2013 joojst lagendijk

7/27/2019 2013 joojst lagendijk

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Mother of all coups

Sixty years ago this week, on Aug. 19, 1953, a US and British-backed coupoverthrew Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. According to manyhistorians and political analysts, the takeover can be considered the motherof all CIA-led or inspired coups and has had an enormous impact, into thepresent day, on the relations between the US and the countries in the region.

Mossadegh, an elderly aristocrat, was elected prime minister in 1951 and setout on a project of nation-building and modernization. Part of that plan was toend the control of Iran's oil reserves by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC),now known as BP (British Petroleum), owned by the British government,which refused Iran any significant share of the high profits. The AIOC wasnationalized, a step that infuriated London and Washington, and together

they organized the overthrow of Mossadegh. The British got back their oilcompany and the Americans, led to believe that Mossadegh's rule couldeventually lead to a communist takeover in Iran, were happy with havingcreated another bulwark (next to Turkey) against their main enemy at thetime, the Soviet Union.

In Iran, the removal of Mossadegh brought to power Shah Mohammed RezaPahlavi, who ruled the country in an autocratic way with strong backing fromWashington until the Iranian Revolution in 1979 that was inspired, among

other motives, by a fervent anti-Americanism. One of the reasons why it isstill so difficult to solve the issue of Iran's nuclear ambitions is the deepdistrust between Tehran and Washington that goes back 60 years.

The coup changed the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East and fueledthe struggle for regional domination between the US and the Soviet Unionduring the Cold War. The events of August 1953 also served as a blueprint fora succession of covert US efforts to foster coups and destabilize governmentsin other countries in the 1950s and 1960s.

It is probably no coincidence that a few days ago the CIA for the first timeacknowledged openly that it was behind the 1953 coup. The National SecurityArchive released classified CIA documents that clearly show the central USrole in the controversial overthrow of Mossadegh. As Malcolm Byrne of theArchive explained in Foreign Policy and in an interview with Today's Zaman,


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the CIA's role in the coup is not something the rest of the world has notknown for many years. Both American and British secret service operativesand many scholars have produced books about the operation, codenamedAjax. Two American presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and a Britishforeign minister, Jack Straw, have publicly admitted that their countries were

involved in the coup. But it is the first time the American intelligencecommunity is willing to own up to its role, a gesture their British colleaguesare still unwilling to make.

The renewed attention for the coup against Mossadegh is important forhistorical and political reasons. Stephen Kinzer, known for his excellent bookon Turkish politics Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds but alsothe author of All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of MiddleEast Terror, sees the coup as a short-term victory for the US but a long-term

failure. The coup continues to loom large in Iran's national psyche and stillpoisons relations between Tehran and Washington. In the rest of the region,the 1953 coup d'tat is one of the oldest building blocks of the strong anti-Americanism that we have witnessed again in the extremely negativereactions to the wavering US policy in Egypt, where the Americans areblamed by all sides for opportunism and a lack of direction.

One can only hope that the CIA will decide to open up the historical recordson other operations that still matter today. Furthermore, the confession on

the Mossadegh coup could be part of a wider set of confidence-buildingmeasures by the US to clear the way for bilateral talks with the new Iranianpresident, Hassan Rohani, on the nuclear dossier but also on other mattersthat Tehran feels strongly about.

History can often be a burden that stops badly needed progress. Removingsome of the dark pages or at least being honest about them can be astimulus to move on and overcome that troubled past.

Total failure in Egypt

Fortunately, it does not happen that often: a conflict in which all the partiesyou hope will prevail, instead fail miserably and all the bad guys come out ontop.

This is what has happened in Syria over time, where it is now extremely


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difficult to see any positive signs because the oppressive, brutal forces havebeen able to firmly establish themselves. In Egypt, it took only six weeks toget to that point of utter desperation.

We can be brief on the villains that won: the Egyptian army (which refusedany compromise, managed to convince most Egyptians that the MuslimBrotherhood needs to be crushed and is deliberately triggering moreviolence); the anti-reformist Arab autocrats (who were afraid change wouldcome to their countries, as well) and the violent jihadists all over the world(who have another argument to reject electoral democracy and rely solely onarmed resistance).

Who was responsible for the key failures? I see three main culprits: the so-called liberal opposition in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and theObama administration.

What has happened since the July 3 coup is first and foremost the moral andpolitical demise of the supposedly democratic opponents of ousted EgyptianPresident Mohammed Morsi. Because they hated the MB so much, theyinvited the army to intervene and accepted all the tricks and manipulations ofthe former Mubarak establishment, hoping that by accommodating the oldorder, they would get the gradual reforms they had been fighting for allalong. But their pact with the devil backfired quickly when the army made itclear their only goal is the reestablishment of a Mubarak-style security state.In a scathing critique of the tactics of the liberal camp, independent analystIssander El Amrani (known on the Internet and in social media as The Arabist)exposed all the liberal illusions and accused the majority of anti-MB diehardsof consciously pushing much of the Islamist camp into becoming outlaws.

The problem is that this maneuver might well be successful because the MBitself was apparently unprepared and -- although it would be extremelydifficult under such extraordinary circumstances -- did not manage to comeup with a coherent response. The peaceful sit-ins gained them respect,especially outside of Egypt, but after last week's extremely violentcrackdown, nobody seems to be in control anymore. The old leadership is inprison, the moderates inside the movement are on the defensive and manyyoung militants are willing to take the bite and resort to counter-violence. It isexactly that last scenario the army is hoping for in order to finish off the MB


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once and for all.

The main foreign actor responsible for the Egyptian catastrophe is withoutdoubt the US government. First, Obama refused to recognize the military

takeover as a coup and even after the bloody clampdown, rebuffed all calls tocut off US aid to Egypt. By doing so the American president played right intothe hands of both the Egyptian generals and the Islamist radicals in Egyptand elsewhere. As Reuters' David Rohde formulated it pointedly: Obama'sresponse to the massacres so far confirms the arguments jihadists have usedas a recruiting tool for years. Hardline militants have long said that ahypocritical Washington obsessively protects the lives of Americans,Europeans and Israelis but largely ignores the deaths of Arabs and Muslims.

And Turkey? Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan keeps doing what he likesmost: occupying the moral high ground without making any distinctionbetween different players. Bashing the US administration for the manymistakes it made is one thing, but claiming that therefore Obama is as guiltyfor the massacres as Egyptian army Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sissi does not makesense unless the only aim is to play on domestic anti-American feelings.Blaming Western media for underreporting on the bloody events in Cairo isboth silly and preposterous when that same day, all the major newspapers inthe US and Europe used several pages to cover the horrors. While watchingthe Turkish government again performing its act of self-righteousness on the

sidelines, the rest of the world is still wondering what Ankara has done toprevent the current chaos.

Poor Egypt. Poor democrats and reformers in the rest of the Arab world.

Keeping the Muslim Brothers alive

For days now, Egypt's military-appointed government has threatened to

forcibly disperse two sit-ins in Cairo where tens of thousands of supporters ofousted president Mohammed Morsi have been protesting the military coup.

Till now, these moves have been postponed, but at the moment of writingthis column nobody is sure what will happen next. It seems the newgovernment is split between hard-liners who want to crush the MuslimBrotherhood (MB) once and for all, and people like Mohamed ElBaradei,interim vice president and Nobel Prize laureate, who are afraid that a violent


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repression of the peaceful protests will damage the perception of Egyptabroad and might trigger strong reactions from the US, the EU and theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF). It is not clear whether the ongoing effortsby American, European and other diplomats to broker a deal between thegovernment and the MB may also play a role in keeping hopes alive that this

confrontation does not end in bloodshed.

In my last column, I called on the Turkish government to be more active intrying to convince the MB to accept a compromise in line with, for instance,the suggestions made by President Abdullah Gl last week. Key elements ofsuch an agreement would be the release of Mr. Morsi, held in detention at anundisclosed location for weeks now, and other MB leaders; the acceptance ofall political groups, including the MB, in the forthcoming elections; and thecommitment by both the MB and the government to exercise restraint toavoid further casualties.

That sounds reasonable to most outsiders, but several seasoned reportersand observers who visited the sit-ins have indicated that many of theparticipants are not willing to accept a deal that would exclude thereinstatement of Mr. Morsi as president, at least temporarily. Any settlementmight be a hard sell for MB negotiators who lack the authority of the old MBleadership now in prison. Probably only a direct intervention by Morsi himself,stimulated and facilitated by outside sympathizers like the Turkishgovernment, can convince combative MB militants to give up their resistanceand concentrate on less confrontational methods to challenge the

consequences of the coup.

