an alarming burst of Turkish irredentism
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shared by Ed Webb on 25 Oct 16
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Turkey's New Maps Are Reclaiming the Ottoman Empire | Foreign Policy - 0 views
foreignpolicy.com/...t-ottoman-borders-iraq-erdogan
Turkey Syria Iraq irridentism history geography borders states maps Erdogan foreignpolicy analysis AKP
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Erdogan criticized the Treaty of Lausanne, which created the borders of modern Turkey, for leaving the country too small. He spoke of the country’s interest in the fate of Turkish minorities living beyond these borders, as well as its historic claims to the Iraqi city of Mosul, near which Turkey has a small military base. And, alongside news of Turkish jets bombing Kurdish forces in Syria and engaging in mock dogfights with Greek planes over the Aegean Sea, Turkey’s pro-government media have shown a newfound interest in a series of imprecise, even crudely drawn, maps of Turkey with new and improved borders
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they aren’t maps of the Ottoman Empire, which was substantially larger, or the entire Muslim world or the Turkic world. They are maps of Turkey, just a little bigger
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this combination of irredentist cartography and rhetoric nonetheless offers some insight into Turkey’s current foreign and domestic policies and Ankara’s self-image. The maps, in particular, reveal the continued relevance of Turkish nationalism, a long-standing element of the country’s statecraft, now reinvigorated with some revised history and an added dose of religion
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Government rhetoric has been quick to invoke the heroism of Turkey’s war of independence in describing the popular resistance to the country’s July 15 coup attempt. And alongside the Ottomans, Erdogan routinely references the Seljuks, a Turkic group that preceded the Ottomans in the Middle East by several centuries, and even found a place for more obscure pre-Islamic Turkic peoples like the Gokturks, Avars, and Karakhanids that first gained fame in Ataturk’s 1930s propaganda
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Erdogan, by contrast, has given voice to an alternative narrative in which Ataturk’s willingness in the Treaty of Lausanne to abandon territories such as Mosul and the now-Greek islands in the Aegean was not an act of eminent pragmatism but rather a betrayal. The suggestion, against all evidence, is that better statesmen, or perhaps a more patriotic one, could have gotten more.
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Criticism of Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman foreign policy is now as likely to come from the Arab world as anywhere else
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while countries like Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, and Hungary brought disaster on themselves by trying to forcibly rewrite their postwar borders, Turkey — under Ataturk and his successor — wisely resisted this urge
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The Sultan Murad Brigade, comprising predominantly ethnic Turkmens, has been one of Ankara’s military assets inside Syria against both Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the PKK. Meanwhile, the Turkmen population living around Mosul and its surrounding area has been a concern and an asset for Ankara in Iraq. Turkish special forces have worked with the Iraqi Turkmen Front since at least 2003 in order to expand Turkish influence and counter the PKK in northern Iraq.
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Turkish minorities in northern Greece and Cyprus have played a similar role. That is, their well-being has been a subject of genuine concern for Turkish nationalists but also a potential point of leverage with Athens to be used as needed
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Erdogan has also emphasized a new element to Turkey’s communitarian foreign-policy agenda: Sunni sectarianism
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Erdogan’s new sectarianism is evident in Mosul, where Turkey has warned of the risks to Sunnis should Shiite militias take control of the city. But the policy’s influence is clearest in Syria, where Turkey has been supporting Sunni rebels aiming to topple the Assad regime (including those now struggling to hold the city of Aleppo). In both Iraq and Syria, however, Turkey’s sectarianism has not been allowed to trump pragmatism. Ankara has been keen to maintain a mutually beneficial economic relationship with Iran despite backing opposite sides in Syria and in the past year has also expressed its willingness to make peace with Assad if circumstances require it.
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the points at which Turkey has proved susceptible to irredentism in the past have all come at moments of change and uncertainty similar to what the Middle East is experiencing today. In 1939, Ankara annexed the province of Hatay, then under French control, by taking advantage of the crisis in Europe on the eve of World War II
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Ankara is all too aware of the fact that the power to do so remains the only rationale for foreign intervention that matters
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shared by Ed Webb on 05 Dec 16
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Who in the GCC wants a union? - 0 views
www.al-monitor.com/...ialogue-iran-nuclear-deal.html
KSA UAE GCC Kuwait Saudi Bahrain Qatar Oman politics regionalism foreignpolicy IR
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Citing “security problems, economic challenges and other serious issues confronted by the region,” Bahrain’s Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa recently announced that the transformation of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to a union is an “inevitable goal” of this month’s Manama Dialogue (Dec. 9-11).
