Benny Avni
Here’s a tip for Lee Bollinger, the Columbia University president: If you want to hobnob with the most outrageous guest in town for next week’s UN extravaganza, get hip and call the Turkish mission — because Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmedinejad may no longer be your man. The up-and-comer is Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
They’re rivals in another important sense: Both non-Arab Mideasterners dream of resurrecting glorious empires of yore; both are using hostility to Israel to win regional favor — and both are jockeying for position in Syria, now the region’s weakest link.
Democratically elected and popular, since his pro-market policies have turned Turkey into an economic powerhouse — Erdogan is eclipsing Ahmadinejad — reviled for mismanagement, economic decline and cruel oppression. (But beware the declining power: Mideasterners often turn to adventurism when they’re pressured at home — and Iran is closing in on an atomic-missile capability.)
Erdogan this week launched a triumphant Mideast tour, preaching to adoring crowds in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya about the evils of Israel and the West. He also threatened a naval confrontation with Israel, scaring American, European and NATO officials, all of whom are begging Ankara to chill out a bit.
Meanwhile, the attention-starved Ahmadinejad made a grand “concession” to America, gallantly announcing that he’d free the two US hostages (Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal) long held on flimsy espionage charges — then had to lock horns with Tehran’s judiciary, which no longer fears his authority, in an effort to make good on his promise.
But the Iran-Turkey power game spreads far beyond such gestures. The most important arena of confrontation is Syria.
Iran has long propped up President Bashar al-Assad, but has started to distance itself from his rule. Tehran needs Syria too much — especially as a conduit to Hezbollah, its proxy army in Lebanon. Relying solely on the Assads is too risky a bet, so the mullahs are preparing for the morning after.
As Tehran watcher Meir Javedanfar wrote this week, if Assad falls and a civil war ensues — the now-ruling minority Allawites against the majority Sunnis — “Iran is extremely unlikely to play the part of spectator.”
Neither is Turkey. Its southern border is bustling with activity as businessmen, troops and opportunity seekers prepare for the day Syria becomes a Turkish protectorate.
Yet Erdogan after some tough recent statements against Assad, his former ally, is zigzagging again.
On his first appearance in Cairo this week, Erdogan all but ignored the Syria situation. Even worse, anti-regime Syrian activists accuse Ankara of handing over former Syrian Army Lt. Col. Hussein al-Harmoush to Damascus.
Harmoush fled Syria months ago and was making tough anti-regime statements from the relative safety of a Turk-protected refugee camp near Syria’s border. Yesterday, Syria announced his detention in Damascus. (Ankara denies sending Harmoush, or any Syrian, back “against their will.”)
Is Turkey with Assad or against him? Is it backing the pro-democracy rebels or just the Islamists? The answer is that — like Tehran — Ankara’s playing all sides against the middle.
Incidentally, so does Saudi Arabia: Riyadh is hoping to use its petrodollars to prop up a powerful political ally in post-Assad Syria. But money isn’t enough. In Syria, as in the rest of the Arab Mideast, the dominant powers are once more non-Arabs: The Persians and the Turks.
Conspicuously missing from this high-stakes Syrian poker table are America and the Europeans — still hiding behind feckless diplomacy and meaningless moralistic statements.
To his great credit, Robert Ford, the US ambassador to Syria, is constantly siding with pro-democracy forces. But that won’t buy us a seat at a table where everyone else antes up with real resources.
And the Mideast region is too volatile to leave to the graces of the increasingly dangerous Turks and Persians.
beavni@gmail.com
www.nypost.com, September 16, 2011