In a recent report, the International Crisis Group also came to the conclusionthat only countries like Qatar and Turkey could act as channels to theIslamists, moving them away from their maximalist demands.

In an interesting article on the website of Foreign Affairs, based on the results

of studies of nonviolent campaigns worldwide, Erica Chenoweth, associateprofessor at the University of Denver, warned that such a de-escalation mightbe necessary because the current sit-ins will, in all likelihood, not bring thesystemic change the MB supporters are hoping for. As Chenoweth puts it,History shows that civil resistance campaigns tend to succeed when theybuild the quantity and quality of participants, select tactics that provokeloyalty shifts among ruling elites, prepare enough to maintain nonviolentdiscipline, and skillfully change course under fire to minimize the damage to


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participants. All of this takes time, organization, preparation, and a good dealof strategic imagination.

Reading the reports on the sit-ins, it seems clear that some of these elements

are definitely missing, and the time for some outside help in changingstrategy has arrived.

Again, let's hope Ankara can live up to the expectations and help show theMB a way out of the present crisis. That would be extremely significant, notonly to repair some of Turkey's damaged image in the region, but of coursemainly to save Egyptian lives and keep the MB alive as a crucial player inEgyptian politics.

Why is that so important after all the mistakes the Islamists made sincewinning the elections one year ago? The answer to that question was givenby Marc Lynch, one of the most knowledgeable American specialists on theMiddle East, in a Foreign Policy article on the return of al-Qaeda on the scene:The Egyptian military's crushing of the MB, which was al-Qaeda's strongestcompetitor in the arena of Islamist politics, is also a boon to the jihadistmovement. A weaker Brotherhood -- which has lost confidence in its ownideas and leaders -- will be a much weaker firewall against the more extremegroups.

Turkey is right but not effective

Over the last couple of weeks, the Turkish government has been severelycriticized over its policies with regard to Syria and Egypt.

Especially so-called foreign policy realists, at home and abroad, claim thatTurkish Prime Minister Erdoan and his Foreign Minister Davutolu have madetwo crucial mistakes and that Turkey is paying dearly for that with a loss of

influence and growing isolation in the region: Turkey has been too tough onSyrian president Bashar al-Assad and too soft on ousted Egyptian presidentMohamed Morsi.

Ankaras critics believe that especially Davutolu is too much of a liberalidealist who puts human rights before national interests and has forgotten


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that foreign policy should not be driven by principles but by state interests.

Let me explain why I fundamentally disagree with this view. According to meTurkey did, and still does, basically the right thing in both cases.

On Syria, as I have said before, I think Turkey made the mistake by thinkingfor too long it could influence the extremely oppressive minority regime inDamascus. After Assad refused to introduce reforms and started killing hisown people, I honestly do not see which other options were available to the

Turkish government other than supporting the political and military oppositionagainst Assad. Suggesting a realist policy of sitting on the fence while100,000 Syrians are being killed and many more flee the country, is bothnave and deeply immoral.

It is true that by choosing the side of the anti-Assad forces, Turkey has lostthe capacity to act as an honest broker in this conflict. But is there anybodyout there who realistically believes there is still something to negotiate? Inmy view, we have long passed that point. The key question is not whetherAssad can stay around in one way or the other but which forces are going todominate a post-Assad Syria. There Turkey has not always drawn the line verycarefully and that explains partly why it has not been very successful inputting the non-jihadist, moderate and Syrian origin opposition fighters inpole position.

At the moment there is a lot of speculation about the rise of al Qaeda linkedterrorist groups in Syria, sponsored by foreign, radical Salafi financiers,outmaneuvering the Free Syrian Army (FSA) that is backed by Turkey. Otheranalysts claim that the situation on the ground is not so clear and the linesbetween the different groups are blurred and often depend on local,opportunistic choices. It is not easy for Turkey to act effectively in thatminefield, also because Ankara has not been able to convince other FSAsupporters such as the US, France and the UK to be more forthcoming.Striking a deal with the Syrian Kurds, uniting them against both Assad andthe foreign fighters, might prove to be one of the most helpful contributionsby Ankara in the desired and inevitable downfall of the Syrian dictatorship.

We move on to Egypt and the military coup against Morsi. Yes, Turkey should


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have been more critical, now and then, about the many mistakes made bythe Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leader when he was in office. But was there anyother option than strongly condemning the coup and siding with the MB?Again, my problem is not with Ankaras principled position but with the lack ofimpact on the actual situation in Egypt. We know the EU is doing its utmost to

convince the Egyptian army and their civilian puppet government to stoptheir violent crackdown on the MB. Why is Turkey not much more active onthe other side of the equation? Ankara should be talking to Morsi and hispeople, trying to move the Islamists out of their understandable mood ofanger and self-sacrifice into a more cooperative attitude that will allow themto play a role in the new political setup. President Gl wrote an interestingpiece last week in the Financial Times in which he outlined a scenario thatcould prevent further bloodshed and keep the MB on board in the transitionprocess. It would be good to see Erdoan and Davutolu openly using theirmoral and political leverage on the MB in similar fashion to supplement theefforts of others and stop Egypt falling into the abyss.

Being right is one thing. Being effective is another.

Ambivalent feelings on Ergenekon

The Day of Judgment in the Ergenekon case has arrived. As was to beexpected, it has left many who for a long time supported the trial with

feelings of ambivalence and ambiguity. I am one of those persons.When the investigations started in 2007, I was happy that, at long last, legalproceedings would be opened against people who were intimately connectedwith the dirty work of the deep state in Turkey in the 1980s and 1990s andwith plans to stage a coup against the Justice and Development Party (AKP)later on. Even after years of growing doubts about the way the trail wasprogressing, I still believe it is a good thing for Turkey that a shady characterlike Veli Kk, linked to many murders and other acts of violence in the past,will spend the rest of his life in prison. The same applies to the long prisonterms for ultra-nationalists with a pro-coup mindset, willing to act against any

elected government they disapprove of, like Kemal Kerinsiz, Muzaffer Tekinand several of the former high-ranking military officers.

The problem is that these verdicts are part of a package that also includeslong sentences for people whose relations with past crimes or more recentcoup plots cannot be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.


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In the last couple of years a number of mistakes have been made in theErgenekon case that have led to this mixed bag of indisputable villains whodeserve to be punished and others whose anti-democratic opinions are often

objectionable but which in and of themselves cannot be a reason to put themin prison.

What were these errors that, unfortunately, have undermined the legitimacyand acceptability of this high-profile trial? The focus should have been on thecrimes of the 1990s, especially on the thousands of unsolved murders in theSoutheast and the violence used against all of the perceived opponents of thestate in those years. Instead, the emphasis shifted almost fully to the anti-AKP coup plans after 2002, raising suspicions that the main purpose of the

trial was to send a warning to AKP antagonists. Too many people werearrested and put on trial who were not key players in the planning andperformance of illegal acts. The trial should have concentrated on the "bigfish," whose controversial reputation was widely acknowledged, even by AKPcritics. In many individual cases, the judges and prosecutors did not manageto overcome the decades-old problems of the Turkish legal system:procedural mistakes, vague accusations, unconvincing evidence. They werenot helped by the fact that the government, until recently, refused to end thepractice of long pre-trial detentions.

The inability and unwillingness to repair these faults and omissions has putthe supporters of the Ergenekon trial on the defensive and has made it easyfor the opponents to zoom in on the mistakes and basically deny theexistence of a deep state and brush aside the good reasons to look into

Turkey's dirty past. They have been quite successful in framing the case as apolitically motivated campaign against each and every AKP opponent.

One can witness the attractiveness of this denialist approach in foreign

reporting on this week's verdicts. The term "witch hunt" pops up in almostevery article in the American, German and Dutch press. Many correspondentsmake a direct link with the repression of the Gezi Park protests and the recentfiring of journalists and columnists critical of the government. The outcome ofthe Ergenekon trial is presented as further proof of the authoritarianinclination of the prime minister and the stifling of all dissent. Only a fewreports keep underlining that, despite all the errors in this particular trial, itmakes perfect sense to investigate Turkey's bloody history of military coups


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and irregular dark forces.

Where does all this ambivalence and ambiguity leave me? I can only hopethat appeal courts will be able to sift the wheat from the chaff and that the

government has learned the lesson that court cases full of flaws andinaccuracies only damage the image of Turkey abroad and strengthen theopposition at home. Most importantly: Let's not give up the ambition ofbringing before a court those who were responsible for heinous crimes in thepast.

Turkey's urge to bash the West (2)

In my previous column, I expressed my astonishment and lack of

understanding about what seems to be a deliberate campaign to bash theWest by Turkish politicians and opinion leaders.