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With absolutely no illusions that Oman — historically the most independent member of the GCC — has changed its position, last month Ghanem al-Buainain, Bahrain’s minister of Parliament Affairs, stated that he sensed “great enthusiasm for the union from the other Gulf members.”
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Many non-Saudis in the GCC view Saudi Arabia as an important ally, yet they also see the oil-rich kingdom as an overbearing neighbor who does not always respect the smaller Arab Gulf states’ sovereignty. Due to a host of domestic issues in the GCC and regional developments, which the Arab Gulf families see through different lenses, Riyadh and Manama officials may see their plan for a union falling on deaf ears.
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Kuwait is the GCC state with the most vibrant political life and democratic institutions. Opposition to a union from Kuwait is largely attributable to concerns about “collective security actions” that Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states could pursue to silence dissent and activism in Kuwait. Last month’s snap elections in Kuwait will bring in parliamentarians to the National Assembly from an opposition made up of liberals and Islamists whom other GCC states would not permit to hold any position of power in their own political systems. As many Kuwaitis take pride in their “half-democracy” and relative transparency and openness, the concept of a union has met its share of resistance in the country from voices across its political spectrum.
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Doha has established ties with Islamist factions throughout the region and hosted many Muslim Brotherhood members — often done so at the expense of healthy relations with other GCC states. If other Arab Gulf countries such as the UAE, which designate the Muslim Brotherhood a “terrorist” group, and Qatar belong to a union, what will be the future of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi and other prominent Islamist figures who live in Doha?
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Emiratis view themselves as a rival of Saudi Arabia for a dominant role in the region’s financial landscape, Abu Dhabi would not lend its support to a Riyadh-based Gulf central bank. In the UAE, where the authorities are waging a crackdown on Islamists, there has long been a belief that the Muslim Brotherhood operates in the Emirates on behalf of Saudi Arabia and Qatar for the purpose of undermining the UAE’s national sovereignty and independence.
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Oman’s interest in deepening ties with Iran in commercial, diplomatic, energy and security spheres is a major factor driving Omani opposition to a union
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Given the Kuwaiti and Qatari royal families’ cordial relationship with their countries’ Shiites who are loyal to the Al Sabah (Kuwait) and Al Thani (Qatar) rulers, threats of an Iranian-inspired Shiite revolution or rebellion have not provoked substantial sectarian tension in Kuwait since the end of the first Gulf war, nor has it ever done so in Qatar at any point following Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s rise to power in 1979. This outlook fundamentally contrasts with Saudi Arabia’s and Bahrain’s outlook, which is based on an understanding of Iran being a predatory state committed to toppling the Al Sauds and Al Khalifas through a violent revolution. Manama and Riyadh’s shared view of the Islamic Republic as an existential threat has closely aligned the two kingdoms and led Bahrain to maintain its strong support for a de facto Saudi-led union.
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the option of perhaps one day importing Iranian gas may receive greater consideration if they remain relatively independent from Saudi Arabia in the framework of a council (not union) and their economic ills increase their interest in importing more natural gas. Yet a union would erase any realistic Kuwaiti or Emirati plans for signing gas contracts with Iran
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there are grave concerns in the GCC about the US’ long-term commitment as the council’s security guarantor
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Brexit Is Destroying Britain's Constitution - Foreign Policy - 0 views
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despite the fervent hopes of remainers, nothing that happened last week makes an “exit from Brexit” more likely. Instead, Brexit compromises conceivably capable of bridging the country’s divides, such as the “Norway plus” option proposed by moderate Conservative MP Nick Boles, are now harder than ever to reach
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Without a working majority, party leaders must pay attention to their hard-liners, or, as some Conservative Party members have been known to call them, “swivel-eyed loons.”
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Normally, Britain’s flexible political system could accommodate one party’s indulgence of extremism: if the Conservatives found themselves advocating something radical such as leaving the EU, this would typically open up space in the center for Labour to position itself as the defender of economically pragmatic close relations with it. However, Labour is currently led by the far-left and anti-European Jeremy Corbyn, keen to facilitate Brexit and take advantage of the economic chaos to implement a radical socialist agenda.
