Rand: AK Party closure will deepen divide

Monday, 16 June 2008

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is likely to take a moderate course if it is not closed down by the Constitutional Court and act more cautiously about pressing for measures that could be perceived as changing the secular-religious balance in the country or provoking the secularists into another attempt to remove it from power, a study sponsored by the Pentagon has predicted.

The report, sponsored by the undersecretary of defense for policy and conducted by the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, also found that the religious-secularist divide will deepen within Turkey and that Turkey's relations with the European Union will become more problematic if the ruling party is closed. Shutting down the AK Party, however, is unlikely to eliminate it as a political force because "if it is closed, the party is likely to simply reemerge under another name," the report said.

"It would, however, sharpen the secularist-religious divide within Turkey and could lead some pious Turks to lose faith in the political system. Turkey's prospects of EU membership, already facing serious obstacles, would be further jeopardized," the report, penned by Angel Rabasa and F. Stephen Larrabee, predicted.

The AK Party is facing closure on charges of becoming a focal point of anti-secular activities. Its senior members, including Prime Minister Erdoğan, and President Abdullah Gül, a former AK Party member, are also facing political bans.

Assessing the alternative scenarios for Turkish politics, the RAND report said the AK Party will be faced with structural limits for opening space for Islam in the public sphere. One such limitation stems from the fact that “the Kemalist establishment remains largely intact” and that “any government that crosses the lines that define the acceptable role of religion in politics risks accentuating political tensions and possibly provoking intervention by the military.” Other factors, such as Turkey’s Western orientation and the presence of a moderate and pluralistic tradition of Islam that does not embrace rigid interpretations or Shariah rule will also lead the AK Party to take a moderate path.

According to the report, there are other scenarios under which the AK Party could pursue a more aggressive Islamist agenda or the military could intervene in the country’s politics, but they look less likely. It noted that there were secularist Turks who were worried that the AK Party would appoint Islamists to state posts and turn away from Europe to create a rival Islamic bloc. But this “creeping Islamization” scenario is unlikely for several reasons: “First, it would lead to greater political polarization and would likely provoke intervention by the military. Second, most Turks support a secular state and oppose a state based on the Shariah. Third, EU membership has been a core element of the AK Party’s foreign policy,” said the report.
As for possible direct military intervention, the report said this would occur only as a last resort in the event that the AK Party presses for an Islamic agenda more aggressively. “A confrontation could take place if the AK Party takes actions seen by the military as crossing important lines. …While direct intervention by the military cannot be excluded from consideration, especially if the AK Party begins to push an Islamic agenda more aggressively, it is not very likely and would occur only as a last resort after the military had exhausted all other options,” said the report.

The report noted that the AK Party’s Erdoğan, unlike his Islamist predecessor, Necmettin Erbakan, was oriented toward Europe and that the party’s electoral success “does not translate into popular support for an Islamist agenda.” Assessing the implications of the AK Party’s pro-European policies, the report said they paved the way for the reconfiguration of Turkish politics as well: “As the West became a tacit ally of the AK Party, formerly pro-Western secularists surfaced as opponents of EU accession. The [main opposition Republican People’s Party] CHP, once the champion of a Western orientation for Turkey, has increasingly moved in a more nationalistic direction and has adopted a more ambiguous attitude toward the West, seeing some aspects of the West’s influence as a threat to the integrity of the Turkish state and Kemalism.”

Lessons for US: Turkish alliance in Mideast not taken for granted

With its renewed focus on Middle Eastern affairs and growing interests in the region, Turkey is likely to avoid offering the United States a blank check for military cooperation, a US study has revealed.

The study, sponsored by the Pentagon and conducted by the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, said the Turkish policy toward the Middle East is likely to remain a sensitive issue in bilateral US-Turkish relations. “Turkey’s growing interests in the Middle East are likely to make Ankara wary about allowing the United States to use its military facilities for regional contingencies except where such operations are clearly perceived to be in Turkey’s interest,” it said, calling for a diversification of US access options that would provide alternatives to İncirlik air base in case Turkey increases restrictions on US use of it or other Turkish facilities.

Turkey disappointed the US by refusing to cooperate militarily in the war on Iraq in 2003. Iran, whose nuclear program is viewed with deep suspicion by the US, is expected to be the next issue of contention between Ankara and Washington in the event the US administration decides to go ahead with military sanctions to force Tehran to end its nuclear program.

The RAND report also cautioned the US administration against describing Turkey as a “model” for coexistence of Islam and democracy in its political system because this makes many Turks, particularly the secularists and the military who believe that it pushes Turkey politically closer to the Middle East and weakens Turkey’s Western identity, “uncomfortable.”

This, however, does not mean that Turkey is different from other Muslim countries in its long experience with fusing Islam with Westernization. Referring to Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), the report said: “The ability of a party with Islamic roots to operate within the framework of a secular democratic system while respecting the boundaries between religion and state would refute the argument that Islam cannot be reconciled with modern secular democracy. On the other hand, if the experiment fails, it could lead to greater secular-Islamic polarization, further reducing the middle ground needed to build the moderate Muslim bulwark needed to contain the spread of radicalized Islam.”

“Beyond Turkey, the accommodation of Islam with democracy and secularism that has been achieved there is a valuable resource in the current ideological conflict between radical and mainstream interpretations of Islam. Mainstream entities in Turkey, therefore, should be encouraged to partner with groups and institutions elsewhere in the Muslim world to propagate moderate and pluralistic interpretations of Islam,” the report also noted.

The report dismissed characterization of the current tensions in Turkey as a struggle between “Islamists” and “secularists” and said these tensions were “a part of a struggle for power between newly emerging social sectors and the secularized elite -- a struggle between the ‘periphery’ and the ‘center’-- that has deep roots in Ottoman and recent Turkish history.”
It also noted that while the AK Party has Islamic roots, “it enjoys broad-based political support that transcends religious, class, and regional differences” and suggested Washington should remain committed to supporting Turkey’s membership in the EU because this would “rebut the claim that the West, especially Europe, is innately hostile to Muslims.”

Future US administrations will need to work closely with congressional leaders to ensure that the Armenian issue does not poison future relations with Turkey, the report said, and urged Washington to follow up with concrete steps in its current cooperation with Turkey against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

İstanbul Today’s Zaman

Source

RAND - The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey

RAND - TURKEY AS A U.S. SECURITY PARTNER