Almost every day a minister or columnist criticizes Western leaders andjournalists in general for being hypocritical about the military coup in Egyptand its bloody aftermath. No distinction is made between the US and Europeor between governments and media.

I am not surprised that anti-Western feelings are still strong in a country with

a long and popular tradition of suspicion about European malignancy, nowand in the past, and often disastrous American interventions in the region.What amazes me is that so many educated Turks apparently are not able orwilling to break with a rude and primitive form of Occidentalism, the set ofstereotyped views on the Western world one can find everywhere in theMiddle East and Asia. The term is an inversion of Orientalism, the label forclich Western images of the East, coined by the late Edward Said.

Why do Turks, living in a country that for good reasons has gained so much

self-confidence in the last 10 years, still resort to a way of thinking andanalyzing that paints the world in simple black and white colors, leaves noroom for nuances and basically reflects a state of mind driven by prejudicesand ignorance? I fully agree with Suat Knklolu who, in one of his latestcolumns, tried to explain the use of conspiracy theories (often part and parcelof an Occidentalist mindset) by the Turkish government in trying to makesense of the Gezi Park protests. He wrote: My greatest objection toconspiratorial thinking is the lack of self-confidence. It is the negative tone of


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helplessness that troubles me.

Does that mean there is no reason to harshly criticize the Obamaadministration for its handling of the Egyptian crisis? The US was clearly

wrong in not calling the coup a coup, which allows Washington to continuesending money to Egypt. Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor, called itthe ostrich theory of law. According to Feldman, State Department lawyershave concluded that the president can bury his head in the sand, ignore therealities of what happened in Egypt, and keep signing checks. US Secretaryof State John Kerry only added insult to injury when he bluntly stated that byousting elected President Mohammed Morsi, the Egyptian military wasrestoring democracy.

Is this the generally accepted reaction of the West? No, it is not. At thestart, the EU made the same mistake by not condemning the coup, butBrussels has since been involved in serious efforts to find a way out of thepolitical deadlock in Cairo and prevent a further descent into chaos andviolence. It now turns out that since the election of Mr. Morsi in June 2012, theEU has been working behind the scenes with all parties in Egypt to have Mr.Morsi recognized as the poll's winner and was very close to finding acompromise just before the coup. Why is it so difficult for Ankara to welcomethese European diplomatic endeavors? Why equate them with the gravenegligence of the American government?

What really struck me is the criticism in Turkey of Western media and itsalleged indifference to what happens in Egypt. I am sorry to say, but peoplewho make these claims either do not know what they are talking about, areblinded by prejudices or only watch CNN. Did they not read the outstandingreporting by The New York Times? Did they miss the excellent and verycritical analyses in Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs, the call by Bloombergnews agency on the US government to immediately suspend aid to Egypt orthis weeks' Economist editorial that lashes out at both the US and Europe for

holding back criticism, first of the coup and now of the shooting of unarmedcivilians? Media in the West have been at the forefront of accusing theirgovernments of hypocrisy and double standards.

It is best to acknowledge that blaming the West, without making cleardistinctions, is both silly and hopelessly old-fashioned.


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Turkey's urge to bash the West

It seems to be an unstoppable Turkish proclivity: blaming the West for beinghypocritical and applying double standards in relation to Turkey and the rest

of the Muslim world. We are right in the middle of a new round of this popularnational pastime and the focus of attention this time around is on Egypt. Forweeks now, Turkish politicians and, surprisingly, a growing number of

journalists have been bashing their colleagues in the US and Europe for notcalling the military coup in Egypt a coup and for showing no or too littleinterest in the violent attacks on the deposed Muslim Brotherhood.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan can't get enough of it and again, overthe weekend, lashed out at Europe: Those who remain silent whenEgyptians' national will was massacred now remain silent again as the

Egyptian people are being slaughtered. I'm asking where is Europe, and whathappened to European values? Where are those who go around givinglessons in democracy everywhere? A few days ago, Turkish Defense Ministersmet Ylmaz condemned the lack of coverage of the killings in Egypt by theforeign media.

One could dismiss both statements as acts of revenge that were to beexpected after all the strongly worded declarations from Washington andBrussels on the Gezi Park protests and the attention paid by American and

European journalists to these demonstrations. The Turkish government wastotally put off by all this, in their eyes, disproportionate media coverage, andnow payback time is here: Let's blame all the arrogant foreigners for gettingit wrong on Egypt.

What has surprised me more is that this choir of disgruntled politicians hasbeen joined by Turkish journalists and columnists, across the board, includingsome in this paper, who, on the basis of mistakes made in Egypt, blame theWest in general for having given up on human rights and being biased, as

always, towards Muslims.

One explanation for this new outburst of anti-Western feelings is of course theold, historically rooted aversion to European efforts to split up and weakenthe country, the infamous Sevres syndrome. In the past 10 years one shouldadd to that the rise of Islamophobia in the US and Europe, sometimes


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exaggerated in Turkey but definitively an important new factor in trying tounderstand popular suspicions about a lack of Western honesty andimpartiality. The same applies to the constant stern admonitions fromBrussels on Turkey's failures to meet European criteria on democracy andhuman rights, for instance in the field of press freedom. The government is

clearly fed up with this criticism and many Turks have stopped listeningbecause they have given up on the EU.

All these deep currents in public opinion partly explain, and to a certainextent justify, the enthusiasm with which many have joined the anti-Westerncrowd. But how is it possible that so many educated Turks see no problem intalking about the West and make no distinction between, for instance, theUS and Europe or between governments and media?

Let's be specific and take the case of Egypt. I agree with the condemnation ofboth the Obama administration and the EU for not calling the coup a coup.But the last couple of days have shown that it would be a huge mistake to putboth in one Western bowl. While the US is having growing problems inupholding a tricky balancing act, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton wasthe first to meet ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in an effort tomediate in the current crisis and include the Muslim Brotherhood in thetransition process.

It is obvious that Washington and Brussels have different agendas on thisissue. Yes, both failed to call a spade a spade. But should that prevent Turkishpoliticians and journalists from trying to understand and, if possible, influencethese agendas to the benefit of the Egyptians they so passionately claim todefend? More on that in my next column, in which I will also elaborate on the,in my eyes, puzzling blunder made by many Turks to equate a dubious USgovernment policy with the outstanding reporting by many Americannewspapers on Egypt.

Does it make sense to blacklist Hezbollah?

Last Monday EU foreign ministers agreed to put the military wing of Hezbollahon its terrorism blacklist. Hezbollah is a militant Lebanese Shiite group,known by most for its fierce and violent fights with Israel.

But Hezbollah is also the political party that heads the strongest coalition in


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the Lebanese parliament and runs its own schools, hospitals and othercharities. This many-headed character is one of the reasons the EU decidedto limit its sanctioning (freezing assets, hindering fundraising and travel banson the leadership) to Hezbollah's military wing and not to include the wholeorganization.

The US and Israel have been pushing Brussels for a long time to blacklist theLebanese group. The official arguments to do so now are Hezbollah's allegedinvolvement in a suicide attack on a Bulgarian bus last year that killed fiveIsraeli tourists and one Bulgarian citizen. Politically much more important,however, is the group's support for Bashar al-Assad. Around 5,000 Hezbollahfighters, backed by Iran, have helped the Syrian regime recapture rebel-heldterritories this spring.

The EU decision was met with strong reactions. Of course, Washington andJerusalem welcomed the move although both would like Europe to list the

entire group as a terrorist organization because they claim it is impossibleand undesirable to differentiate between different wings. Hezbollah did notlose an opportunity to show its anti-American and anti-Israeli ideologicalcommitment and described the EU declaration as written by Americanhands, in Zionist ink.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said the sanctions would have noinfluence on his movement because Hezbollah has no investments in Europe,and he added in a rare jocular tone, Its leaders don't take their vacations in

Sardinia.

Most independent analysts don't expect much from the EU decision. JulienBarnes-Dacey from the European Council on Foreign Affairs called it asymbolic stand without real impact as it will allow European officials tocontinue meeting Hezbollah's political representatives as they currently do as


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part of the European engagement with the Lebanese government and theefforts to help stabilize the country. Alastair Crooke, a former Britishintelligence officer who runs an NGO in Beirut, said it was meaninglessbecause Hezbollah does not depend on income from EU countries and willkeep on deciding itself which of its members will talk to European diplomats.

So why worry about this EU decision which, according to many, it is not goingto be very effective? Why would Turkey bother?

