Here are the speaking notes I prepared for today’s noontime presentation at SETA DC:
- It wasn’t free or fair, but Erdogan has won his gamble: he has not only the enhanced presidency but also a coalition majority in parliament. He in effect controls the judiciary and press as well.
- The opposition is fragmented and likely to prove no more effective than in the last few years, though its hostility to Syrian refugees will guarantee it some support.
- Turkey looks headed deeper into one-man rule, even if Erdogan fulfills his pledge to lift the emergency.
- It would be foolish to imagine Erdogan will suddenly become generous to his enemies, end his crackdown on over 100,000 alleged coup-plotters, break with the Russians, re-focus attention on fighting Islamic extremism and qualifying for EU membership, negotiate peace with Turkey’s Kurds, or patch up the alliance with the US.
- I wonder if he would even restrain his body guards from beating up demonstrators were he to visit the US again.
- The question is what the US should do about it? How do we make it through the coming years, possibly even a decade or more, with an erstwhile ally moving in a direction it is hard to like?
- The current occupant of the White House makes these questions more difficult than they would normally be. He is on the outs with Erdogan, but not over human rights or relations with Russia. Trump and Erdogan might agree entirely on those issues.
- But President Trump has continued to insist on supporting the Syrian Kurds and hasn’t proven much help on the extradition of Gulen, which are the two things Erdogan cares about the most.
- Ironically, the best approach is one Trump might find attractive: a transactional relationship that relies less on Turkey as an ally and more on its usefulness to the US.
- The most important aspect of that usefulness is geography. The Incirlik air base is important to U.S. operations throughout the Levant. So long as it remains available, we are going to have to try to improve relations with Erdogan, who fortunately gets real benefits from those operations.
- As Syria’s northern neighbor with a long common border, Turkey is hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees. The US has spent around $600 million to support them and needs to continue.
- The immediate crunch issue is the sale of F35s to Ankara, which Congress is trying to stop. What is needed is a compromise, one that ends Erdogan’s threat to buy Russian S400 air defenses while allowing the transfer of the F35s. Secretary Mattis is said to be working a deal of that sort. I can’t help but wonder whether a Patriot sale might also still be something Erdogan still wants.
- The question of the Syrian Kurds is next. The agreement on Manbij appears to be working so far and needs to be completed with reformulation of the town’s governing body and withdrawal of YPG forces east of the Euphrates.
- Much tougher will be the issue of prisoner releases: Ankara holds dozens of Americans, apparently hoping to trade them for Gulen. It is hard to convince Erdogan that Trump does not have the same power over Gulen’s fate that Erdogan has over the Americans Turkey holds.
- If, however, a court decides in favor of extradition, I doubt the Trump administration will stand in the way.
- This, I’m afraid, is how we will need to proceed: issue by issue, looking for trades we can reasonably do that Erdogan will find attractive. It will be a hard slog, one during which concern about human rights abuses will likely find little public expression.
- I nevertheless hope the Administration will make a strong case in private against Erdogan’s continued crackdown. All but the immediate coup plotters should be freed, Kurdish political leaders and journalists should be released and amnestied or pardoned, jobs should be restored.
- The strongest potential leverage the Americans have now on human rights is economic: Turkey is headed in a bad direction that will be made much worse if secondary sanctions against Iran are instituted.
- Relief from secondary sanctions could be traded for easing the crackdown, but Trump isn’t likely to do that. Erdogan will have strong incentives to surreptitiously violate the sanctions, which he did even during the Obama era.
- Erdogan has won. Trump is in power. Elections have consequences.