The Bush administration, Turkey and democracy
By Henry Michaels
7 March 2003
Only last week, US President George W. Bush solemnly proclaimed that his administration’s
impending assault on Iraq was driven by a “vision” of democracy and liberation for the
entire Middle East. Iraq’s conquest, he declared, would “serve as a dramatic and inspiring
example of freedom for other nations in the region.”
Just three days later, the cynicism behind that statement was graphically demonstrated when
the Turkish parliament shocked and angered the White House by failing to pass a resolution
permitting 62,000 US troops to use Turkey as a base for the coming invasion of its neighbor
to the south. The March 1 parliamentary vote came despite intense US pressure, including the
lure of a $30 billion financial package to bail out the Turkish economy.
The vote was all the more significant because Turkey is the only country in the region, apart
from Israel, that is portrayed by the Western powers as having a democratic system of
government. During last month’s conflict with France, Belgium and Germany over
authorizing NATO military aid for Turkey, Bush touted Turkey as the only democracy in the
Islamic Middle East.
The narrow margin in the parliament against allowing US forces to stage an assault from
Turkish soil (the measure actually won a plurality, but failed because the combination of
“no” votes and abstentions brought the “yes” total to less than 50 percent of those voting)
was a pale reflection of the overwhelming hostility of the Turkish people to a US-led war
against Iraq. Opinion polls show 94 percent opposition to the war, with opposition increasing
in recent weeks, in part because of the Bush administration’s arrogant and bullying tactics.
The rejection of the resolution, resulting from the defection of a large number of delegates of
the ruling Party of Justice and Development (AKP), was celebrated by jubilant crowds of
ordinary people on the streets of Ankara and across Turkey. It was, at least in a limited sense,
a victory for democracy over the dictates of the US government and its servants in the Turkish
political, business and military establishment. One MP, Ahmet Faruk Unsall, commented:
“We did something that not even the British parliament, the cradle of democracy, was able to
do. We voted with the public, against a war.”
The outraged response in Washington revealed the deep contempt of American ruling circles
for democracy, whether it be in Turkey, elsewhere in the oil-rich region, or within the United
States itself. Backed by the American media, the Bush administration immediately embarked
on an intensive diplomatic and economic offensive to insist that the vote be reversed.
While in public US officials issued assurances that the vote would not damage relations with
Turkey, behind the scenes the pressure has been ferocious. US Secretary of State Colin
Powell personally telephoned Prime Minister Abdullah Gul last Sunday to demand that a new
vote be pushed through the legislature. In a statement issued afterwards, Gul said the two men
had agreed “to keep open the channels of communication.”
The New York Times—which claims like Bush to champion democratic values—noted
without comment: “Turkey’s leaders have been under intense American pressure to ask the
Parliament to reconsider the measure.... The American diplomats here have been busy
pressing their case, meeting privately with members of the majority party, including legislators
who voted against the measure.”
For its part, the Wall Street Journal expressed seething hostility to the Turkish vote, no
doubt mirroring the language being used behind closed doors in Washington. A March 4
editorial entitled “The Inscrutable Turks” decried the fact that “democracies are messy” and
lambasted Turkish politicians for bowing to “short-sighted domestic politics.”
“Unless reversed in a later vote, the decision will damage US-Turkish relations for years to
come,” the editorial threatened, before outlining its own version of democracy. “Turkish
opinion polls show large opposition to an Iraq war. But then the role of political leaders is
supposed to be to shape public opinion, not follow it, especially when the benefits of assisting
the US are so obvious.”
The editorial complained that the Turkish military had “failed to speak up at a crucial moment
apparently in order to embarrass the new Islamic-leaning government.” Here the Journal,
which closely tracks the thinking within the top echelons of the Bush administration, was
explicitly denouncing the military for not inserting itself into the political controversy to push
for the reversal of a democratic vote in parliament—implicitly backing its “opinion” with the
threat of a military coup. So much for the principle of the subordination of the military to
civilian authority!
This criticism clearly struck home. The next day, March 5, the Turkish military chief, General
Hizmi Ozkok, went on national television to declare that Turkey had no choice but to open its
borders to US combat troops, in order to guarantee Washington’s support in the postwar
carve-up of the region.
The Turkish military, with whom the White House and the Pentagon maintain the closest ties,
has carried out no less than four coups, each backed by Washington, since 1960. In the name
of combating socialism or, most recently, Islamic fundamentalism, the Turkish generals seized
power or otherwise deposed elected governments in 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997. In the most
recent “silent coup” six years ago, the military forced the resignation of Prime Minister
Tansu Ciller, whose government included numerous members of the current AKP
administration.
Ozkok’s thinly veiled threat of another military putsch was not lost on the AKP leadership.
Only hours before General Ozkok’s remarks, a senior party official said Turkey’s leaders
were determined to take the resolution back to the parliament and push harder to guarantee its
success.
However, facing an angry public, government leaders remain nervous about the outcome. The
official said the government probably would not act until after a by-election Sunday in which
party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes to win a seat, enabling him to become prime
minister.
In general elections last November, Turkish voters threw out nine in ten members of
parliament and all the previous ruling parties, replacing them with the newly-formed AKP.
Erdogan’s party won office by promising to improve the lot of the impoverished and
appealing to the broad sentiment against war with Iraq. “We do not want blood, tears and
death,” Erdogan declared just after the elections.
But for several months—starting long before the issue was put to parliament—the military
has been collaborating with the Pentagon, preparing for Turkey to become the northern front
in the assault on Iraq and mapping out routes to shuttle soldiers and equipment into the
region. Barely a week went by without a trip to the Turkish capital by a high-ranking US
official or general, including General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of
Staff.
Part of the arrangement between the US and Turkish military was a cynical agreement that at
least 52,000 Turkish troops would occupy a slice of northern Iraq to prevent the emergence of
an independent Kurdish state or autonomous zone. The Turkish leadership, both military and
civilian, is particularly anxious to dominate the Kurdish regions of Kirkuk and Mosul, which
possess large reserves of oil.
Such is the “democratic” vision of the Bush administration for Iraq, Turkey and the Middle
East: the maintenance of repressive, military-backed regimes that will put down social and
political unrest and secure control over the oilfields. Under the banner of “liberation,” the
long-suffering people of the region, including the Kurds, Turks and Iraqis, are seen as pawns
in the division of the spoils of war.
The Turkish parliamentary vote cast an illustrative light as well on the state of democracy
within the US. As a number of commentators pointed out, the extended debates that occurred
in and around the Turkish parliament were far more serious and substantive than the
pro-forma, cursory discussion in the US Congress that preceded last October’s passage of a
sweeping resolution granting Bush the power to declare preemptive war.
One measure of democracy is meant to be the existence of a political opposition. But the
official opposition, the Democratic Party, provided the Republicans with ample votes to pass
Bush’s resolution, shutting down a one-man filibuster attempt by Democratic Senator Robert
Byrd.
The Turkish vote has exposed still another Washington myth: that Iraq represents an
imminent threat to its neighbors. The problem with this claim is the fact that the overwhelming
majority of the people in the region, and most governments, oppose the US war drive, and do
not feel under threat from Baghdad. For a large majority of the people, the far greater threat
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