The reason is Syria -- the spillover effects of the horrible civil war there onLebanon and the growing sectarian divide in the region. When, at the end ofMay, Nasrallah officially defended Hezbollah's unbridled support for the Assadregime, he did so in a very harsh speech in which he firmly groundedHezbollah's survival on its alliance with Iran and Syria. Immediately,observers warned that Hezbollah's aggressive defense of Shiite interests

would place the group at odds with the Sunni community in Lebanon anddiminish its appeal in the Arab world more broadly. As Mona Yacoubian fromthe Henri L. Stimson Center wrote in Foreign Affairs: Hezbollah's embrace ofa sectarian agenda is emblematic of the deeper dynamic that is reshapingthe region, particularly the Levant. Although it may be motivated by self-preservation and a deeply ingrained survival instinct, Hezbollah's turn towardsectarianism promises to unleash far more serious challenges, imperilingHezbollah and likely marking the end of Lebanon's relative stability.

A few days ago, Julie E. Taylor from the RAND Corporation made a linkbetween this fear and the EU decision in a remarkable call on the US andEurope to stop openly undermining Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to Taylor,Lebanon is increasingly becoming an extension of the Syrian battle zone withradical Sunni groups and the Free Syrian Army already specifically targetingHezbollah interests and the Lebanese army in order to provokecounterattacks. Her warning: The benefits of increasing anti-Hezbollah

sentiment in Lebanon, or in diverting Hezbollah resources and attention awayfrom Syria, would likely be quickly outweighed by the spread of radical

jihadism and a descent into civil war (in Lebanon).


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I am not sure whether everybody in Brussels was aware of this scenario lastMonday.

No EU money to occupied territories

With all the current turmoil in Egypt and Syria, one would tend to forget thatthe biggest problem the Middle East is facing is still the unresolved conflictbetween Israel and the Palestinians. Many in and outside the region havegiven up on a solution for what seems to be the most intractable andcomplicated diplomatic and political puzzle ever.

For that reason, the announcement last week by US Secretary of State JohnKerry of the resumption of direct final-status negotiations between Israel and

the Palestinians did not really get a warm and enthusiastic reception. How dowe know that this won't be just another woulda/shoulda/coulda enterpriseas Aaron David Miller called it in Foreign Policy? With no clarity about termsboth parties agreed on or commitments made, is it realistic to expect anysubstantial progress on well-known stumbling blocks such as final borders,

Jerusalem and refugees? Did the Israelis only say yes to please theAmericans but will they be playing for time as before? And why didPalestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agree despite widespread oppositionamong the Palestinians?

According to seasoned and pro-solution Israeli journalist Amira Hass, one ofthe reasons why the Palestinian leadership went along with Kerry's plans wasgrowing European pressure on Israel. She specifically referred to theadoption, last week, of new rules for EU funding of activities and projects inthe territories occupied by Israel since 1967. Starting in 2014, institutionsbased in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Golan Heights and East

Jerusalem will no longer be eligible to receive grants or other financialinstruments funded by the EU budget. The guidelines are a follow-up to thepolitical decision by EU foreign ministers in December 2012 to make a

distinction between the State of Israel and the occupied territories when itcomes to EU support.

Hass thinks the new EU policy allowed Abbas to tell his skeptical, cynicalpublic that the decision was made from a position of Palestinian strength --not weakness -- as the EU measure shook Israel from its complacency. The


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European guidelines have made it clear to Israel that its days of violatinginternational law with impunity are over. Between Thursday and Friday, whenthe EU states pressured Abbas to give Kerry his consent, they practicallysignaled that talks were no longer an excuse for Europe not to takediplomatic and economic measures against Israel.

Daniel Levy of the European Council on Foreign Relations believes the EUmove also changed the cost/benefit calculations of the Israeli public,confronted, unexpectedly, with the fact that the controversial settlementpolicy is starting to have negative economic consequences for Israel as awhole. Levy explained the EU decision to come up with the guidelines asbeing out of sheer European frustration with the uncompromising attitude ofthe Benjamin Netanyahu government. The Europeans, according to Levy, arealso sensitive to the notion that, as the largest collective donor to the

Palestinian Authority, they are in effect subsidizing the occupation.Something needed to be done against the funding of settlement-basedactivities, a measure that also makes clear that Europe, through a gooddivision of labor, can play a role alongside the US in the resolution of theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict.

The reactions to the EU guidelines were predictable. One Israeli ministercalled it a racist and anti-Semitic act. Anti-occupation group Gush Shalom,on the other hand, called it a bucket of cold water on the head of a drunk.

Palestinian human rights organizations welcomed the decision after years ofjust talking. The next step, according to them, should be the adoption ofsimilar measures by all EU member states and a ban of all productsmanufactured, grown or packed in the occupied territories.

That might be one step too far for many EU countries, but it seems likely thatby the end of this year there will be an EU code on clearly labeling productsfrom settler firms in order to offer European consumers the option to boycottthese goods.

Maybe Turkey should join forces with the EU here, showing that it is willing togo beyond harsh rhetoric and implement measures that concretely punishillegal Israeli manufacturers.


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Yassada and the lessons from Gezi Park

It looks as if the discussion on the future of Yassada, a small island in the Seaof Marmara, could easily turn into a kind of Gezi Park scenario in which badly

communicated government plans for a highly symbolic spot meet withwidespread resistance.

Yassada is not just an island off the coast of stanbul. As Fehim Tatekin,columnist at the Radikal daily, wrote on the Al-Monitor website: Yassada isthe symbol of the sorrows of Turkish democracy. It is the island where PrimeMinister Adnan Menderes and his aides stood trial following the May 27, 1960,military coup, before being sent to the gallows. Menderes, his foreignminister, Fatin Rustu Zorlu, and finance minister, Hasan Polatkan, wereexecuted on Sept. 17, 1961, on Imrali Island, but it was Yassada that lived on

in Turkish memory as the symbol of mourning.

For years there have been plans to transform the remaining buildings inwhich the trial took place into a Freedom and Democracy Museum, similarto Robben Island in South Africa, the place where Nelson Mandela wasimprisoned for so many years. Originally, the plan was strongly supported byPrime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan who considers Menderes to be one ofhis political idols, together with the late President Turgut zal. In 2011,Erturul Gnay, then minister of culture and tourism, revealed details of the

planned museum that showed historical sites being renovated and repaired.

The project got a warm welcome, but that joy has now been replaced byindignation after Radikal revealed that the latest development plan for theisland includes the construction of touristic facilities like a hotel, suites, cafesand restaurants. It seems the state-led plan for a museum has been replacedwith a profit-oriented private sector investment project, taking advantage ofthe fact that last year the island's status as a protected area and historicalsite was abolished.

The local municipality has filed objections against the plan, fearing that theisland's natural and historical fabric is in danger and has already announcedthat, if necessary, it will go to court. Former minister Gnay called the newplans a disrespect to the memory of the coup victims. Politically verysensitive were the reactions of the relatives of the men that were sentenced


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to the gallows, accusing Erdoan of profiteering and urging that Yassadaremains an island of mourning.

So there we are again: The government is contemplating controversial plans

for a politically emblematic place, accused of giving in to the infamousconstruction sector and in danger of antagonizing both locals and the familyof one of the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) ideological models. Whatto do?

Cynics and AKP skeptics will probably say the prime minister is in no mood togive in to the protests and will try to bulldoze all opposition against thedisputed project. I would advise another line of action that takes into accountthe lessons learned from the disastrous handling of the Gezi Park proteststhat, whether the government likes it are not, has damaged the image of

Turkey in general and the prime minister in particular. My three suggestionsfor the AKP government:

* Sit together, before it is too late, with the mayor of the Princes' Islands (whobelongs to the Republican People's Party (CHP)) and representatives ofconcerned civil society organizations and try to work out a compromise basedon the old Gnay plans in which all new construction would be limited tofacilitating the proper functioning of the museum.

* Show that, by doing so, you have understood the growing criticism on theconcretization of stanbul for commercial purposes. Reverse that trend andstart on Yassada.

* Announce that, in case you do not reach a consensus, you will organize areferendum in which different alternatives for Yassada will be presented and

immediately start adopting the legislation that will make such a referendumfeasible.

On Sunday, a fleet of protesters will set sail for Sivriada, one of the otheruninhabited small islands close to Yassada. Let's see whether thegovernment has regained its capacity to learn from previous mistakes or


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whether we will soon get into Gezi Park part two.

Why is Erdoan so soft on Putin?

A few days ago, RT, previously known as Russia Today, reported on itswebsite that Israel had used a Turkish military base to launch one of itsrecent air strikes against Syria. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutolureacted immediately and denied the claims, saying they were complete lies.The ones who claim this want to damage Turkey's power and reputation,Davutolu said.