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new, essentially sectarian political identities created by the Brexit referendum itself. Leavers and remainers move in different social circles and have different understandings of the central facts of Brexit
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rampant reports of conspiratorial plots within the cabinet: remainers plotting a new referendum (and seeking legal advice on whether Britain’s decision to leave could be revoked by executive action, without consulting Parliament) and anti-Europeans threatening to resign from the government, reject the withdrawal agreement Theresa May negotiated with the EU, and leave without any sort of deal at all. (The Bank of England estimated that such a “disorderly” Brexit would cause unemployment to almost double, inflation to rise to more than 6 percent, house prices to fall by 30 percent, and the pound to fall below parity with the euro.)
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The true limits of their power now revealed, no-deal Brexiteers are now contemplating a legislative strike, which would deprive the government of its majority for everything except confidence votes, or even forming a new hard-right party. That would allow them to vote against the government in a confidence vote and provoke an election. The effect of a new party would, however, be to split the anti-Labour vote and give Jeremy Corbyn a good chance of entering Downing Street
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The only certainty is that Britain’s political rewards now go to men and women who promote polarization, not compromise
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David Cameron’s decision to hold this referendum about a question so fundamental to Britain’s national identity opened up this chasm in the country
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the young now identify as pro-European in a way that would never have occurred to them before the 2016 vote. The weight of their increasing numbers will eventually tell. Yet the boomers’ demographic albatross will press further still if, as is in my view probable, English political chaos stimulates Scotland to choose independence and (though this is less likely) Northern Ireland to unite with the Irish Republic.
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A decade of intense political conflict is a grim prospect for a country with few formal institutions and weak legal oversight of the political process. The desire to seize positions of power and hold them against equally matched enemies is more associated with countries on the descent toward civil war than mature liberal democracies like the United Kingdom
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A Brief History Of Extremism - Is It Worse Than Ever? - History Extra - 0 views
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extremists believe the ‘other’ must always be opposed, controlled or destroyed because its intrinsic nature and existence is inimical to the success of the extremists’ own group
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Rome razed Carthage to the ground in 146 BC after an extended siege, killing an estimated 150,000 residents and selling the survivors into slavery, in what Yale scholar Ben Kiernan calls “the first genocide”.
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a Jewish group known as the Sicarii, who violently opposed Roman rule and killed fellow Jews they saw as collaborators. They were reputed to have committed mass suicide under siege at the mountain redoubt of Masada in 73 CE
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In 657 CE, the new religion of Islam experienced its first outbreak of extremism, a sect known as the Kharijites, who are remembered for their zealous beliefs and brutal violence against Muslims who they believed had strayed from the true path
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Christianity was not immune to these dynamics either, at times launching crusades and inquisitions to violently root out sectarians and unbelievers they viewed as “infidels”. One of these, the Albigensian Crusade of the 13th century, wiped out a deviant Christian sect in France known as the Cathars. Legend (possibly apocryphal) holds that the commander of the Roman Catholic forces uttered a Latin phrase that is remembered today, somewhat altered in translation, as “Kill them all and let God sort them out”. Whether the words were said or not, the massacre of Beziers in 1209 killed 20,000 Cathars, and by the end of the Crusade the entire sect had been slaughtered.
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As some Spaniards expressed horror at the enslavement and extermination of indigenous people in the Americas, intellectuals of the day crafted racial and ideological arguments to excuse and even justify these horrors, arguing that the natural superiority of Spaniards justified the enslavement of the continent’s indigenous residents, “in whom you will scarcely find any vestiges of humanness”. These justifications were understood by 19th-century thinkers as one link in the chain that led to the American adoption of racial slavery – one of history’s most egregious and shameful extremist practices, which victimised millions of people of African descent over the course of hundreds of years.
