Busy, busy, busy

Some have noted to me by email that my last, short post was almost a month ago.  That's the fault of my day job. With a few days free during Eid I hope to post a little more.  I am also leaving the sandbox as it is called in the US and will be going back to my old area of the former Soviet Union in Central Asia.  By September 12 I will be landing in Dushanbe, having said farewell to Qatar. I last worked in Tajikistan in 2008 - what seems like a century ago. 

Standard & Poors - Lobby Group

Standard & Poors needs to be investigated and it's offices sealed and documents seized to see who is paying them to arrive at their conclusions which are aimed at influencing political decisions.  Just like they are doing in Italy.
A history of their political interference to protect banks and financial institutions is well documented.  Consumers were harmed in 2000 in the US State of Georgia to benefit predatory mortgage lenders. Lehman Brothers was given a clean AAA rating shortly before it vaporized.

Everyone should remember that they, like the other rating agencies, are private sector and decidedly biased.  They were key in making the situation worse in Greece and apparently are doing the same in Italy.
Who is paying them for this?  Follow the money.

Leadership Vacuum

The piecemeal approach to address the continuing and worsening financial and growth crises has exposed the biggest missing element – leadership.  There is none and it is an international problem.  The Swiss are in panic mode and need to prevent any further strengthening of their currency;  the ECB is floundering  trying one solution after another – the most recent is the purchase of Italian and Spanish bonds; the US is doing little to nothing when it needs revenues and its tax rates are the lowest in history because its political structure is in a state of collapse – and S&P placed the blame at the feet of the Republicans and their moronic  tea party core; European tax payers – and more to the point German taxpayers – are being asked to absorb Euro debt of the peripheral Eurozone members when the problem is structural economic imbalance.  The political will to do anything, apparently anywhere, is zero.  As I write this, the Dow dropped 200 points in 2 minutes.

If Europe keeps using band aids rather than addressing its structural problems, then the Euro is in deep trouble and, with nationalism on the rise, so is the EU.  If the tea party and Republicans are not removed from the table, then the US moves closer still to banana republic status.

Trouble is no longer on the horizon – it’s in full view.

Economic problems are structural and long-term coordinated plans are required.  There is no magic bullet and everything short-term has been tried. In the US, raising taxes and spending on infrastructure and science are required – in other words, spending.  In Europe, a little introspection and planning regarding the economic imbalances between the core and the rest must be undertaken. What is missing is leadership. Leadership would inspire confidence, also in short supply. But, in Europe and particularly in the US, waiting for leadership is like waiting for Godot.

By the way, for those involved in donor oriented development programs, watch the money dry up.

Don't Park Illegally in Vilnius

OK.  This is priceless.  The photo shows the mayor of Vilnius, Arturas Zuokas, crushing an illegally parked car (in a bike lane). Apparently he lost his patience and a ticket and tow was simply not going to cut it.

Crescent Rising - Part 2

Image via Wikipedia

From its very beginning with the capture of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Empire became European or at least, non-Asian – only more far more enlightened compared to its contemporary competition further west in Spain, England and France.  This was not a matter of choice, but practicality.  Everyone it conquered to the west of Constantinople was not Turkish and non-Muslim.  To make the empire functional, these people were needed (with enthusiasm), so the practical Ottomans simply made them part of a rich, open society and, aside from requiring these regional governments to pay taxes to Istanbul and defer on all issues of foreign and military policy, they were pretty much left on their own.  It worked remarkably well for 300 years. And it was not until the mid-18^th century, when the long, 200 year retreat from Europe began, that the cosmopolitan and European attitudes began to erode, ending completely in 1918. 

Almost a century later, the Turks are again learning how to be internationalists, Europeans and powerful.  They’ve gotten a little rusty at it.  The major difference is that now, Islam, a political religion pushed aside since 1922 with the founding of the modern Turkish state, must be taken into consideration by any government in Ankara.  This is something Europe has conveniently forgotten and, in the great Casablanca tradition are “shocked, shocked” that there are Muslims in Turkey.  To be fair, many Turks are also surprised and shocked and despite Western fears, the secularists in Turkey are not an inconsiderable force so all the talk about the AKP turning Turkey into a fundamentalist Islamic state (like the Wests great ally, Saudi Arabia), is absurd.  There are no Wahhabists in Ankara – the AKP want to rule, not get run out of town.

