The strategic roles of Turkey and Egypt can become overwhelmingly important for the determination of the future scenarios in the Middle Eastern region after the Arab Spring. Especially the relations between the two countries, that now are apparently moving toward an alliance, might transform in a hard competition.
The “Arab Spring” seems still far from its end. In countries such as Yemen and Syria the protests are still going on and slowly transforming into guerrillas and civil wars. In the meanwhile also in the countries that remained apparently untouched (such as most of the Gulf monarchies, Morocco, Jordan, Ageria) it is possible to observe many signals of social tension under the surface. Even in Tunisia and in Egypt, whose dictators were toppled in the beginning of this year, the transitional phase is going to last for a long time. The attention is concentrated primarily on Egypt, the biggest Arab country for population, whose developments have always determined the political path of the entire region.
In the meantime the West (particularly US and Europe, once the almost absolute dominators of the Middle Eastern political balances) is struggling against the worst economic crisis of its recent history and is losing most of the power that in the past allowed it to determine the political developments of the Middle Eastern region. The decline of the western influence on the Middle East has opened new political spaces for other ascending world powers, such as China and Russia, and especially for one of the Middle Eastern regional powers: Turkey.
Erdogan’s Turkey: between Europe and Middle East
“Turkey is sexy now”, stated Serdar Sualp, sales manager of Acerlik (the biggest Turkish household appliances firm) commenting the recent Erdogan’s travel across the Arab world. This simple sentence describes effectively not only the current appeal of Turkey’s economy, but also its diplomacy. Following the strategy of the foreign minister Ahmet Dovutoglu (the so called “Strategic Depth”) in the last years Turkey has been trying to detach its foreign policy from its traditional role of West’s historical Muslim ally, and has tried to conquer as autonomous role as regional leader inside the Middle East. It has been trying to exploit its position of applying member of the European Union, together with its role of democratic Muslim country with strong cultural and historical links with the Arab and the Islamic world. Until now the results have been remarkable. In fact the Turkish government managed to achieve an impressive chain of diplomatic and media successes that increased remarkably its influence on the public opinions and the governments of the region. Since the Freedom Flotilla’s diplomatic crisis with Israel, and the dexterous media management that the Turkish government was able to make of it, Turkey could exploit its increasing popularity in the Arab world and improve it during the overwhelming developments of the last year.
While, during the Arab Spring, the historical powers of the region were taking more and more disappointing stances - either to protect their strategic alliances (Iran toward Syria, the US toward Saudi Arabia and Bahrain) or because of their fear of a possible contagion (Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Gulf’s monarchies, Morocco) - Turkey has been able to express a much more coherent and strong policy, and to gain the favour of the revolutionary public opinions. The recent travel of the Turkish premier Erdogan across North Africa was the perfect parade to consecrate the Turkish influence in the Arab World, and particularly on the southern bank of the Mediterranean Sea.
In his most recent interviews, the Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davotoglu spoke openly about the main aims of this major diplomatic activism especially toward the relations with Europe: Turkey do not want anymore to be subjected to the diktats from Bruxelles about its application as EU member, and wants therefore to reformulate its relations with the EU and the west on a more equal bases. Further, Turkey aims to obtain the capability to impose its own conditions.
Observing the current situation, with Europe still struggling hard to solve its debt crisis (even doubting about its own currency’s sustainability), the Turkish aims do not seem unreachable at all. It is anyway necessary to analyze all the aspects of the very successful period that Ankara’s diplomacy is currently living. Indeed there are not few concerns about the possible degeneration on the medium-long term of some (or all) of the many international scenarios in which Turkey is engaged. Such unexpected developments could progressively weaken the country and the power of its international position.
In fact, since the beginning of last summer, Turkey reopened the diplomatic conflict with Israel, reaching the point of expelling the Israeli ambassador, while at the United Nations stands on the front line in the diplomatic battle for the international recognition of the Palestinian state. This caused the irritation of another historical powerful ally, the United States. Turkey is also engaged, again on the front line, in the riots in Syrian, supporting the Syrian internal opposition, whose meetings are hosted in the Turkish cities. Recently Turkey has also opened another complex diplomatic front with Europe and Israel about Cyprus, and the exploitation of the rich gas fields near the coasts of the Greek part. It has refused to support the NATO’s intervention in Libya, irritating its traditional western partners, but accepted to install on its own territory the new NATO’s strategic defense radar.
To this list of new political and diplomatic fronts, we should add also some more “traditional” issues that Ankara has never really solved such as the Kurdish problem (which could exacerbate again in case the situation in the north of Syria worsens), the almost one-century long controversy about the Armenian genocide, and the huge economic and social disparity between the west and east of the country.