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The Nazis killed six million Jewish people during their time in power, and millions of others, including disabled people, LGBTQ people and Soviet, Serbian, Roma and Polish civilians. Although the Nazis were defeated, their legacy lives on today in the form of (at least) dozens of neo-Nazi groups around the world
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The 1980s gave rise to modern jihadist extremism: the mobile, transnational movement significantly spearheaded by al Qaeda which raised the issue of violent extremism to a global priority in 2001 on September 11; it was elevated still further by the rise of ISIS in the 2010s. Today, thousands of jihadist extremists take part in violent activities all over the globe, from terrorism to insurgency. The same period has seen a resurgence of white nationalism and white supremacy in the United States and Europe, many of whom focus on Muslims as their chief enemy, pointing to the depravities of jihadism as part of their justification for their hate. But it’s not only white extremists who are targeting Muslims. In Myanmar, a new breed of Buddhist extremists seeks to exterminate Muslim Rohingya communities. In China, ethnic Uighurs who practice Islam are being incarcerated and ‘re-educated’ in concentration camps, a fact that too rarely features in discussions of extremism.
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We don’t always frame our collective memory as a history of extremism; maybe if we did, it would place current events in context
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Despite the pervasive role extremism has played in history, some elements of modern life can fairly be understood as making things uniquely worse. Chief among these is the rise of globally interconnected social media networks.
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Technologies that turbo-charge the transmission of ideology have a disproportionate effect on the spread of extremist ideas
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In addition to helping the supply-side of extremism, social media and other online technologies also empower demand. Before the internet, it was harder for curious people and potential recruits to find information about extremist groups and make contact with their members. Now, anyone with a keyboard can quickly seek out extremist texts and even make contact with extremist recruiters
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We may never banish extremism from the human experience, but we can save lives and preserve societies by managing and understanding it.
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The End of History and the Last Map: How Cartography Has Shaped Ideas of War and Peace - 0 views
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Spreading peace and democracy has never been cartographically convincing, even to its promoters. And it could sometimes look downright sinister to those on the wrong side of the map. At the same time, maps are ideally suited to essentialist visions of the world that, accurately or not, divide people into discrete, ready-to-clash units, each with their own color and territory. Perhaps as a result, maps have served nicely as a metaphor for those who assumed conflict was more natural, or more interesting, all along.
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After the Cold War ended, maps of peace and harmony proved far less visually engaging than their predecessors and were just as ideologically fraught. Perhaps the best modern-day cartographic depiction of what liberal internationalism’s triumph might look like is Freedom House’s map of freedom in the world, with all the countries gradually ticking green. Like maps of global risk or human development, the Freedom House map offers a ready metric for imagining Western politics and living standards spreading across the globe.
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For those who wanted a more militant depiction of liberal internationalist ambition, there was also “The Pentagon’s New Map.” Published by the political scientist Thomas Barnet in 2003, it generated a flurry of media attention before being largely forgotten in the disastrous aftermath of the Iraq War. The map envisioned the United States’ 21st-century military strategy as “identifying the problem parts of the world and aggressively shrinking them.” Through interventions like the invasion of Iraq, Washington would expand the “functioning core” of globalization and eliminate the “non-integrating gap,” which was plagued by terrorism, poverty, and repression.
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these two maps capture the paradox of America’s post-Cold War liberal internationalism. Americans might have seen their ambitions as benign, but many others around the world found them threatening. The result is a strange contradiction whereby organizations like Freedom House and the Open Society Foundations appear to represent a kind of earnest if slightly quixotic idealism in Washington while becoming the subject of countless conspiracy theories abroad. For those who imagined color revolutions as a series of CIA-sponsored plots to spread U.S. influence under the guise of democracy, the Freedom House map was also the Pentagon map; seeing the world painted all one shade was tantamount to the United States conquering it.
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Maps have proved particularly popular with people looking for the so-called real fault lines—be they religious, ethnic, or geopolitical—along which the post-Cold War world would inevitably fracture
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an equally essentialist view of human society inspired a series of completely contradictory maps imagining what the Middle East’s so-called real borders would look like. Amid the chaos of Iraq’s civil war, some observers began to focus on the fault lines within Huntington’s category of Islamic civilization and concluded that it was, say, the tensions between Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds that would ultimately prove insurmountable. In 2013, for example, one widely circulated map from the New York Times showed how Syria and Iraq might end up reconfigured on ethno-sectarian terms as four smaller, seemingly more homogeneous, states.
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while the post-Cold War world has indeed remained conflict-prone, the conflicts themselves have not followed the predictions of any one particular pessimist
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Risk geopolitics are certainly more fun to read about than the alternative, and they make for sharper and more compelling maps. But they also come at a cost