Turkey Has Legitimate Grievances Against the U.S.. WSJ

Trump is right to pull back from supporting PKK-affiliated Kurds in northern Syria.

By

Michael Doran and  Michael A. Reynolds

Oct. 8, 2019 7:08 pm ET

A Russian plane carrying parts of the S-400 missile defense system is unloaded in Ankara, Turkey, July 12. PHOTO: XINHUA/ZUMA PRESS

President Trump’s critics see his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from northern Syria as the product of a dangerous impulsiveness that ignores strategic realities. They argue that it betrays the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, the Kurdish force that helped the U.S. defeat Islamic State, while rewarding a dangerous autocrat, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But it is Mr. Trump’s critics who disregard reality.

Most members of America’s foreign-policy establishment see Turkey as an ungrateful ally, perhaps even a Trojan horse inside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s walls. On Capitol Hill and in many Washington think tanks, a call for concessions to Tehran will get a more sympathetic hearing than a call to compromise with Ankara, a treaty ally for 67 years. Turkey’s determination to secure its southern border against the YPG is a wanton impulse, in the prevailing view. But the YPG has substantial ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK, as then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter testified before Congress in April 2016. Classified by the State Department as a terrorist organization, the PKK has been waging armed struggle against Turkey since 1984 at a cost of tens of thousands of lives, according to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, a respected source on armed conflict.

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Turkey’s critics point to Ankara’s recent purchase of the S-400 air-defense missile system from Russia to confirm their belief that Mr. Erdogan is rupturing the U.S.-Turkey relationship. But that’s an oversimplification that rests on a lazy assumption—that Mr. Erdogan’s personality is the root of the rancor in American-Turkish relations. It invokes his authoritarianism, Islamist worldview, hostility to Israel, sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood, and opposition to Kurdish nationalists inside and outside Turkey’s borders to argue that Turkey is unworthy of U.S. support.

Some articles of this indictment rest on a more solid evidentiary base than others. But the causes of Ankara’s recent willingness to defy Washington go beyond one man’s personality. Polls reliably indicate that 70% to 80% of Turks regard the U.S. as a hostile power. While anti-Americanism is an old story in Turkey, in recent years it has a sharper edge. Turks increasingly see America as a threat.

This is a remarkable development in a country that had been a stalwart U.S. ally and partner for decades. The levels of hostility to America cannot be laid on Mr. Erdogan’s doorstep, for he commands the support of only around 40% of Turks. Dissatisfaction with the U.S. stretches far beyond the president’s AK Party.

Why is the U.S. losing Turkey? Turks have their own list of grievances, of which three stand out.

First, America’s diffident Syria policy. Ankara followed Washington’s lead in backing the Syrian people’s attempt to overthrow the dictator Bashar Assad. But when Turkey shot down a Russian combat jet violating its airspace in 2015, President Obama treated the episode more as a bilateral spat between third parties than as a conflict between America’s key regional ally and a more powerful adversary of U.S. interests. Left on its own, Ankara realized it had little choice but to accommodate Moscow. Vladimir Putin’s steadfastness trumped Mr. Obama’s aloofness. Thus was born the relationship that begot the S-400 deal.

Second is the curious sympathy that America extends to Fethullah Gülen, a guru-like religious figure who has been residing in Pennsylvania since 1999. The Department of Homeland Security originally denied Mr. Gülen’s application for a residence permit under the Bush administration, finding that Mr. Gülen’s claims regarding his educational abilities were exaggerated. Mr. Gülen’s schools have also been investigated for immigration fraud and mismanagement, though no charges have emerged. Figures close to Mr. Gülen have been accused of playing key roles in the July 2016 coup attempt that took the lives of 251 Turks. Though Mr. Gülen condemned the coup and denied any involvement, former followers of his say that his organization is tightly centralized. U.S. experts on Turkey—such as James Jeffrey, a former ambassador to Ankara—say that Mr. Gülen’s followers have pursued power in Turkey by infiltrating government bodies. Many Turks doubt Mr. Gülen’s supporters could participate in a coup without his blessing. Before taking up his current position as the State Department’s point man on Syria, Mr. Jeffrey stated that it is “embarrassing” that Mr. Gülen “is sitting here in the United States.” How, many Turks ask, can the U.S. harbor such a despicable figure?

The third misdeed is the most consequential: the Obama administration’s decision in 2016 to arm and train YPG members and directly embed American special forces with them. Rather than work with Turkey, the U.S. chose to support the Syrian wing of the PKK, which the Turkish public holds responsible for decades of warfare and tens of thousands of deaths. The PKK represents a grave threat to the Turkish Republic, and Turks across the political spectrum loathe it. To dismiss Ankara’s objections to America’s arming of the YPG as mere anti-Kurdish bigotry is ignorant, akin to labeling the fight against al Qaeda as Islamophobia.

The purchase of the S-400s and the pressure Mr. Erdogan is placing on U.S. forces in northern Syria provide a way to demonstrate to the broader Turkish public his willingness to defy Washington for its shabby treatment of Turkey and to restore the balance of power between Turkey and the PKK, which American policy inadvertently overturned. For the U.S. to retaliate against Turkey and alienate it permanently would be folly. To do so now—when Mr. Erdogan’s support is waning and democracy in Turkey is showing its vibrant face—would hand Mr. Putin a gift he couldn’t have dreamed of.

Mr. Doran is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Mr. Reynolds is a professor of Near Eastern studies and director of the Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at Princeton University.