The view from Ankara, as promulgated by the current party in power, is – to use its own term – 360 degrees.  Turkey’s strategy is its “zero conflict with neighbors” policy - to be friends with everyone and enemies of none. Turkey is playing a game now that it has not played in over 100 years.  It wants to normalize relations with Armenia, except the government in Baku (Muslim and a Turkic culture) wants its support over Nagorno-Karabakh.  Syria wants its support in Lebanon.  Iran wants its support against the US. Even the Saudi’s want Turkish support against Iran and the US wants Turkey back in a subservient mode. The neighbourhood is, to put it mildly, a rough one and because all these countries have different, if not competing interests, the zero conflict with neighbours’ policy is not sustainable.  Sooner or later, Turkey will have to choose sides on some issues and make someone very, very unhappy.  Ankara seems to understand this ultimate fact and has been exercising its rediscovered power carefully.  For example, if the AKP government had rejected the NATO anti-missile bases directed at Iran the damage in the EU, US and NATO would have been terminal; realpolitik kicked in and they accepted the missiles rather than break with the West over Iran – a regional competitor in any event.  Tehran was, as expected, less than pleased.  I suspect the attitude in Ankara toward Iran on this matter was “get over it”.

Turkish views of their sudden international problems are kept close and rarely discussed openly – despite the Prime Minister’s unfortunate predilection for less than diplomatic comments.  Turkey has deep economic interests in the Muslim world – which delayed its denunciation of Qaddafi, for example – as well as very significant interests in Syria and Iran.  It is not going to jettison these for the benefit of Washington or Israel or Berlin for that matter. Turkey wants a stable Syria and no air attacks on Iran.  It also understands the need not to confront Russia for the same reason Germany has become Moscow’s foot pad – energy.  Despite the increasingly tepid support by Ankara for EU membership, even this is likely a charade as Germany and France increasingly pursue a policy of exclusion.  On the other hand, given the problems in the EU which are not simply monetary, perhaps Ankara is following the old Groucho Marx dictum of never joining a club that would have him as a member.

Turkey knows it has the most robust and capable military force in the region.  The economy has continued to grow at a startling rate of over 8% - something not seen in Europe in a very long time. Although this growth will moderate, and is now showing signs of strain, the fact is that the Turks are beginning to punch their weight, economically and culturally in the region and have recently taken the lead in representing Islam and democracy – something many in the West feel is impossible.  They tread carefully, however, because there is increasing talk of the Ottomanization of the state and the memory of empire for both Turkey and in the capitals of its former holdings in the region has not vanished.  Whatever government sits in Ankara, this memory will influence future actions.

Finally, Turkey’s relationship with the US and Israel has suffered recently.  But, from Ankara s point of view, the relationships are now on a more equal footing regionally.  The US needs Turkey as it leaves Iraq and for the influence it holds in the Caucuses and Central Asia.  Israel, despite the Gaza flotilla incident and a general souring of relations with Turkey under the Netanyahu regime, remains on economic and military speaking terms. Israel cannot afford to make Turkey an enemy. Ankara also knows – and the US knows it knows (we all know) - that Israel has no capability to achieve any sort of political movement in Syria, Lebanon or Iran of the type that Turkey can achieve.  Turkey, in other words, has options.

As a rising regional power, Turkey can no longer play with neat little academic concepts.  Culturally, they may not want to deal with regional problems by choosing sides or playing realpolitik – but these are consequences of their re-emergence.  Turkey is a player in the new old order and they will grow into the role, as they must.