The reaction of Turkey's top diplomat was surprisingly harsh, taking intoaccount that RT is directly linked to and funded by the Russian government,and is part of a larger effort to improve the image of Russia abroad. In otherwords: Davutolu, indirectly, strongly criticized Moscow, an attitude that

contrasts sharply with the soft tone always used by Prime Minister RecepTayyip Erdoan in his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The all too obvious RT attempt to link Turkey to Israeli attacks on Syriareminded me of an interview I recently gave to RT on the Gezi Park protestsand the Syria policy of the Turkish government. It was evident from the startof the prerecorded interview that the presenter had a clearly defined agendathat she wanted me to confirm: Firstly, the reaction of the Turkishgovernment to the demonstrations showed that Prime Minister Erdoan wasturning into an authoritarian leader and, secondly, Turkey's Syria policy waswrong and unsustainable.

On the first point I partially agreed, although my host definitively did notappreciate my comparison with Putin, who, in my view, is the present dayicon of authoritarian leadership. The point I strongly disagreed with was thesuggestion that the protests against Erdoan and his confrontational styleand policies might turn into armed resistance similar to what we saw in Syriain 2011 and 2012. It was just one of the endeavors by the RT anchorwomanto compare Gezi Park to the peaceful demonstrations against Syrian PresidentBashar al-Assad that were not successful and, in the end, turned into thecurrent bloody civil war.

Although I have criticized, from the start, the mishandling of the protests bythe Turkish government, I believe it does not make any sense to compare this


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blunder with the systematic and violent repression of any dissent by theSyrian regime, now and in the past. To take the argument one step further: Iconsider coming up with these artificial similarities as a deliberate attempt todefend the repressive actions of the Assad regime and its main backer,Russia, and to delegitimize the anti-Assad policy of the Turkish government.

The biased questions of the RT interviewer underlined the Russian strategy toframe Turkey's Syria policy as misguided and illegal because, according toMoscow, Ankara is targeting an internationally recognized government that istrying to defend itself against terrorist assaults.

A few weeks ago, Erdoan spoke on the phone with Putin on a range ofissues, including the situation in Syria. The conversation did not attract muchmedia attention because it was evident, again, that the two leaders differfundamentally on how to deal with Damascus. What we did not hear was astrong condemnation by Erdoan of Putin's strategy to actively support aregime that Ankara holds responsible, among other things, for the terroristattack in Reyhanl that killed over 50 people.

As I wrote last Sunday, Erdoan had a point when he criticized the EU afterBrussels failed to label the Egyptian military's takeover of the government asa coup, accusing the bloc of hypocrisy. But why is he so uncharacteristicallysilent, at least in public, when it comes to the Russian strategy to structurallyundermine and damage Turkey's vital interests in the region, be it through RTpropaganda or the deliveries of arms? Is it really only because of Turkey'sdependence on Russian oil and gas? Or are Erdoan's critics correct whenthey claim that, deep down, the Turkish prime minister admires the heavy-handed tactics of the Russian president in suppressing domestic dissent?

That might also explain the nomination of Yiit Bulut as Erdoan's new chiefadvisor. Bulut is known to be a big fan of both Erdoan and Putin, and onecan be sure he will do his utmost to prevent his two favorite authoritarianleaders from turning against each other.

Double standards? What double standards?

Good coups, bad coups


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To be honest, when the Egyptian military overthrew President MohammedMorsi and his Muslim Brotherhood (MB) government on July 4, I did not expecta long debate on the question of whether or not this power grab should belabeled a coup. As many observers formulated it that day: It looks like a coup,it smells like a coup, it acts like a coup. So who would seriously want to

challenge that observation?

It turned out that most governments in the region and beyond did. Turkey andTunisia were the exceptions when they spoke out strongly against thetakeover by the army. In Ankara it even led to a common declaration by allfour parties in Parliament, a rare act of unison. The African Union reactedquickly by suspending Egypt's membership. That was it.

The US administration expressed its concerns, but kept avoiding the term

coup, fully aware of the fact that there is a legal requirement that forcesthe US to suspend aid to countries where the military has deposed ademocratically elected government. Apparently, Washington does not want tolose the leverage on Cairo it believes the US has because of the billions itdonates for military equipment and debt forgiveness.

The EU declaration was weak as well for reasons that I still fail to understandfully. It is probably a mix of diplomatic cautiousness pushed too far, worriesthat a powerful condemnation would put the EU funds for Egypt (already

under attack for a lack of accountability) in danger and little love lost forMorsi and the MB.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan immediately jumped on theEuropean failure to speak out against the coup and accused Brussels ofhypocrisy. That condemnation went down well in Turkey, where broadlyshared bad memories of coups d'tat are combined with a deeply rootedindignation about perceived European double standards.

The problem with such outspoken self-righteousness is that it easily backfires:The current Sudanese ruler Omar Hassan al-Bashir, indicted for war crimes bythe International Criminal Court but a good friend of the AKP government,came to power 24 years ago after staging a military coup against thedemocratically elected government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi. Soalthough Erdoan definitely has a point on the EU's feebleness in the case of


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Egypt's coup and he gets away with his selective memory on Sudan's recenthistory at home, these discrepancies are not lost on seasoned diplomats inEurope.

The Turkish government bashing the US and the EU also contrasted sharplywith the deafening silence coming from Ankara on the explicit welcoming ofthe military coup by the rich Arab monarchies. Saudi Arabia, the United ArabEmirates and Kuwait promised no less than $12 billion support to the newregime in Cairo. As Marc Lynch, professor at George Washington University,put it in Foreign Policy: It's pretty clear what the counter-revolutionary Gulfmonarchs expect for their generosity, and it's not democracy. Theconservative Gulf states would like to buy a new Mubarakism and a final endto all of this Arab uprising unpleasantness. Curious to know what Erdoan'stake is on that. Or will we not hear about this because the common interests

in the fight against Bashar al-Assad in Syria are too big at the moment?

The good thing about a free press is that the debate on Yes or No Coupcontinues, especially in the US. The New York Times published a breakingstory that seemed to show that powerful groups and individuals related to theold Mubarak regime had done their utmost for months to undermine Mr.Morsi's administration, for instance by blocking energy supplies, causingpower cuts and long lines at petrol stations. After the military startedarresting dozens of MB leaders and cracking down on pro-Morsi media, the

influential Associated Press news agency decided to change course andbegan calling the military overthrow a coup.

On the website The Monkey Cage, specialized American academics expressedclearly why this ongoing dispute is important: Coups are bad for democracy,international responses to coups matter, and Egypt's path towards (or awayfrom) democracy will likely hinge upon strong international pressure to returnto elections and respect the electoral outcome as soon as possible.

Egyptian lessons for Turkey (2)

Despite some fundamental differences between Egypt and Turkey, the recentevents in Egypt have also revealed several remarkable similarities betweenthe way in which the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has reacted to themassive protests that started in stanbul's Gezi Park and the efforts of the


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Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in Egypt to cope with the strong opposition inEgyptian society against its rule that eventually resulted in the military coupof last week.

In my previous article I specified four of these parallels: a majoritarian

approach to democracy; the failure to distinguish between acts of revenge byold foes and legitimate demands for a more inclusive democracy; anunderestimation of the fear of Islamization; and the void created by the lackof an attractive political alternative.

The $1 million question is how the AKP and the MB are going to respond tothe opposition they have been facing recently or, in the case of the MB, theviolent repression that still goes on.

Let's start with the lessons Turkey's ruling party should draw from bothTaksim and Tahrir. That will matter in the first place, of course, to Turkey. Butthe reaction of the AKP will also have a huge impact on the wider Muslimworld. Many political Islamists in North Africa and the Middle East, especiallya new generation of reformers, will follow closely how the AKP, the bestexample of a post-Islamist party, will further develop. They did so in the past10 years, and they will keep on doing so in the future for one simple reason:After ruling Turkey for more than 10 years, the AKP is way ahead of allmovements and parties in the region that, in one way or the other, could be

labeled as political Islamists.

So what will the AKP's answer be? At the moment it's clear the ruling party isin no mood to question its own shortcomings. The mishandling of the GeziPark protests continues, the media are still under pressure and the hunt forforeign scapegoats is ongoing. It seems the AKP critics are correct who claimthat the party is unwilling to change strategy and will try to win next year'selections by relying on its core constituency and by sticking to the successfulelectoral formula of the last decade. No opening to political opponents, no

softening of policies that have caused unnecessary unrest. That assessmentcould well be true and it is most probably the course of action that Erdoanand the people around him prefer.

