Category: Martin Naunov
Stronger Erdogan, weaker Turkey
The July 15 Turkish coup attempt was swiftly quashed. Just as swiftly came President Erdogan’s fulfillment of his promise that those responsible “will pay a heavy price for their treason to Turkey.” Why the coup failed, who was behind it, and what is the future of US-Turkey relations were the main questions explored at the Atlantic Council event last Tuesday “Ten Days after Quelling the Coup: Where is Turkey Headed?” Moderated by Aaron Stein, Senior Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, the event featued Elmira Bayrasli, Visiting Fellow at New America, and Steven Cook, ENI Enrico Mattei Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Cook offered four reasons for the coup failure. The first and most important was the divided Turkish military. The coup was a factious scheme, not a unified undertaking. Second, the plotters underestimated Erdogan’s hold on power, which he has held since 2003. Third, the Turkish military is not as strong as it seemed. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Fethullah Gulen — whom Erdogan regards as the main culprit of the coup attempt — used to be partners and worked in parallel to weaken and subordinate the military. Lastly, Turkish society appears no longer willing to accept military rule.
Bayrasli clarified that Fethullah Gulen is a US-based cleric who founded the Hizmet movement. Rooted in moderate Islam, Hizmet has attracted millions of followers and has funded hundreds of schools, think tanks, and media outlets around the world. Erdogan accuses Gulen of orchestrating the coup and has urged the US to extradite him. It is possible he was behind the coup, but it is also true that Gulen has become Erdogan’s “default scapegoat.” Until Turkey provides solid evidence, the US cannot extradite Gulen, but the claim of his involvement advances Erdogan’s effort to concentrate power.
Bayrasli noted that the AKP came to power with technocrats who delivered. Turkey has seen enormous economic growth since Erdogan came to power. But economic prosperity hasn’t been matched with political and social advancement.
Cook and Bayrasli believe that Washington and the EU are positioned as mere spectators, with little leverage over Turkey’s internal affairs. The implicit Turkish threat to send a large number of refugees in the direction of Europe means that the EU will remain mute over Erdogan’s purge. According to Cook, “Turkey has the EU over a barrel.” Turkey’s paramount importance in the fight against ISIS will silence Washington too.
With its military in chaos, with police and the ministry of interior decimated by purges, Turkey may not remain an effective partner in the fight against ISIS, either in controlling its borders with Syria or working with the US at Incirlik. Who is going to substitute thousands of judges and teachers, and tens of thousands of policemen and army personnel? The purges are weakening Turkey and are undermining its capacity for effective governance. Turkey might have the EU over a barrel, but at least Washington should not be a mere spectator.
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Americans sorted
ISIS and the challenge of radical Islam have emerged as a major theme on the presidential campaign trail, particularly in the wake of the Orlando shooting, the deadliest terrorist attack to occur on US soil since 9/11. Last Monday, Brookings hosted an event launching the results of two new public opinion surveys that gauge the effect of the Orlando terror attack on American public attitudes about Islam and Muslims.
The first survey was conducted two weeks before the June 12 shooting at Orlando’s Pulse gay club, and the other two weeks after. Both were conducted by Shibley Telhami, Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings. After presenting the results, he was joined in discussion by William Galston, the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies at Brookings, and Tamara Cofman Wittes, Senior Fellow and Director of the Brookings Center for Middle East Policy, who served as a moderator.
Contrary to what one might expect, American attitudes toward Muslims and Islam have not worsened, but have become more positive after the Orlando shooting. The two charts below — presented by Telhami — show the change in public perception pre- and post-Orlando.
In May 2015, 53 percent of Americans viewed Muslims favorably, a sentiment expressed by 58 percent of Americans in May 2016 and 62 percent in June, two weeks after the terror attack in Orlando. Americans distinguish between “Muslim people” and the “Muslim religion,” viewing Muslims more favorably than they view Islam. While 62 percent of the people surveyed expressed favorable attitudes toward Muslims, only 44 percent thought the same of Islam.
The point that Telhami and Galston emphasized is that attitudes about both Muslim people and Islam are largely divided along party lines. 79 percent of Democrats have favorable views of Muslims, compared to 42 percent of Republicans (37 percentage points difference). Similarly, 82 percent of Democrats deemed Islamic and Western religious and social traditions as compatible, compared to only 42 percent of Republicans (40 percentage points difference).
