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By <\/b>Burak Bekdil*<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n January 7, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 709, January 7, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: US President Donald Trump\u2019s recently unveiled National Security Strategy paper does not specifically mention Turkey. Some Turks think this is good, as any mention would likely have been negative. But some think it is bad for Turkish interests because the absence of a mention highlights Turkey\u2019s diminishing political clout in its region. Regardless, the strategy paper has messages for Ankara on several wavelengths.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n US President Donald Trump\u2019s National Security Strategy could not have come at a worse time for US-Turkey relations. Major policy and ideological divergences between the Trump administration and Turkey\u2019s increasingly Islamist strongman, President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, have downgraded the once staunch alliance into a theoretical, transactional partnership.<\/span><\/p>\n Trump\u2019s whitepaper came against a tense background of US-Turkish disputes:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n In May, supporters of Erdo\u011fan, including his security detail and several armed individuals, violently charged a group of peaceful protesters outside the Turkish ambassador\u2019s residence in Washington, injuring 11, including a police officer, and prompting the State Department to condemn the attack as an assault on free speech. Washington warned Turkey that the action would not be tolerated. A group of Republican lawmakers called the episode an \u201caffront to the United States.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In October, the US and Turkey suspended all non-immigrant visa services for travel between the two countries after the arrest of a US consulate employee in Istanbul.<\/span><\/p>\n In November, Reza Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian gold trader who is cooperating with US prosecutors, told jurors in a New York federal court that Erdo\u011fan authorized a transaction in a scheme to help Iran evade US sanctions. Erdo\u011fan called the court a \u201cUS plot against Turkey and [his] government.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In early December, Turkish and Russian officials announced that they were only weeks away from penning a deal for the acquisition and deployment of Russian S-400 air and anti-missile systems on Turkish soil. This will make Turkey the only NATO member state deploying the S-400 system.<\/span><\/p>\n Press reports said on December 6 that an arrest warrant had been requested through the Ankara chief prosecutor\u2019s office for Brett MacGurk, US Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State. The petition accuses McGurk of attempting to overthrow the Turkish government and change the constitutional order of the Turkish Republic by \u201cacting in concert with \u2026 armed terrorist organizations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n On December 13, US national security adviser HR McMaster condemned Qatar and Turkey for taking on a \u201cnew role\u201d as the main sponsors and sources of funding for extremist Islamist ideology that targets western interests.<\/span><\/p>\n On December 14, Turkish police summoned an FBI official stationed in Turkey in connection with testimony in the Iran sanctions (Zarrab) case.<\/span><\/p>\n On December 17, Erdo\u011fan slammed a US-backed Syrian Kurdish militant group and said he will clear his country\u2019s border with Syria of \u201cterrorists.\u201d The \u201cterrorists\u201d he was referring to are the principal land warfare assets of the US military campaign against radical jihadists in Syria and Iraq. Erdo\u011fan slams the US administration almost daily for \u201cgiving weapons to a terror organization\u201d and has declared US policy to be in violation of the NATO treaty. Ironically, Erdo\u011fan remains mute about Russian support for the same militant Kurdish group. Russia does not even categorize as terrorist the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK), which both Ankara and Washington view as terrorist. (PKK\u2019s violent campaign since 1984 has claimed more than 40,000 lives in Turkey.)<\/span><\/p>\n On December 21, Erdo\u011fan, spearheading an international campaign to condemn Trump\u2019s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel\u2019s capital, said that the US cannot buy the people\u2019s will, a reference to Trump\u2019s threats to cut funding to countries that vote against Washington on a motion at the UN. \u201cThey call the US the cradle of democracy. The cradle of democracy is seeking to buy a nation\u2019s will with dollars,\u201d Erdo\u011fan said. \u201cMr. Trump, you cannot buy our will. I am calling on the whole world: Do not sell your struggle for democracy for a few dollars.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Trump\u2019s National Security Strategy does not specifically mention Turkey, but it does contain messages for Ankara on several wavelengths.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The Trump paper says:<\/b> \u201cRussia aims to weaken US influence in the world and divide us from our allies and partners. Russia views the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and European Union (EU) as threats. Russia is investing in new military capabilities, including nuclear systems that remain the most significant existential threat to the United States, and in destabilizing cyber capabilities. Through modernized forms of subversive tactics, Russia interferes in the domestic political affairs of countries around the world. The combination of Russian ambition and growing military capabilities creates an unstable frontier in Eurasia, where the risk of conflict due to Russian miscalculation is growing. The scourge of the world today is a small group of rogue regimes that violate all principles of free and civilized states. The Iranian regime sponsors terrorism around the world. It is developing more capable ballistic missiles and has the potential to resume its work on nuclear weapons that could threaten the United States and our partners.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Turkey is:<\/b> Not only spending $2 billion to deploy a standalone, Russian-made air defense architecture, but is also cultivating its alliance with Russia and Iran in Syria, fearing what it views as its biggest security threat: Syria\u2019s Kurdish groups, which have allied with Washington.<\/span><\/p>\n The Trump paper says<\/b>: \u201cWe will continue to champion American values and offer encouragement to those struggling for human dignity in their societies. There can be no moral equivalency between nations that uphold the rule of law, empower women, and respect individual rights and those that brutalize and suppress their people. Through our words and deeds, America demonstrates a positive alternative to political and religious despotism.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Turkey is:<\/b> A fine example of political and religious despotism, as evinced by all credible indices measuring democratic practice across the globe. For instance, Turkey ranks 155th on a global index of press freedoms. Turkey also ranks in the lowest brackets of gender equality indices, and opinion polls show only a third of Turks trust the rule of law in their country.<\/span><\/p>\n The Trump paper says:<\/b> \u201cToday, the threats from jihadist terrorist organizations and the threat from Iran are creating the realization that Israel is not the cause of the region\u2019s problems. States have increasingly found common interests with Israel in confronting common threats.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Turkey is:<\/b> Championing the Palestinian cause, arguing that the only solution to the Arab-Israeli dispute is to push Israel back to its pre-1967 borders and recognize the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Erdo\u011fan often calls Israel a \u201cstate of terror\u201d and Israeli soldiers \u201cterrorists.\u201d He is a staunch ideological supporter of violent Islamist groups like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The Trump paper says:<\/b> \u201cWe will work with partners to deny the Iranian regime all paths to a nuclear weapon and neutralize Iranian malign influence.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Turkey is:<\/b> Implicated, based on solid evidence, in a multibillion-dollar scheme to help Iran evade US sanctions.<\/span><\/p>\n The Trump paper says:<\/b> \u201cWe will help partners procure interoperable missile defense and other capabilities to better defend against active missile threats.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Turkey is:<\/b> Buying Russian missile defense capabilities that are not interoperable with NATO and US assets stationed on its soil.<\/span><\/p>\n Turkey\u2019s political goals, ambitions, and planned policy actions in the Middle East are too divergent from Trump\u2019s security vision for the region.<\/strong> So is Erdo\u011fan\u2019s pro-Islamist, pro-Hamas, neo-Ottoman policy calculus<\/strong>. In many ways, Trump\u2019s \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d campaign is flatly incompatible with Erdo\u011fan\u2019s \u201cMake Turkey Great Again\u201d campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n *Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based columnist. He regularly writes for the Gatestone Institute and <\/i>Defense News and is a fellow at the Middle East Forum.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n source:https:\/\/besacenter.org\/perspectives-papers\/trumps-security-strategy-messages-turkey\/<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Burak Bekdil* January 7, 2018 BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 709, January 7, 2018 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: US President Donald Trump\u2019s recently unveiled National Security Strategy paper does not specifically … <\/p>\n