Crescent Rising - Part 1

Image via Wikipedia

First, a thimbleful of background, as this is not meant to detail the complexities of the rise of the Turkish state but establish their parallax view.
Back in the not so distant past, Turkey towed the line.  As a subservient, reliable partner of the West during the Cold War, Turkey could be counted on to do and say whatever NATO and the US wanted.  Of course, the new nation, founded only in 1922 after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and subsequent revolution led by Kamal Ataturk, was less than 25 years old when the Cold War started.   Ataturk, of course, pulled Turkey abruptly into the West and moved its capital from imperial Constantinople to the somewhat desolate Ankara in the center of the Anatolian plateau.  In the process, he stripped away the old imperial trappings and mindset which had brought the Ottomans in on the wrong side of the war, albeit with the significant encouragement of Allied incompetence and, not to put too fine a point on it, British arrogance, adeptly exploited by Berlin.

After the end of the Second World War, during which the new nation of Turkey intelligently remained a neutral, the government – out of historical habit and national interests – moved even closer to the West and became the southern bulwark against the equally new Russian empire now called the Soviet Union.   Turkish foreign policy, dictated by its generals, became whatever NATO and hence US foreign policy, needed it to be.  That was the view from Ankara then.

I suspect one can look to the events of the early 1970s when this easy relationship began to go off the rails in Cyprus as far as Ankara was concerned.  Between 1960 and 1974, Cyprus was a unified republic composed of a Greek majority and Turkish minority, mostly located in the north.  When Greek nationalists began to agitate for annexation by Greece, and complemented their desires with attacks on the Turkish minority (who retaliated at times, but were significantly outnumbered), Ankara became understandably concerned.  Then came the military coup in Greece led by ultra-nationalists which, although a NATO member like Turkey, took a far more aggressive stance toward Cyprus that alarmed Ankara enough to occupy the northern part of Cyprus in 1974.  This was intended as a temporary occupation pending a solution to the crises.  In 1983 the now military rulers in Ankara created the Republic of Northern Cyprus.  The crisis is still pending almost 40 years’ later and temporary has hardened to permanent.

Turkish leadership through this period was anchored on the military which, regardless of the country, is genetically wired not to give up ground.  Ankara’s generals clearly viewed the Greeks with suspicion (a mutual perception), were entirely disinclined to cooperate with anyone over Cyprus (including the UN which wanted re-unification) and anyway, liked their new base in the Eastern Med.  

Turkish attitudes and interests changed dramatically with the election of the AKP in 2003 and the move toward integration with the EU which considered the division of Cyprus with some distaste.  As far as the AKP was concerned, they went above and beyond to please the EU.  Unfortunately, the EU  was, to say the least, unresponsive and Turkish attitudes have been formed by that lack of EU approval to Ankara’s efforts - in full – to support to the U.N. unification plan proposed by the then secretary general Kofi Annan.  Unsurprisingly, nationalists in both Ankara and Nicosia were infuriated with the idea that there might be some solution.  There was no reward for the efforts by the AKP and Turkey to accept the UN plan and when a referendum was held in Cyprus, which would have resulted in re-unification, the Turkish population voted overwhelmingly to support it while the Greeks rejected the plan.   Shortly thereafter, the EU welcomed the Greeks who voted “no” into the EU club proving to Ankara that, as far as they and Europe were concerned,  no good deed goes unpunished. 

Ankara’s growing, but still reversible assessment by 2005 was that if it followed the rules of the club it was trying to join, its reward would be rejection. Even by 2003 It was feeling far more confident politically and economically – a trend which began before the AKP took power and originated around the time of the abrupt collapse of the Soviet Union. Turkey viewed that particular event as an opportunity for itself – not NATO or the EU.  It rapidly increased its presence in the former Soviet colonies in Turkic Central Asia and Azerbaijan.  It ramped up trade and investment with both the Russian Federation and Ukraine and extended its diplomatic clout regionally.  Turkey was looking out for its interests first.  The Cyprus problem, largely a result in its view of broken promises by the EU, began the ascent to regional power.

This brings us to the recent past and the next post on the view from Ankara.

Putin's Enlightenment Award Vaporizes

Image via Wikipedia

The prize I referred to below that was bestowed on Vladimir Putin was withdrawn.  The Quadriga Prize, bestowed on the anniversary of German reunification on October 3, is a private award that recognizes "role models for enlightenment, dedication and the public good."

Awarding it to Putin was a travesty - now corrected.  Medvedev's mild rebuke for the revocation is telling.