But it is not the whole story. There are several reasons to believe anotheroutcome, particularly after 2014, might be possible as well. Opinion polls and


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many private conversations have convinced me that a considerable group ofAKP voters are unhappy with the style and, to a certain extent, policies of thecurrent AKP leadership. Many realize that, anyway, the Erdoan era inside theAKP will come to an end next year when the prime minister, in all likelihood,will be elected as president under the present constitutional rules. Nobody

can be sure who will take over as prime minister in October 2014. What wedo know is that among the candidates several are known for their moremoderate approach and conciliatory style.

The future of Turkey's democracy, whether one likes it or not, will, to a largeextent, be determined by the outcome of the internal AKP struggle fordominance and direction in the post-Erdoan period. Will we see more of thesame or will there be an AKP 2.0 that has realized a new, more prosperousand democratic Turkey needs a new, inclusive, less confrontational way of

governing?

The shape and substance of the AKP 2.0 will also influence how the MB 2.0will look like. Will the Egyptian Islamists abandon the political game, resort tounderground, sometimes violent resistance and remain an authoritarian,inward-looking movement? Or will they learn from the mistakes they madewhile in power, continue to believe electoral democracy will bring hugebenefits to Egypt and therefore try again in next year's elections, albeit with aless rigid and more pragmatic modus operandi?

Gezi Park has forced the AKP to make up its mind. The coup in Egypt hasmade the result of that rethinking crucial for the rest of the region as well.

Egyptian lessons for Turkey (1)

After the military coup against Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and hisMuslim Brotherhood (MB), much attention has been paid to the repercussions

this forceful removal of a democratically elected Islamist leader will have onother Islamist movements in the region.

Informed observers like Shadi Hamid from the Brookings Doha Center areafraid it will deepen the already powerful narrative of persecution, repressionand regret among Islamist activists. Some of them might be tempted to giveup on electoral democracy altogether, thinking that Islamists will never bepermitted, by the old domestic secular elites, the West or both, to rule Muslim


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majority countries after winning elections. Other Islamists will draw theconclusion, as The Economist formulated it, that if they win elections, theiropponents will use non-democratic means to oust them. So if they areallowed to come to office, they will very likely do their damnedest to cementtheir power by fair means of foul. Crush your opponents could well be their

motto.

It is hard to disagree with all these pessimistic scenarios. Still, let me try tooutline another possible course of events in which Turkey and, morespecifically, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) plays a key role.

Before coming to the lessons that Turkey could learn from the events inEgypt, let me preempt part of the criticism by stressing some of thefundamental differences between Egypt and Turkey that should create somecaution in drawing parallels and in formulating lessons learned. I'll mentionfour:

1. Turkey, unlike Egypt, has a 60-year history of free and fair elections thathave created a functioning parliamentary democracy that, despite fourmilitary coups, is still alive and kicking. EU-inspired reforms in the last 10years have strengthened democracy in Turkey in a way Egyptians can onlydream of; 2. Turkey's booming economy has been the basis of the AKP'svictory in three consecutive elections. In Egypt, Morsi and the MB failedmiserably in repairing the many problems of the Egyptian economy. Or, asFaisal J. Abbas , editor-in-chief of Al Arabiya English, put it: In his last speechas president, Morsi kept going on about his legitimacy' and was foolishenough to think that the people who had voted him into power are going tokeep him there when two of every five Egyptians continue to live on less than$2 a day.; 3. The AKP is another political animal than the MB. With all mutualsympathies on display these days, the fact remains that Recep TayyipErdoan and Abdullah Gl created the AKP as a post-Islamist party while theMB is still, at least under its current leadership, a traditional Islamist

movement that has not gone through a exhaustive reform process; 4. InTurkey, the army, unlike their Egyptian colleagues, has lost both the capacityand the legitimacy to intervene and stage a military coup against an electedgovernment.

This profound divergence between the two counties should, however, not


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lead to the conclusion that Turkey and Egypt, or the AKP and the MB, havenothing in common and that therefore what happens in Cairo will not andshould not have any consequences for Ankara or the other way around.

Let me underline four similarities on which I will elaborate in my next article:

1. The AKP and the MB have both shown a majoritarian approach todemocracy in which only election results count. Winning more than 50percent of the votes was interpreted as a license to do whatever theydeemed necessary without any proper consultations with opponents; 2. Adeeply rooted fear of a backlash created the impression that all opposition totheir rule was, and still is, manipulated by old domestic foes and their foreignsupporters. No distinction is made between, on the one hand, those forcesthat, no doubt, exist and, on the other hand, Egyptian and Turkish citizensthat simply strongly disagree with the political project of the ruling party; 3.

The fear of a creeping Islamization of state and society, although oftenexaggerated, should have been taken more seriously and not be discardedbeforehand; 4. There is no attractive political alternative, either because theopposition is too weak (Turkey) or hopelessly divided (Egypt).

Stop comparing Turkey with Croatia

On Monday, Croatia became the 28th member of the European Union, 22years after Zagreb declared independence, severing all ties with Yugoslavia in

June 1991.

The new member of the EU family got a mixed welcome. Europeaninstitutions called Croatia's accession a historic step. Combined with thedecision last Friday to start membership talks with Serbia no later than

January 2014 and open the way for Kosovo to get closer to the EU, the lastfew days mark a big moment for the Western Balkans. After years of doubtsand hesitations, Brussels seems to have made up its mind and has starteddelivering on its 2003 promise that the future of all Balkan countries liesinside the EU.

According to seasoned Balkan observer and analyst Tim Judah, Croatia'saccession proves that the EU's enlargement policy is still working and thatthere is no need to reinvent the wheel. Because of EU pressure, Croatia wasforced to tackle some of the main obstacles on its road to the EU, such as


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high-level corruption. Judah is calling on the EU to now turn its attention tothe six remaining Balkan countries that are waiting at the door, albeit insharply diverging positions: Montenegro and Serbia have a clear membershipperspective and Kosovo and Albania seem able to move forward, but Bosniaand Herzegovina and Macedonia, for different reasons, are stuck. Judah: To

those skeptical about further enlargement, here is a simple thing toremember. After Croatia, none of the Balkan Six will be ready to join for solong that there is plenty of time to use the process to make sure they are fitto accede. And in most places, if not all, that process is yielding results.

I'm not sure Judah's conclusion will convince those Europeans who are afraid,as The New York Times put it, that an overstretched EU will becomeunmanageable, or those who compare Croatia with Bulgaria and Romania,countries that were admitted too quickly in 2007 and have since fanned fears

that the EU had imported lawlessness and graft into the bloc. One should addto those doubts general enlargement fatigue resulting from the currenteconomic crisis and the resistance in public opinion against large-scaleimmigration from new member states. It is true that all these objections aretemporary or can be resolved in time, but the overall unenthusiasticreception of Croatia's accession, for instance in the Netherlands, is a clearsign that, at least at the moment, many Europeans would prefer the EU toremain closed to further enlargement for the foreseeable future.

Turkey has always had a special relationship with Croatia's EU accessionprocess for one simple reason: The two countries started their journey on thesame day in October 2005. Since then, every move forward or backward in

Turkey's EU adventures has been compared to Croatia's fortunes. Althoughthe tendency to draw analogies between Turkey and Croatia isunderstandable, it didn't make much sense from the start, for severalreasons.

One, size matters, also in EU membership talks. In the past, the accession of

big countries like Spain or Poland has always been more complicated andcontroversial than, for instance, that of Portugal or Slovenia. In this case itgoes without saying: Turkey's membership will fundamentally change the EU;Croatia's accession won't. Two, the problems Croatia had to cope with --revamping a statist post-communist economy, dealing with rampantcorruption and building a new state after a war of secession -- were of atotally different nature than those Turkey is facing. Three, unlike with Turkey,


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hardly anybody has any doubts about Croatia's European vocation and thereis no popular sentiment against the country in the rest of Europe based onhistorical, cultural and religious prejudices and misperceptions, as there is inthe case of Turkey.

Let's therefore stop making comparisons that, inevitably, strengthenestablished, negative Turkish perceptions that make the country the eternalvictim of Europe's bad intentions. The EU should be blamed for many thingswhen it comes to its dealings with Turkey since the start of the membershipnegotiations in 2005. Favoring Croatia is not one of them.

Conservative ambiguity on Turkey

From the moment Turkey became an EU candidate country in 1999, secularconservatives in Europe have had a problem deciding how to positionthemselves.

Many of them were staunch defenders of Turkey in the 80s and 90s becausethey considered the country to be a vital part of NATO and a key Western allyin a troubled region. Those same years, the left was very critical of Turkeybecause of the massive human rights violations after the 1980 coup and thebloody war between the Turkish military and the Kurdistan Workers Party(PKK). After Turkey got the green light to start its journey toward fullmembership, this predictable right-left split, rooted in the Cold War, began todissolve.

