The Turkish Leader 's Personal Quarrel with B.Obama / prof.B.Rubin

I've written a lot about the motives for Turkey's regime in turning toward the Iranian bloc and away from the West, as well as picking a bitter quarrel with Israel (here and here). But there's a detail that's extraordinarily important that must be added.

This is something that one hears from many Turks, both regime supporters and oppositionists, but hasn't surfaced in the Western media. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is very angry at President Barack Obama and feels that the U.S. president has personally insulted him. And accepting this story, many pro-regime Turks think that Obama has thus insulted Turkey itself.

[Why, might you ask, do many opposition Turks feel angry at the United States? A big step in that was the quarrel in 2003 over whether U.S. troops could go through Turkey to get into Iraq. So, yes, this is one case where the Bush Administration does deserve a lot of the blame. But one more recently constantly hears Turks opposed to the Islamist regime who are mad because they feel that Obama is supporting the Islamization of their country by being so soft on the current regime.]

For months and up to the very last minute, Obama privately encouraged Erdogan to negotiate with Iran for some kind of deal. This was a terribly stupid thing to do since Obama should have understood that Erdogan is now very close to Tehran. But the Turkish prime minister was eager to play an important international role and to help his friends in Tehran, as well as scoring points with the United States.

In another bad mistake, Obama thought that coddling the Turkish regime would lead to gaining its vote in the UN Security Council on sanctions against Iran. The result was the exact opposite.

(Incidentally, this is a big misunderstanding regarding the Turkish regime. A number of people claim that it really is trying to be friends with everyone. This isn't true. It is helping Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah against the West. But as long as the West imposes no cost for this policy, the regime can present itself as everyone's friend.)

Well, last month, Erdogan "succeeded." He made a terrible deal with Iran on the very verge of the UN Security Council vote on sanctions. Suddenly, the Obama Administration that this was a disaster, offering an escape route for Tehran to postpone or even block sanctions altogether. It reacted strongly against the Turkish-Brazilian bargain.

Erdogan was, understandably, outraged at the perceived American betrayal. He is a very tumultuous and emotional man and when he feels his honor is impugned, he blows up. And so he did.

I am NOT suggesting here that the Obama Administration shouldn't have rejected the Turkish-Brazilian proposal. Saying that the proposal was no good was a correct decision. The mistake was blundering into a corner by essentially encouraging untrustworthy and even hostile intermediaries to talk on America's behalf.

Nor am I suggesting that this is the sole reason for the Turkish regime's current policy.

What I am saying is that this has been one of many Obama Administration errors which is leading to a decline in American credibility and power, undermining U.S. alliances and helping its enemies, or making friends decide they're better off to get in good with America's enemies.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (PalgraveMacmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; The West and the Middle East (four volumes); and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Birth of a Myth: Winning Over Syria's Dictator with High-Tech?

Posted: 17 Jun 2010 05:03 PM PDT

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By Barry Rubin

The dispatch of an official U.S. high-tech delegation to offer the Syrian dictatorship more Internet access and other gizmos--in exchange for him abandoning his alliance with Iran, Hamas, Hizballah, and now even Turkey!--reminds me of a little personal experience which shows a lot about Western naivete and how the media works nowadays.

After Bashar al-Assad became president of Syria, following his father's death, there was a huge amount about how he was a devotee of Internet and a real kind of twenty-first century "hip" guy when it came to hi-tech. The main, in fact the only, evidence of this was that he was head of the Syria Internet Society.

Being a bit of a researcher, I took 30 seconds and went to the site of the Syria Internet Society. Within another 30 seconds I noticed what was really going on. Yes, Bashar was the head of the Society, but the previous head had been his older brother, Basil.

Everyone knows that Basil was supposed to be the successor to their father, Hafiz, and that Basil was a real thug. But when he wrapped his sports car around a bridge pillar on the airport road near Damascus and was killed, Bashar inherited the family business. No one ever would have thought that Basil was a big Internet surfer. So that's the real story: Bashar was head of the Society not because he loved computers but because he was the dictator-in-training.

So here's the basis for the idea that Bashar is a liberal, high-tech loving guy: He became head of the Society because he was son of the dictator and the successor, not because he was an Internet surfing dude. I wrote about this in my book and elsewhere but, to my best knowledge, no one else has ever done this simple task or quoted my points on this matter.

Instead, one still frequently sees, however, this image of Bashar being purveyed, even while Syria has more censorship over the Internet than almost any other country in the world and throws dissident bloggers in prison.

Let me give the U.S. government a tip: when you run a repressive dictatorship you don't want to furnish the masses with the benefits of better Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, satellite telephones, higher-speed Internet, and similar things. Of course, you might want to buy the latest technology for the secret police to use and you would want more information to figure out better ways to block and tap into such communications.

Ok, to be fair, the delegation says it is trying to persuade Syria to allow more Internet freedom. Yet why should a dictatorship that wants to stay in power--and knows that all the elite's wealth and their very lives depends on repression--want to allow more freedom? Do you think they never heard about what happened in Iran in the 1970s and in the Soviet bloc in the 1980s? Believe me, they know exactly what happened and have openly talked about avoiding this mistake.

Now here's another interesting question:

Is the silly idea that high-tech goodies will make the dictator abandon an alliance with Iran--which provides Syria with strategic cover; Islamic cover; billions of dollars; subsidies for mutual clients (Hizballah, Hamas, etc.); and now even nuclear weapons--based on this shallow Syrian public relations' myth about Bashar?

Yes, it is quite possible! This is the kind of unreality that governs a lot of Western policy and thinking about the Middle East.

And here is an article about how, visiting this repressive dictatorship, U.S. officials sent Twitter messages about how great the coffee is. Hmm, "Let them drink coffee!" A good motto for the administration's human rights' policy.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.
http://www.gloria-center.org/


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