Alakhbar English , Published Monday, January 9, 2012Politicians and researchers are trying to explain the current transformations in Turkish foreign policy through unilateral approaches. Some explain these transformations according to religious reasons connected to the ideological nature of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), while others refer these changes to realistic approaches based on Turkey’s attempts to extend its influence and power within the Middle East as an alternative to EU membership.
However, even powers motivated by ideology can simultaneously make strategic calculations and at the same time be affected by sacred and divine beliefs, as Jack Snyder argues in his essay “Religion and IR Theory.” Ali Ansari - founding director of the Institute for Iranian Studies- also argues that culture (religion included) does not “exist in a vacuum and is itself shaped by material experience. Interests may be shaped by cultural norms, but an ideological worldview is itself defined by the harsh realities of experience.”
As a result, attempts to understand Turkey’s behavior must be based on a combination of religious and realistic factors. Although, the current moment is still witnessing the dominance of realism in AKP’s foreign policy. The AKP is discovering and learning the limits of religious ideals in the real world. For this, Turkey – as any regional power – seeks to extend its influence, power, and hegemony in order to gain more economic and political profits, and more legitimacy for the AKP internally and externally.
However the Turkish struggle for regional influence or hegemony faces many obstacles related to the regional environment and the history and identity of the country. The bloody history of the Ottoman Empire produced lingering feelings of suspicion and fear. Aggressive anti-Israeli rhetoric is thus not enough to eliminate such feelings from Arab consciousness. Also, a highly visible Turkish identity forms a barrier for Turkish influence in the Arab surroundings, especially when Arab regimes use the identity tool to limit the influence of non-Arab regimes as Turkey and Iran.
At the regional level, the constraints for Turkey’s regional ambitions are many: the unstable regional environment, the weakness of the regional system, Israeli’s power, the American role that seeks to limit the influence of regional players, and finally the role of Islamic regional powers – especially the Sunni ones as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Turkey’s capability to extend its regional role and influence is dependent on its ability to enter the “Arab World” especially the Sunni one. Historically, the retreat of Egypt as a regional power was one main reason behind the growth of both Iranian and Turkish influence in the Middle East. So, if Egypt is now going to rise again as a regional Arab-Sunni power, it will be able to fill the political vacuum in the Middle East, and furthermore, can challenge the regional roles of Iran, Turkey, and even Saudi Arabia. However, Iran will be the less harmed.
The Iranian influence is stable in the Shiite sphere, while at the Sunni level, where it has been widely extended since 1979, it is still marginal, reactive, and shallow. Because of that the possible rise of a post-Mubarak era Egypt will threaten the Turkish role more than the Iranian. Turkey is the most concerned about the rise of Egypt as both are competing for the same audience – the “Sunni Arabs” – especially because Egypt has the advantage of the “Arab” identity over the “Turkish Ottomans.” This reality explains the parallelism between Mubarak’s fall and the acceleration of Turkey’s ideological rhetoric toward regional issues, such as toward Israel and the situation in Syria and Iraq.
On the other side, Turkish-Saudi competition will stay limited due to conditions related to Saudi Arabia itself, which failed to present an attractive Islamic model; failed in containing regional tensions; and whose political dependency on the United States makes it appear just an “agent” for the West.
For all of that, the three regional powers – Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey – will seek better relations with Egypt, especially Saudi Arabia, which realizes that its regional value without an alliance with Egypt is low. For Saudi Arabia, the rise of Egypt will be a major challenge as Cairo will become the capital of the “Arab World,” as it was for a long time.
As for Egypt, it will try to benefit from all these relations to the point that does not threaten its regional ambitions and will try to shape its own regional role.
In general, Turkish-Egyptian cooperation will be limited, even if the Brotherhood movement holds authority. This is will be due to the rule of the Egyptian military in the political process, internal tensions, divisions within the Islamic movement itself, and because of the historic enmity and competition between the two states.
In recent years the Middle East has been overwhelmed by arguments about Sunni-Shia competition. However, that might change as we start to witness the rise of intense Sunni-Sunni competition, especially between Turkey and Egypt, while Saudi Arabia’s position will be determined by its own calculations in facing Iran.
Hosam Matar is a Lebanese researcher of International Relations
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