Most on the left valued the efforts by successive Turkish governments tointroduce European-style reforms and changed from Turkey skeptics intosupporters of Turkeys EU accession. European liberal and secularconservatives, not to be confused with the Christian Democrats, had a hardtime adjusting to the new realities. Some of them remained loyal friends of

Turkey, combining their old strategic rationale with new arguments based onthe growing economic importance of Turkey as an emerging market. Otherson the right, however, changed sides and started speaking out stronglyagainst Turkeys EU membership.

One of the most prominent representatives of the latter group was and is FritsBolkestein, leader of the Dutch conservative Liberals in the 1990s andEuropean commissioner between 1999 and 2004. He is still very visible in the


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public debate in the Netherlands on how to assess Turkey. Last week, aseminar was organized in Amsterdam to discuss some of the issues thatBolkestein has always been very candid about. I was asked to speak on theborders of Europe, politically and geographically. So, of course, Turkeyfeatured prominently.

The interesting thing is that over the years, the arguments of Bolkestein andhis fans against Turkeys accession have shifted from principled to pragmatic.For a long time, Bolkesteins main argument was based on a historical andcultural dividing line inside Europe. On one side, according to him, there wasthe part of Europe that went through the Enlightenment. On the other side ofthis imagined border were the countries that did not have this experience,like Turkey, and for that reason would never be able to subscribe to thevalues and principles on which the EU is based. After Romania and Bulgaria,

countries that share the same Ottoman history with Turkey, became EUmembers in 2007, this argument lost its value and attractiveness. From thenon, Bolkestein and other conservatives focused much more on the size of

Turkey and the difficulties of adjusting the EU to the accession of such a bigcountry. What remained was the often implicit hint at the problems related toIslam and its presumed incompatibility with democracy.

One could witness the liberal conservative ambiguities on Turkey again at theBolkestein seminar last week. This time it was the issue of how to react to the

recent protests and the heavy-handed reaction of the Turkish government.Everybody agreed that the situation was totally mishandled, referring topolice brutality and incomprehensible conspiracy theories.

But there was no unanimity on the best way to react. Should the stalled EUnegotiations be stopped forever because Turkey had demonstrated, again, itwas not a European country? Or would that be punishing the demonstratorswho took to the streets advocating core European values such as freedom ofassembly and speech?

It reminded me of the dilemma faced by those in Europe who pretend todefend the rights of the Kurds or non-Muslim religious minorities in Turkeyand therefore often call for suspension of the talks in order to punish thegovernment for a lack of reform on these issues. These self-acclaimedadvocates are always uncomfortable when they hear that the groups they


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claim to fight for are the staunchest supporters of Turkeys EU membershipand dont want this prospect to be put in danger because they are convincedEU accession is still the best guarantee that, one day, these groups will beable to enjoy their full rights.

Friends of Turkey

Two days ago I received the first Dutch-Turkish Friendship Award. Two otherpeople were awarded as well: successful Dutch-Turkish businessman Turgut

Torunoullar and famous Dutch composer Theo Loevendie. The prize was aninitiative by two Dutch-Turkish businessmen, Atilay Uslu and Ahmet Takan,who wanted to find an appropriate follow-up to the celebrations of 400 yearsof Dutch-Turkish diplomatic and trade relations last year.

Starting from this week, each year the Friendship Award will be given to three

people who have contributed to a better understanding between Turkey andthe Netherlands and the strengthening of the friendship between the twopeoples.

Of course I was proud to be among the first three Friends of Turkey. The termreminded me of an article written by renowned Turkey expert Erik-Jan Zrchersome years ago.

According to Zrcher, friendship, similar to love, comes in many differentguises. He distinguished between three kinds of friendship for Turkey relatedto Turkey's quest for EU membership.

One comes from those who have strong personal or business ties to thecountry and are irritated by the many misunderstandings and misperceptionsabout Turkey that keep popping up in the media in the Netherlands and otherparts of Europe. They try to present the real Turkey and don't want to hear

anything negative about the country they love. For that reason, they are notthe ones who are able or willing to criticize the Turks when, inevitably,mistakes are being made.

Then there is a second group of so-called friends of Turkey that claims tohave the best of intentions but keeps overloading the country with an endless


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list of criticism mixed with a certain dose of hypocrisy and double standards.Their message, often implicitly, is: Turkey is very different from the rest of usand basically does not belong in Europe or the EU.

The third group in Zrcher's article consists of those who defend Turkey'sright to apply for EU membership but, sometimes at the same time, criticizethe country for its decisions and policies that go against this stated aim.According to Zrcher, I belong to this group of true friends who have nohidden agenda and combine pleasant and unpleasant messages, in goodtimes and in bad. I can only hope that I received my award because of thistype of friendship.

For the genuine friends of Turkey, we are definitely going through some toughtimes. Over the last couple of weeks, in dealing with the protests in Gezi Parkand many other places in Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan andseveral of his ministers have shot themselves in the foot repeatedly. They failto understand the reasons why so many Turks took to the streets to expresstheir frustrations and tried to portray them as the manipulated victims ofdark domestic and international forces that want to block Turkey's rise bycreating unrest and instability.

It is especially the real friends of Turkey who should strongly criticize thegovernment for its total mishandling of the situation and tell Turkey's leadersthat their worn-out and outdated conspiracy theories undermine Turkey'scredibility in the rest of the world.

On the other hand, these same friends should also stand up against the easyand predictable conclusions of many so-called experts in Europe who want

Turkey-EU accession talks to be stopped because this has finally shown (Wetold you so) that Turkey does not belong in Europe.

I agree with all those who stated over the last couple of days that breaking upwould be the worst response to the demands for more European-styledemocracy and freedoms that we can hear all over the country. Besides, theruling party will only return to its reform agenda if the EU engages it.Slamming the door in Turkey's face now, as some former friends suggest, willonly give a boost to those within and outside the ruling Justice and


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Development Party (AK Party) who cherish a new round of splendid Turkishisolation.

Being a true friend of Turkey is not always easy. It requires stamina and

stubbornness in the face of superficial judgments and short-sightedopportunism. But I am sure that the organizers of the Friendship Awards willfind three new ones in the Netherlands next year.

Will Turkey pull the plug?

It would be an understatement to say that today we are facing anunprecedented breach of trust between Turkey and the EU. Ever since thefirst round of police brutality in and around Gezi Park, the Turkish government

and EU institutions have been in a war of words that has spiraled totally outof control.

First, Stefan Fle, the EU Commissioner responsible for enlargement, whomade it clear Turkey should respect the rights of its citizens to demonstratepeacefully, was lambasted by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan in a veryrude way.

The thing that really caused several ministers to foam with anger was a

resolution of the European Parliament that expressed deep concern at whatwas called disproportionate and excessive use of force by the Turkish policein its response to the peaceful and legitimate protest in Istanbuls Gezi Park.It was a blunder from the parliament not to refer to those demonstrators thatwere not so peaceful, but the reactions of the government were, again,disproportionate and excessive. The prime minister said he did not recognizethe EP, and some of his colleagues said it was none of the parliamentsbusiness. All seemed deliberately to have forgotten that it is the task of theEP to follow each accession process critically, and if deemed necessary, toexpress its opinion. If Turkey does not recognize that right, it might as wellstep out of the whole process because, for sure, this resolution will not to bethe last one.

It looked as if Egemen Ba, Turkeys chief negotiator was preparing theground for such a radical move when he told some EU countries to get lost.It was an incendiary reaction to the speculation that Germany might blockthe opening of a new chapter in the upcoming week. Everybody knows that


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potential step from Berlin is motivated by electoral opportunism. But there isalso the misguided calculation that sending this message will encourage andstrengthen protesters in Turkey. Unfortunately, the opposite is true: It willinvigorate all those in and outside the government who reject any foreigninterference, and it will weaken the demands for more European-style

democracy in Turkey.

After all this EU bashing, some observers think the Turkish government hashad enough of it and might be asking for a formal suspension of theaccession talks.

Just to prevent any misunderstanding, let me tell you what the consequenceswill be if an angry Turkey indeed opts for a temporary stop to the talks. Nosuch scenario is foreseen in the Negotiating Framework, the set of rules onthe basis of which Turkey and the EU are negotiating about full membership.

The only option mentioned in that document is when the EU decides tosuspend the talks in the case of a serious and persistent breach by Turkeyof the principles on which the EU is founded.

