Türkiye of those years seemed more a fusion of Islamism and ethno-nationalism. It seemed this ideology finally hit a wall as Project Syria stalled out, Türkiye was stuck with at least 3 million refugees from the conflict, and the economy tanked. On the surface Ankara scaled back its ambitions, learning to work with an ascendant Russia and China and publicly renounced its use of jihadist mercenaries — even as it did not do so in practice. Meanwhile, Türkiye’s expansionist aims were not only lying dormant but potentially growing.
In elections of 2018 and 2023 the biggest winners were the Islamist nationalists who believe in Turkish superiority. The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Iyi party took 21 percent of the vote and won 92 seats in parliament in 2018. Anti-refugee sentiment and economic hardships increased the vote share of Islamist ethno-nationalist parties in 2023, and they continue to have major influence on Turkish foreign policy. It’s not hard to draw a line between the history of say, the MHP, and Turkish support for extremist proxies.
The MHP was founded by Alparslan Turkes, an army colonel with links to Operation Gladio and it gathered strength with its tight relationship with right-wing paramilitaries like the Grey Wolves and Turkish organized crime in their CIA-backed battle against left-wingers, Communists, Kurdish, and Alevi organisations.
With their belief in Turkish superiority and goal to rule the Arab world, these forces are in many ways the flip side to the same coin of Zionism.
They are now emboldened.
Fahim Issa, head of Sultan Murad, thanks MHP head Bahceli and Erdogan for “making their dreams a reality.” Issa is a Turkmen and Grey Wolf; the dream is TR occupation of Syria.
And the int’l community calls on HTS and the Enver Pasha-loving SNA to protect minorities in Syria. pic.twitter.com/kxQxW2gwjk
— Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell) December 8, 2024
Sanctions and The Kurds
This ethno-nationalist neo-Ottoman ascendant wing of the Turkish elite is obsessed with the defense industry almost as much as they are with the destruction of the Kurds.
Due to US sanctions on Turkish defense industries and the presence of the US in eastern Syria and Washington’s use of the Kurds as proxies the two issues are inextricably intertwined. Sen. Lindsey Graham offers a reminder:
I appreciate the air strikes against ISIS targets in Syria, but it will not be enough. We have to ensure that the roughly 50,000 ISIS prisoners in northeastern Syria — being primarily held by Kurdish forces — are not released.
We should not allow the Kurdish forces — who helped…
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) December 9, 2024
The West, however, has been removing a lot of roadblocks for the Turkish defense industry in recent months.
It looks like the US is rethinking the sale of F-35s to Türkiye, which was dropped from the program over its purchase of Russian S-400 missile defense system. On November 26, Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler said an agreement was reached that will see the S-400s remain inactive and that the Americans have reconsidered their stance on selling F-35 fighter jets to Türkiye.
Likely more important than the faulty F-35s is relief from the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which has been used against Türkiye to get it to fall in line. There’s also been a years-long unofficial embargo imposed by Western allies on Türkiye, which has hampered its defense sector development. Here’s former US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland earlier this year:
“If we can resolve this S-400 issue, which we wish to do, the United States would be happy to welcome Türkiye back into the F-35 family. If we can get past this issue, sanctions under CAATSA will be removed and we can resume talks on the F-35.”
I haven’t seen any announcement from the US on the sanctions yet, but it is notable that the unofficial Western embargo recently came to an end. Der Spiegel recently reported that Germany’s Federal Security Council, which meets in secret, is approving the sale of $368 million worth of heavy weaponry to Türkiye, as well as reconsidering Türkiye’s request to purchase Eurofighter warplanes.
Türkiye also recently announced big plans for its own air defense project, one that likely reflects a belief that the end to sanctions — which hurt particular imports like semiconductors and microchips — are going to be relaxed.
Yet per Graham’s tweet above, it looks like the CAATSA sanctions will now be used in an effort to prevent Türkiye from steering its extremist army towards the US-backed Kurds in northeastern Syria.
On the Kurdish question, there’s been a lot of noise in Türkiye in recent months about a potential peace deal, which would be almost as shocking as Syria’s sudden collapse. Was that all another headfake?
Reuters reports that the US and Türkiye have a deal for US-backed Kurdish forces to withdraw from the town of Manbij, in northeastern Aleppo, Syria where they have been besieged there by Türkiye’s extremist proxies. Their retreat east of the Euphrates would be a win for Türkiye, but will it be enough? And can Ankara even continue to control the forces it has unleashed in Syria?
Türkiye’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, insisted on Sunday that any groups that were “an extension of the PKK” could not be part of talks on the future of Syria.
Will the threat of sanctions cancel out Türkiye’s desire to annihilate the Kurds. With the US and Türkiye it’s a waiting game between two non-agreement capable nations to see who will betray the other one first.
In the meantime we have a situation where an increasingly militarist government in Türkiye is desperate to project Turkish power but is simultaneously eager to get out from under sanctions holding back its defense industry.