Attitudes about the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Iraq War are also split down party lines. When asked “Which one of the two factors do you believe is most important in the emergence and growth of ISIS?” 71 percent of Democrats answered “Going to war with Iraq in 2003,” in contrast to 61 percent of Republicans who think it was “Withdrawing most US troops from Iraq.” The panelists maintained that Americans are deeply polarized. According to Wittes, “if one had to come up with a single headline [to capture the survey results], it would be polarization.”
Someone who has read Morris Fiorina’s Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America would know that what Wittes is talking about is rather party sorting, not polarization. In other words, what the Brookings survey depicts is the process of party purification, where party affiliation now reflects ideology to a greater extent than a generation ago. The opinion distributions in the survey show no evidence of increase in conservatives and liberals, or a decrease in those having more moderate views. Additionally, when presented with dichotomous choices like in the Iraq War question above, or in other questions related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, subjects are only able to choose between two extremes. Given a choice between two extremes, they can only choose an extreme, but polarization of people’s choices is not the same as polarization of their positions.
The fact remains that Republicans and Democrats are largely divided on questions concerning Islam and the Middle East. This divisiveness is even more pronounced in the 2016 presidential election. The election represents ideological sorting of an even greater level than the parties the candidates represent. Only 16 percent of Trump supporters view Islam favorably, compared to 66 percent of Clinton supporters (50 percentage points difference). The “clash of civilization” question, asking whether Islamic and Western religious and social traditions are compatible, tells a similar story. 64 percent of Trump supporters say they are incompatible, while 13 percent of Clinton supporters perceive such incompatibility (50 percentage points difference). With respect to the the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 43 percent of Trump supporters believe the US should support either annexation without equal citizenship or maintaining the occupation; 13 percent of Clinton supporters take that view.
As Galston observed, “in the past political differences ended at the water’s edge. Now, those days are gone.” The surveys reveal that these cleavages are larger than those found in domestic politics on issues like abortion or same-sex marriage. In fact, gaps don’t get much bigger. Islam and the Middle East have sorted out America. Americans need to sort this out.
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Countering Daesh in cyberspace
In his speech following the deadliest shooting in American history and the nation’s worst terror attack since 9/11, President Obama asserted that the gunman had been radicalized over the internet. Many Daesh (aka ISIS) fighters, sympathizers, or “lone-wolf” attackers are like Omar Mateen. They have been radicalized online or have been exposed to violent extremism via social media, such as Twitter, YouTube, or other platforms. Radicalization is not new, but the internet has made it easier and faster. Social media platforms have become central for disseminating terrorist propaganda, allowing recruiters to reach a far larger and more global audience.
What the US government in partnership with NGOs and the private sector can do to successfully counter violent extremist narratives online, and what they are already doing, were the main topics at the “Fighting ISIS in the Information Space: Government and Civil Society Perspectives” panel, hosted by New America on last Thursday. The panel consisted of Meagen LaGraffe, Chief of Staff at the Global Engagement Center (GEC), and Tara Maller, Spokesperson and Senior Policy Advisor for the Counter Extremism Project. It was moderated by Peter Bergen, Director of New America’s International Security program and CNN’s national security analyst.
Recognizing that Daesh, and violent extremism in general, cannot be defeated solely by military force, in March 2016 President Obama signed Executive Order 13721, establishing the GEC as an interagency entity based at the Department of State. LaGraffe explained that the GEC plays a critical role in the Obama Administration’s revamped strategy to undermine Daesh’s media messaging and erode its appeal.
The Executive Order states that the Center “shall lead the coordination, integration, and synchronization” of US counterterrorism messaging to foreign audiences. According to LaGraffe, observers had rightly criticized prior government efforts focused on producing video or other materials in English. Even though the government has a good message to tell, it is not the best messenger to to its target audiences. The Center therefore refrains from messages with a government stamp on them.
The new strategy is defined by identifying local partners and more credible messengers on the ground, and working with them to produce more localized anti-terrorism messages. For LaGraffe, “it takes a network to defeat a network.” Among other parties, this network includes ISIS defectors and foreign fighters’ family members, whose messages seem to be particularly effective for counter-radicalization and counter-recruitment.
In addition to fostering and empowering a global network of local messengers, the fight against Daesh also requires cooperation with nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and especially social media companies. Maller applauded Twitter shutting down 125,000 Daesh-linked accounts, but asserted that a lot more can be done. She explained that every picture and video has a unique DNA. Companies don’t have to review manually extremist content, but instead can use technology like Microsoft’s PhotoDNA to detect ISIS photos or videos as they’re being uploaded. This allows for immediate removal of the content and of the user’s account. The same image matching technology is already used to stop the online spread of child sexual abuse content.