But that is not what we are talking about here because it would be Turkeypulling the plug, not the EU. Nobody knows for sure what to do in that case asthere are no prescribed procedures. It is obvious that the negotiations wouldbe stopped temporarily until Turkey decides to come back to the table. It isalso clear that some EU member states that have always been against

Turkeys EU membership would be very happy if Turkey would walk out now.In case Turkey one day decides it wants to resume the accession talks, thesesame countries will use every procedural trick in the book or politicallymotivated excuse to postpone such a resumption indefinitely or make itextremely unattractive for Turkey to do so. In other words: If Turkey walks outnow, it will most probably be forever.

I am sure the EU opponents in Turkey and the Turkophobics in Europe will bedelighted. Their dreams would finally come true because Turkeys leaders gotcarried away and lost their temper. However, on behalf of all those who wouldconsider this to be the nightmare scenario that would slow down democraticreforms in Turkey even further and cause unforeseen economic and financialinstability, may I ask one simple question: Is it too much to ask for somecommon sense and anger-management in Ankara?


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Erdoan is fighting the last war

With so many people standing still these days, we might as well spend sometime to reflect on the reasons why the ruling party and especially Prime

Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoan are so manifestly on the wrong track in theirassessment of the Gezi Park protests.

It makes sense, of course, to compare Erdoan with other leaders such asMargaret Thatcher and Helmut Kohl, who, after having been in power for along time, lost the capacity to read their societies in a proper way. It isequally true that the same qualities (stubbornness, unyielding commitment)that helped the Justice and Development Party (AKP) leader push throughmajor reforms in the past (like reducing the political role of the military) arenow working against him.

The thing that struck me most, however, in Erdoan's speeches over theweekend was the impression that when the prime minister is talking aboutGezi Park and the thousands of demonstrators all over Turkey, he is fightingthe last war. Generals are notorious for their tendency to use the strategiesand tactics of the past to achieve victory in the present. According to me,that is exactly what Erdoan is doing now: sticking to old and, one mustadmit, often successful game plans and grand designs, not recognizing thatconditions have changed.

Erdoan's rise to power is inextricably connected with changes in Turkey'ssociety and economy in the 1980s and 1990s that challenged the old powerstructures and created new spaces for conservative businessmen, media andpoliticians. The self-made man from Kasmpaa is the most successful amonga new generation of pious Muslims who went into politics, especially after herealized that, in order to reach his goals, he had to moderate his policies andrhetoric. Still, since he became Istanbul mayor in the 1990s, his battle hasbeen with the old elite and their representatives in politics and society,

knowing that he could count on the support of the downtrodden andmarginalized plus the growing middle classes and new business elites whoshared his social conservatism and economic liberalism. His sympathies havealways been with like-minded companies that rose with him and not with theold and established ones like the Ko family.


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That struggle has made him the most successful politician since Atatrk andbrought Turkey a lot of gains that are often overlooked these days. Thecountry has become more prosperous since the AKP came to power, nobodyeven considers calling the army to intervene and we have never been closerto a solution for the Kurdish problem. But, apparently, at the back of

Erdoan's mind there was always the fear that, one day, the old elites will tryto strike back at him and his party because, deep down, they can't standbeing ruled by a so-called Black Turk that does not respect their views orlifestyles.

Listening to Erdoan, I think it is obvious that he is convinced the people whowent out on the streets to protest him are being manipulated by the same oldforces he has been fighting his whole political life. In his perception of reality,they want to undermine and eventually destroy the new Turkey he has been

building. As is every Turkish citizen, he is also prone to believe that his oldfoes in Turkey are being assisted by their traditional allies abroad and in theinternational media.

What we end up with is a mix of worn-out conspiracy theories and a politicalvision based on the fights of the past.

It is tragic to see the man who contributed considerably to Turkey's journeytowards a mature democracy is now stumbling somewhere halfway throughbecause he is unable to understand that, as a result of his own policies,

Turkey has changed. There is a new generation out there that has profitedfrom the economic boom of the past 10 years. Like it or not, they take thatfor granted.

What they want now is more freedom, more democracy and less paternalism.Their demands have hit a chord with many Turks who have felt overpoweredby the AKP leader for a long time.

In order to understand all this, Erdoan needs to change his mentalframework that served him well in the past but is not suited for the presentand the future.

Gezi referendum could be game changer


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After a last-minute meeting between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoanand representatives of the Gezi Park demonstrators in the early hours ofFriday morning, an agreement was reached on how to get out of the deadlock

after three weeks of fierce antigovernment protests that have rocked theentire nation.

At the moment of writing this column, we dont know whether the majority ofthe activists who are still occupying the park will accept the deal. When theydont, we might again face ugly scenes in the center of stanbul because thegovernment made it clear it wont tolerate further occupation of Gezi Park.When violence erupts once more, it is also hard to predict the reactions at thepro-government rallies that will be held over the weekend in stanbul andAnkara.

A new round of fighting at Gezi Park and the negative impact that mighthave on protests elsewhere in Turkey would cast a shadow on a deal that Iconsider as a major victory for the protesters and an important, albeitbelated, concession by the government. The crucial element in the Fridaymorning agreement is not the promise by the government to put on hold theirplans to raze the park until an appeals court reaches a decision and to giveup on them when the appeal fails. The government has appealed an earlierdecision by a court to suspend the implementation of its barracks project. It isonly normal in a country that claims to be based on the rule of law that the

government respects the legal procedures and does not simply sweep themaside and do whatever it wants. True, in this country we have seen too manyexamples of this disrespect in the past, but playing by the rules of the bookshould not be considered a concession.

No, the real victory for the protesters is the guarantee they got from thegovernment that even if the court rules in favor of the administrations plans,a referendum will be organized in stanbul that will allow the inhabitants ofthis city to express their views on the development of the park. It would be a

major mistake to underestimate the significance of this pledge thatintroduces a whole new element in Turkeys often painfully slowly evolvingdemocracy. It resembles responses from authorities in the rest of Europe thatwere confronted with similar resistance against plans that went through theregular democratic procedures but triggered opposition among large parts ofthe population that felt excluded from the decision-making process.Remember the plans for the Stuttgart train station some years ago.


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Holding a plebiscite is a good way to reach a decision but only under certainconditions. I sincerely hope that, independent of how the current protestsend, the Gezi Park demonstrators will put enough creativity and commitment

into preparing the referendum that might come. They should use the linksthey established in Ankara last Friday to convince the government that areferendum is not an instrument the authorities can use as it pleases them.One example: The outcome of the popular vote will only be accepted if thereis no manipulation with the question posed. In this case that should mean, inmy view, that stanbulites will not be asked to agree or disagree with theoriginal government proposal. Instead, they should be given two options: PlanA (the barracks) and Plan B (a park), formulated by the proponents of eachplan. On top of that, there should be a reasonable period of time to campaignand preferably an agreement on equal access to free publicity.

I fully realize that, at the moment, many protesters might think this does notconcern them or these considerations are not valid in Turkey. That isunderstandable after so much police brutality, frustration and tears. Still, itwould be an enormous missed opportunity if the Gezi Park demonstrators failto make proper use of the referendum on offer. Not only stanbul but also therest of Turkey would profit from this experiment with local self-governing. Itwould, above all, show that what we witnessed in Gezi Park was not a stepinto the abyss but the birth pains of a more mature Turkish democracy.

We told you so'

It is high time that some serious Erdoanologists get together and try tomake sense of the Gezi Park policies of the prime minister. Listening to Recep

Tayyip Erdoan last Friday, I got the impression that he was making adistinction between the original occupiers of Gezi Park on the one hand andthe radical and sometimes violent groups in Taksim on the other.

Last weekend, however, all moderation seemed to have evaporated during

several speeches in which Erdoan blamed the entire protest movementaround the country on subversive powers in and outside of Turkey. OnMonday, in another remarkable twist, reason seemed to have returned whenit was announced that the government had invited a group of wise people totry and formulate a compromise and, even more striking, that the primeminister himself was planning to meet some representatives of the Gezi Parkoccupiers on Wednesday. Now, as I am writing this column, the police have

just removed banners and barriers from Taksim Square but seem intent on


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not touching the peaceful demonstrators inside Gezi Park. How do we makesense of all these contradictory remarks and initiatives?

Has Erdoan, as some claim, decided to go for a scenario of further

polarization, calculating that this strategy will pay off in next year's elections?Or has he understood that he can't bully his way out of this problem and hasto strike a deal, albeit reluctantly, with those occupiers who are willing tocontemplate a compromise solution? You don't need to be a rocket scientistto know how that trade-off will look: keep and expand Gezi Park, cancel th

2013 joojst lagendijk

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