Where Else Do US and Turkish Interests Overlap?
In some ways Türkiye, which is likely to be banished from future Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS developments (more on that below), is even more incentivized to push forward with expansionary aims in order to make itself an indispensable partner in the region — one that China and Russia are forced to continue to work with despite Turkish duplicitousness.
There’s a lot of talk that Türkiye wanted to do this while still having leverage over Russia, i.e., the Ukraine conflict still going on. The one big question is if — and this is an enormous if — the Trump administration can come to some agreement with Russia on Ukraine and the US overall belligerent policy towards Russia that extends from the Baltic and the Arctic to the Black Sea, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, Turkey would become less important. Are it and the US neocons done trying to reshape the board before Trump comes into office?
Because Türkiye is desperate to ramp up its homegrown defense industry for which it needs sanctions relief and because its economy is reliant on the EU, it’s unlikely it doubles down on its “success” in Syria with moves on Cyprus or disputes with Greece over islands and territorial waters in any serious way.
I think the question is where else do Turkish and US-Israel interests align. What Syria makes clear is that Türkiye’s imperialistic ambitions fit just fine with Washington — as long as it can be molded to fit US-Israel objectives as well:
The Zionist regime is moving troops deeper inside Syria. Meanwhile, it’s destroying all of Syria’s military infrastructure, including its navy.
Not a word from Erdogan or his Al-Qaeda henchmen.
Apparently, now that Syria is “free,” it should no longer be able to defend itself. pic.twitter.com/FTqsvBPqqR
— Seyed Mohammad Marandi (@s_m_marandi) December 10, 2024
Note: Turkey did condemn Israel’s “occupying mentality” after its forces entered a UN-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights, but is there any reason to take that more seriously than all Erdogan’s fiery rhetoric against Israel over the past year?
While differences remain on the Kurdish question, and Greater Israel and Greater Türkiye could be on a collision course, there’s still one area where the US, Israel, and Türkiye all see eye to eye.
Pan-Turkism and Weakening Iran
I’ve written about the Zangezur Corridor often (you can read more here and here) so I will keep this brief.
The Zangezur Corridor is a 42-kilometer strip of land in southern Armenia wedged between Azerbaijan and its exclave, Nakhchivan, and bordered by Iran to the south. While small it holds outsize importance for the region. That’s because it could deal a major blow to Iran (goal of Israel and therefore the US) while cementing Turkish power in the region.
On Saturday the Turkish Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee Chair renewed calls to open the corridor and expressed his country’s readiness to in exchange normalize relations with Armenia. Türkiye believes it would lead to the country’s rise as an Eurasian Great Power. Here’s what Ankara envisions:
A gas pipeline from Baku to Türkiye through the corridor.
Increased leverage in negotiating gas prices with Iran.
Resurrecting the Trans-Caspian pipeline and transporting that gas through Türkiye to Europe (A pipeline through a Nakhchivan corridor could help boost supplies to Europe to upwards of 31 bcm, although that would be years away, and ironically, due to its heavy investments in the Azerbaijani oil and gas sector, one of the bigger beneficiaries of any Brussels-Baku deals would be Russia. Azerbaijan is even importing more Russian gas itself in order to meet its obligations to Europe.
A logistics corridor stretching to China.
A railroad line from Türkiye to Nakhchivan could make Türkiye a regional transit hub in addition to an energy one.
It could require China to work with Türkiye on Middle Corridor logistics — especially if the West is successful with its Georgia color revolution efforts that would deal a major blow to Beijing’s efforts to open a huge Black Sea port there. The corridor could potentially deal a blow to Russia as well depending on the finer points of any deal.
The corridor situation for Iran has similarities to Syria. It would harm Iranian influence in the region in a major way.Iran would be eliminated as a bypass route around Armenia. Details from Al Monitor:
Iran earns a 15% commission from Azerbaijan’s gas supplies to Nakhchivan. It serves also as a route for Turkish exports to Central Asia. An average of about 12,000 Turkish trucks use the route monthly, with Iran charging passage fees of up to $800 for their 1,800-kilometer (1,120-mile) journey to the Turkmenistan border.
More than the money, however, Iran doesn’t want to lose influence over Azerbaijan, which relies on transit through Iran to connect to its exclave. And Tehran is especially worried about a NATO Turan Corridor which sees the West link up hypothetical client states throughout central Asia. From Dr. Vali Kaleji, a Tehran-based expert on Central Asia and Caucasian Studies:
Iran sees the creation of the Zangezur corridor as a matter beyond the access of the Republic of Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan exclave and believes that this corridor will provide direct military access for Türkiye as a NATO member in the Caucasus and west of the Caspian Sea. Indeed, a significant number of Iranian elites and experts believe that the expansion of Türkiye’s presence in the South Caucasus, especially through the Zangezur corridor, will strengthen pan-Turkism in the region, which is a direct threat to the Azeri regions of north-western Iran.
