With
Skates On, Turkey Could Slip Into Syrian Quagmire
Saeed Naqvi
Hakan Fidan, Chief of Turkish Intelligence,
did not give much credence to warnings by Russian Agencies that a coup to oust
President Tayyip Erdogan was in the works. But he shared the information with
others on a “need-to-know” basis. In a manner of speaking, he closed the door, a
sort of general precaution. He did not send out an alert.
The Russians persisted. A helicopter
gunship would target Erdogan at his Mediterranean holiday resort.
Subsequent stories remain unverified –
that Erdogan could not land at Istanbul, Germany, Azerbaijan. That is when the Americans
gave him refuge at the Incirlik air base which, ironically, happens to be in
Turkey. Then Fethullah Gulen surfaced as the master plotter, in cahoots with “some”
American Generals.
Obviously the Russians had their ears
close to the ground when they picked up the earliest signals of the impending
coup. When Erdogan called out the people to thwart the plotters, Tehran was the
first capital to openly support the embattled Turkish president. Suddenly,
Moscow, Tehran, Hezbullah in Lebanon, Iraq particularly Najaf, because Prime
Minister Haider al Abadi in Baghdad is seen as something of an American puppet
– all of them had broad smiles on their faces.
With athletic agility, Erdogan turned up
at St. Petersburg, apologized for the Russian pilot being shot down over Turkey
in November, 2015, and locked Vladimir Putin in a tight embrace.
And, to and behold, Turkish forces are now
in Syria, tanks and all. Is the theory of unintended consequences catching up
with everybody after the failed coup of July 15? I mention this because I have
been witness to another botched up coup which changed the world – The Saur
(April) 1978 revolution which brought the Afghan Communist Parties, Khalq and
Parcham, to power. This paved the way for the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in
1980. I remember a panic stricken Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s
National Security Adviser on the Pakistan-Afghan border, discussing strategies.
Let me first explain how it was a
“botched” up coup.
Having suffered reverses in Vietnam,
Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nicaragua at the hands of local communist
movements, the Americans pressured the Shah of Iran’s Savak secret service to oust
the Left in Kabul which was getting powerful around President Daoud Khan.
When the coup plan was still in its
nascent stages, Mir Akbar Khybar, a trade union leader, affiliated to Parcham,
was killed in an intelligence-counter intelligence mixup. The coup plot had leaked.
Abdul Qadir and Aslam Watanjar, Communist moles in the Afghan Armed Forces,
drove out tanks from Pul e Charkhi. They slaughtered Daoud and his entourage.
The Left, unprepared for power,
persuaded Nur Mohammad Taraki of Khalq to take over as Prime Minister. Within
two years, the Soviets were in Afghanistan.
The US, Saudis, Pakistan, for their own
reasons, got into a scrum. Began the training of Mujahideen in hundreds of
Madrasas along the border with Afghanistan. The strategy was to play on Islamic
aversion to “Godless” communism. The trick, bolstered by stinger missiles, worked.
After 1981, President Reagan had raised
the cost of the Cold War for the Soviet Union everywhere, including Afghanistan.
By 1989, the new Secretary General of CPSU, Mikhail Gorbachev, began withdrawing
Soviet troops. Then, the Berlin wall fell. By 1991 the Soviet Union had come
down like melting ice cream.
Two comparisons with the situation in Turkey
and Afghanistan are possible. It was a botched up coup in Afghanistan in 1978
which changed the world. The consequences plague us to this day. Witness the ghastly
attack on the American University in Kabul this week. Likewise, the botched up
coup in Turkey has brought about strategically new power equations globally as
well as regionally.
The other comparison, to which Syrians
are subscribing, is plausible: Soviet Union hurtled headlong into Afghanistan
and came out irreparably broken. Might Erdogan likewise be leading Turkey
inextricably into the Syrian quagmire?
The omens are not good. For the past
five years every country in the Syrian theatre – the US, France, Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Turkey, Jordan – has been supporting either “moderates” opposed to
Bashar al Assad or extremists like Jumat al Nussra in pursuit of the same end. Each
side has other gameplans which are played out as subsidiary side shows. These are
too many to be listed.
Americans occupied Iraq for a decade, dismantled
all its institutions and left in 2011 more or less empty handed. Which is why they
had to remove Premier Nouri al Maliki who had dedicated himself exclusively to the
expansion of his Shia base. Saudis next door were throwing fits. Americans needed
influence in Baghdad. Little wonder Prime Minister Haider al Abadi is their man.
With such experience in Iraq how did the
Americans (and their cohorts) imagine that mere cross border terrorism – albeit,
lethally armed – would topple Assad? After all the Baathist structure in Syria is
the mirror image of the one in Iraq. Assad is a non practicing Alawi just as Saddam
Hussain was only a notional Sunni. Except for public rituals, both must be listed
as devout atheists.
The impression now being put out is that
Erdogan’s primary aim for entering Syria is to prevent Syrian Kurds carving out
territory along the Turkish border. That would feed Turkish Kurd party, the PKK’s
quest for separation. Erdogan’s purpose last year was different: he was facilitating
ISIS’s oil trade across the border. Erdogan’s ownership of a large fraction of ISIS
was universally acknowledged. In brief, everybody in the Syrian war was everybody
else’s proxy. Erdogan was a major player in this game of surreptitious intent.
Will the terms of endearment now change totally
just because Erdogan kissed Putin on both his cheeks in St. Petersburg?
A new pirouette has begun in Syria. Only
after the US elections will it become clear who is on the dance floor and who is
sinking in a quagmire.
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