Above all those uncertain scenarios, it is important to consider carefully the doubts about the real robustness of the Turkish economic growth. The country’s gross product has seen an impressive development in the last years, especially under the Erdogan’s governments. In 2010 Turkey was the only country in the world able to reach a growth rate close to 10%. Anyhow, there are many observers who watch at this apparently inexorable growth with skepticism, due to the Turkish current account’s data. In fact this year it is going to reach a record deficit of 9% on the GDP. The Turkish growth is especially based on the foreign investments aimed to consumption, while the industrial system Is still weak on the international markets. This situation has been already previously observed in other countries such as Greece or Spain, that have recently paid a big price for having neglected their current account deficits, after years of flourishing economic growth.
While now Turkey is able to play between the West and the East with impressive skill, the ultimate risk is that the country may find itself squeezed between them by its own strategy. In fact it is not unlikely that in the next years the fragile bases of the country’s apparently great economic trend will cause a sudden strong slow down. This may happen in a middle-long term scenario, in which the crisis in Europe is finally over, reversing once again the positions. In meantime there are strong chances that some of the diplomatic fronts in which the country is engaged will be subjected to unforeseen developments, like, for example, a Syrian open civil war (that might see Turkey even military engaged against the Assad’s regime).
EGYPT LOOKING FOR ITS ROLE
In meanwhile we should not neglect the possible developments inside the Arab World. At the moment Turkey seems able to keep it, at least partially, under its influence. This is possible especially because of the heavy but temporary weakness of its traditional main actors. But not a long time may pass before the major Arab countries manage to get out from the most difficult and instable phase of the Arab Spring that made them concentrate mainly only on their own internal fronts.
Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which now are still struggling in the political instability looking for new bases to build their legitimacy, in few years may be able to aim again to new powerful leadership roles on the regional and international scenes.
Analysts and international diplomacies are mainly interested on the power that a new democratic Egypt would be able to exert on the region. On the one hand all the observers now point at Turkey as most suitable model for the future institutional shape of the post-revolutionary Arab states. But on the other, this comparison fits only partially.
What is going to be really important in the next years are the transitional strategies in the social, political end economical fields that the Arab countries will have to employ to accomplish real changes after the long decades of dictatorship. In this issues Turkey cannot propose itself as a suitable model, since its democratization dynamics were rooted in a very different domestic and international context.
In due of its position of front-liner of the Arab Spring (with Tunisia) and biggest Arab country, Egypt is going to be the country that the others will take as an example to face the complex issues that the transitional years put or their path. Its future international role, that is already watched closely by other actors such as Europe, Israel and United States, will be also the measure to understand how much the Arab countries gained from their “Spring” in terms of diplomatic strength. The historical reconciliation agreement that Hamas and Fatah signed in Cairo last spring, and the prisoners swap between Hamas and Israel that marked the end of the five-years long Shalit affair, are just the first signals of what a new democratic Egypt would be able to obtain on the international scene in the next future.
CONCLUSION
Erdogan’s government seems to be conscious about the Egyptian potential. It is not a case that Egypt was the first stop of his triumphant tour across the Arab countries. During the bilateral meetings in Cairo, Erdonag and Davotoglu stressed several times the importance of a future alliance between Egypt and Turkey. Such an alliance, in their plans, would be able to determine the Middle Eastern balances. For this purpose the Turkish premier brought with him a big delegation of Turkish business men. They signed several contracts and agreements with their Egyptians counterparts in order to strengthen the already intense economic ties between the two countries.
The possibility of a high-potential close alliance between Turkey and Egypt is very likely. The real question is about witch partner is going to emerge in next years as the real dominator of this alliance and about how much Turkey will be able to use it for its own purposes toward Europe and the West.
Middle East’s history demonstrates that its Arab part always hardly beard the hegemony attempts of the non-Arab powers of the region (Iran’s case is particularly meaningful), or external to the region (United States, URRS, Great Britain, France). While now Turkey and Erdogan are admired and much link is used to remind the ancient cultural and historical links that Turkey and the Arab world share, in some years the same Arab world may also start to remember also that those links come primarily from the Ottoman era and the domination that the Turkish imposed to the Arabs for centuries. A kind of role that during the Arab Spring was definitely refused by the Arab societies.
Moreover we should not neglect the possibility that the Turkish influence may be mined by some unexpected developments in its economic growth or in some of the many international scenario in which the country is engaged.
In this possible future scenarios, the country that may gain more than the others in terms of influence and power is definitely Egypt. If it will be able to really accomplish its democratic transition.
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