There’s been a lot of talk of red lines and the like, but what does Tehran do if Armenia, guided by the Americans, chooses to allow the opening of the corridor? Like Syria where Assad reportedly turned down Iranian assistance, is Iran really prepared to go against the wishes of another government in order to defend its interests — in this case something along the lines of occupying southern Armenia?
Azerbaijan is key. It enjoys a strong relationship with Russia, and while there are still holdups between Baku and Yerevan, it’s unclear if Azerbaijan wants the corridor under US guidance at the cost of damaging ties with its powerful neighbors in Iran and Russia. On the other hand, Azerbaijan’s closest ally is Türkiye, and Baku has major economic ties with Israel (and it’s believed a heavy Mossad presence in the country).
We’ll see. Türkiye and Erdogan are anything but predictable. While Türkiye might have its hands full in Syria, that doesn’t mean it won’t take on another major risk. It’s not hard to see the pieces sliding into place for an additional major move by the US-Israel neocon-Zionists and the Turks that would seemingly benefit both sides. The great question would be how Iran and Russia would react.
Win the Battle, Lose the War
Common wisdom is that Erdogan is the big winner in the toppling of the Assad government. Türkiye could also end up being the biggest loser long-term.
It could be swamped with more refugees. As the Syrian extremists are no longer united by the goal of deposing Assad and are faced with the impossible task of governing, prolonged power struggles are likely, which will force Türkiye to back a faction thereby making new enemies. . ANd it’s entirely possible — if not likely — that the fight comes to Türkiye and we see a return to the terrorist attacks that plagued the country in the mid-2010s. There’s also tension brewing at home over Türkiye’s ongoing poorly disguised support for Israel, which maybe Syria helps paper over a time, but is unlikely to go away.
It’s unclear what economic benefits this “victory” has for Türkiye. The Financial Times opined that “Türkiye, already struggling with high inflation and recession, would benefit from resuming full business and trade ties along the 900km Syrian-Turkish border. Its construction sector, which has close links to Erdoğan, could cash in on a rebuilding bill expected to run to hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Hard to see how that happens unless the country magically finds peace and security. It’s much more likely this all ends up blowing up in Türkiye’s face. I noted the similarities between American and Turkish exceptionalism. One major difference is that the US can make a mess and retreat to its home between two oceans. Syria shares a border with Türkiye, and the US has likely destabilized not just Syria but Türkiye as well with its support for the Turkish-led operation to topple Assad.
Ankara could end up missing Assad, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah and their stabilizing presence.
Unlike the euphoria following the 2015 shoot down of the Russian fighter jet, there won’t be any putting the toothpaste back in the tube this time following the inevitable come-down from the recent high.
At the same time, Türkiye has burned some serious bridges with Beijing and Moscow. The powers that are strengthening in the New Cold War (China, Russia, and even India) will not look kindly on a Türkiye willing to use extremist proxies to pursue its goals. They’ll look even less kindly on it after Turkish officials spent recent months lying to their faces. There were two paths open to Türkiye in the New Cold War, WWIII, or whatever you want to call it:
Continue to play the middle ground as conflict in Ukraine continues while simultaneously forging stronger ties with Moscow, Beijing, the SCO, and BRICS. This is largely what Türkiye was doing and seemed to reflect an acknowledgement that while the Islamist ethno-nationalist short-term goals might align with declining US-Israel, Türkiye’s long term interests lie with good relations with all its neighbors, especially Russia.
Side with one side. I’ve written often about how the West with its pressure campaigns and US-Israel genocide was making Türkiye’s position untenable. Shockingly, Türkiye decided it was more in its interests to bow to the US-Israel in this case rather than move in the other direction.
Now the Turks obviously don’t frame it as choosing door number two. They think they’re solely on the side of Türkiye and pursuing Turkish interests. But Russia, China, and the Global South will view it as a major betrayal. That’s because Türkiye didn’t just happen to have overlapping interests with the US-Israel in this case, but it spat in the face of what the BRICS and SCO stand for by relying on extremist mercenaries, violating sovereignty and agreements, and in retrospect it’s clear that Turkish officials were lying to the faces of their Russian and Chinese counterparts. You can read here what Erdogan and Turkish officials were telling the Russians and Chinese at the summer SCO summit, which coincidentally had a focus on settling the Syrian issue and bringing Türkiye into the operation to secure the Asian “heartland” from Western meddling and regime change operations.
Will China and Russia continue to work with Türkiye when necessary? Türkiye is counting on it as it relies on Russia for most of its gas and oil and is courting Chinese investment to serve as a backdoor into the EU customs union. But Turkey is now viewed as a problem that must be dealt with, not a country that can be enticed by economic carrots and appeals to mutual self-interest. It is an enemy to the project of Eurasian integration and SCO defense against imperialism.
And should Türkiye’s reliance on jihadists, Nazis, and Zionists blow up in its face, it will get very little sympathy from China, Russia, the BRICS, or SCO — nor for that matter will the West shed a tear.
