Turkey: Nobody's Tool

During his recent visit to Turkey, President Barack Obama praised that country for its role as a bridge between the West and the Islamic world. Such praise is not without an ulterior motive. Turkey was hostile to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and in the years following that event Turkish-American relations became increasingly strained. Now President Obama seeks to restore Turkey to its previous position as America's most important ally in the Middle East after Israel.

But does Turkey really want to return to its position as a tool of American power politics in the region? Since the end of the Cold War in 1989-91, Turkey has steadily grown as a regional power, not just in the Middle East, but also in the Black Sea, Caucasus, and Central Asian areas. Turkey is no longer threatened by a Soviet superpower on its borders, a threat which caused it to join NATO in 1952 and become a subordinate ally of the United States for the next forty years.

The Turkish republic created by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923 had national independence as its foundation, resisting all attempts by foreign powers to infringe on Turkish sovereignty. Alone among the defeated nations of the First World War, Turkey was able to stand up to the victorious allies in the aftermath. The British-backed Greek invasion of Anatolia was repulsed, while French forces moving into Turkey from the south were forced back into Syria. The allies eventually decided to accept the new reality. The punitive Treaty of Sevres (1920), imposed on the last remnant of the old Ottoman government, was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) which was more favorable to Turkey.

Ataturk's success against the European imperial powers made Turkey a model for other Muslim states, such as Iran and Afghanistan, which were trying to maintain their independence from Western control. Even the Europeans came to respect the new Turkey and, long before Obama used such words, began to praise the Turkish republic for bridging the gap between the Islamic world and Western modernity.

Ataturk not only wanted to assert Turkey's independence against foreign enemies, but also to make his government the single ruling authority within the country. Islamic religious institutions were seen as a particular rival and were steadily subordinated to the power of the secular national government. Ataturk continued his policies of nationalism, secularism, and modernization up to his death in 1938, and his successors remained true to his legacy. During the Second World War Turkey maintained a firm neutrality, but after 1945 its government became increasingly alarmed by the threat posed by the Soviet superpower that had emerged from the war.

In 1952 the Turkish government decided to join NATO, thus reducing its national independence by becoming a close ally of the United States. Nevertheless this new close link to the West did have advantages other than just military security. From the 1950s democracy became a reality in Turkey, despite occasional military coups, and Turkish trade and industry began to prosper.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of the Cold War, Turkey saw a chance for a more independent foreign policy. Some of the post-Soviet states emerging in the Caucasus and Central Asia had Turkic populations who might welcome Turkish assistance with modernization and nation-building. Freed from the Soviet threat, Turkey was less subservient to American hegemony and began to emerge as a regional power in its own right.

However, Turkish society was changing by the 1990s. Ataturk's secularism and ruthless subordination of Islamic institutions to the state had been most effective in Turkey's cities. Religious observance continued to be important in the rural areas of the country. From the 1950s onwards rural Turks moved to the cities in increasing numbers, bringing their religious practices with them. By the 1990s such immigrants had created a new middle class who were increasingly ready to assert their Muslim beliefs. The old urban elites and the army took alarm at this, feeling it was a threat to Ataturk's policies of secular nationalism.

Despite such fears, Turkey is now ruled by the moderate Islamist government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. While this government is certainly hostile to Ataturk's legacy of secularism, it has proved no less nationalist than previous secular governments. Although there remains much potential for clashes between Islamist and secular Turks, neither group is ready to give up the increasing national self-assertion that has been such a feature of Turkish policy since 1991.

Whether or not Turkey ever joins the European Union, it will continue to emerge as a major regional power in south-west Asia. Islamist Turks may reject much of Ataturk's legacy, but they are as attached to his policy of national independence as secular Turks. Whatever its future role in international politics, Turkey is unlikely ever again to be the tame ally of the United States it was between 1952 and 1991.