Daesh does not rely on its own media platforms, but primarily uses platforms owned by private companies in America, which have the power to shut its messages down. Maller observed that like the US government, NGOs and the private sector still haven’t caught up with the significant change in terrorist radicalization techniques and recruitment strategy. Countering violent extremist narratives and defeating Daesh requires that they all step up their game.
As acknowledged by LaGraffe, the GEC is solely concerned with changing behavior, and not necessarily with changing beliefs and perceptions. While an entity that does this work is undeniably necessary, a successful long-term approach to countering terrorism requires deeper contemplation about the root causes of terrorism and commitment to address them. The internet accelerates, but it rarely if ever creates.
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America is already great
On Wednesday, June 29, the Atlantic Council hosted the first public presentation of Pew Research Center’s 2016 annual report on America’s global image, followed by a discussion on international views of America’s role in the world. The discussion was facilitated by Molly O’Toole, Senior Reporter at the Foreign Policy Magazine, and featured David Rennie, Washington Bureau Chief and Lexington Columnist at The Economist, and Richard Wike, Director of Global Attitudes Research at the Pew Research Center.
Wike presented the key findings, which aim to gauge America’s international image. Contrary to claims of increased anti-American sentiment, America’s image remains strong and largely favorable in the countries surveyed, which however exclude Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. More than 50% in every country surveyed (10 European, 4 Asia-Pacific countries, and Canada) expressed a favorable opinion of the US. The exception was Greece, where only 38% embrace this sentiment. Other recent Pew studies suggest the US enjoys a positive image around the globe, including 56% of Indians and 50% of Chinese, with young people much more likely to have a positive opinion, though Wike noted that “young people around the world are more positive towards the US, more positive towards China, more positive towards the UN — they are just more positive, more internationalist.”
In 15 out of 16 countries (Greece again being the exception), the majority expressed support for US-led military intervention against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. This support is remarkably high in most Western European countries, including France (84%), Sweden (81%), the UK (71%), and Germany (71%). This response is different from reactions to all previous US-led interventions in the Middle East. According to Rennie, the refugee crisis, coupled with the increase in the number and magnitude of terrorist attacks, have rendered ISIS the highest security threat in Europe. The fight against ISIS is not seen in Europe as a quarrel in a far away country, but rather as an issue that directly affects European citizens.
The Pew survey also indicates that while America was able to regain perceived primacy as the global economic power — which for the past few years most people attributed to China — perception of US respect for personal freedoms at home remains relatively weak. Only 53% of Western Europeans think the US respects the human rights of its inhabitants. This is lower than 2008, the final year of the Bush presidency. Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA’s surveillance programs, increased awareness of unauthorized interrogation techniques used in the post-9/11 era, as well as the controversies regarding police treatment of African-Americans and other minorities likely contributed to the decline. Rennie observed that America’s reputation for upholding individual liberty constitutes an important source of soft power and gives a degree of credibility to US interventions. Government officials should work on improving America’s international perception regarding respect for human rights and liberties.
The panelists all agreed that America’s global image is highly personified in the President: who is in the White House has a tremendous impact on how people around the world see the US. After the start of the Iraq War in 2003, President Bush suffered negative ratings in most parts of the world and Pew observed a significant rise in anti-Americanism in most regions. The image of the United States has improved immensely in most regions after Obama was elected as a President in 2008, a shift that was particularly pronounced in Western Europe.
O’Toole suggested that the 2016 Presidential elections will have a tremendous effect on how people globally view the US. Wike substantiated this claim with hard data. The newest Pew study finds a remarkably negative assessment of Trump, with 85% of Europeans lacking confidence in him, and a median of only 9% confident in his ability to handle international affairs. While not as enthusiastic as for Obama, most Europeans still look at Hillary Clinton favorably. A median of 59% express confidence in her. As Rennie observed,
the caricature of Bush is fairly close to what Trump tells his supporters he will be….Everything that Europe thought they disliked about George W. Bush, Donald Trump is currently telling his supporters is what he will deliver.
As O’Toole noted, both Pew surveys and other evidence invalidate the almost trite claim that today the US is neither respected by its allies nor feared by its adversaries. However, this might in fact change with the 2016 elections. If America’s global image really is personified in the President — as the panelists contended — then we need to envisage Donald Trump, with his 9% favorability rate in Western Europe, personifying America. Recognizing the complexity of the current state of international affairs, and the serious challenges that plague the world, more fear everywhere is nearly guaranteed, while allies’ respect practically inconceivable.
For now, however, America’s global image remains strong and largely favorable.
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