An Improbable War and Turkey's New Opportunities

"We want dialogue with the U.S., not war," says Turkish author Burak Turna. "We have written this book to prevent a war."

The book of which Turna speaks, Metal Firtina ("Metal Storm" in Turkish) has become a runaway bestseller in Turkey over the past couple months. A thriller in the style of Tom Clancy, the novel (by Turkish authors Turna and Orkun Uçar) has been attacked for its alleged anti-American elements and conspiracy theorizing. The plot describes how a flare-up between Turkish and American troops in northern Iraq leads to an out-and-out war, resulting in the American bombing of Istanbul and Ankara and a Turkish detonation of a nuclear bomb in Washington in response.

Is such a war possible? And is there any precedent for U.S.-Turkish hostilities? Very few would wager money on the former scenario. It is far more likely that any future disaster in Istanbul, at least, would be caused by an earthquake or accident in the congested Bosporus. But Burak Turna does believe there is an example of the latter. "We foresaw that American policy is turning against Turkey, which would lead to a clash between sides," he told me recently. "Such an event occurred after we started to write the book – in Sulaymaniyah [northern Iraq], where U.S. soldiers captured 11 Turkish soldiers. If we had resisted, a war would have broken out."

The event of which Turna speaks caused indignation across Turkey. On July 4, 2003, around 100 U.S. soldiers "stormed the barracks," arresting 11 Turkish soldiers who were allegedly planning to assassinate the Kurdish governor of Kirkuk. Turks were outraged not only by this aggression from a longtime ally, but also because the Americans had actually handcuffed the soldiers and put bags over their heads "as if they were al-Qaeda terrorists." This incident had been preceded by a similar (but hushed-up) one on April 22, which saw the U.S. arrest Turkish soldiers in civilian clothes who were escorting an arms shipment into northern Iraq. Such ugly events go a long way toward explaining why such distrust has arisen.

Could tranquil, age-old Istanbul be reduced to rubble by American bombardment?

Fiction and Fact

According to the VOA, Metal Storm has "an outrageous plot that somehow strikes a responsive chord [among Turks]" and reveals "a startling shift of opinion." Yet there is a lot of presupposition latent behind words like "outrageous," "somehow," and "startling." It's strange that the U.S. government's media wing can express surprise here, since after all the same article mentions that the Turkish people have been adamantly opposed to the Iraq war since the beginning – some on grounds of religion, others out of stability fears, others out of mistrust of American designs on the region.

But Metal Storm can hardly be blamed for creating "anti-Americanism" among the Turks. Rather, the fact that the book is so popular should be seen as more of a rare barometer of not only public opinion but also imagination. After all, if people didn't love high-firepower, cloak-and-dagger geopolitical thrillers, how could authors from Ian Fleming to John Le Carré to Tom Clancy have made industries out of their works? No one thinks twice when the enemies in such a book (the Western "good guys" are always a given) happen to be dastardly Soviets or North Koreans, Arabs or Cubans or whoever. And, if the reader also finds works in which their nation is an actor more relevant, why shouldn't the Turkish imagination be struck by a book which features their own country? And is it not rather chauvinistic, anyway, to assume that we in the West can enjoy a work of fiction for what it is, whereas other lesser peoples run the risk of taking it for gospel truth? A Turkish commentator (who also did not discern much anti-Americanism in the book's popularity) pointed out that "any human wanting to escape from the issues of every day life can easily do so by reading [Metal Storm]. Within that same logic the humans that read the Da Vinci Code were not against the Catholic Church but they read it because it had an intriguing theme."

Most recent Western articles about Metal Storm have centered simply on the fact that it has sold over 150,000 copies – but not bothered to get the feedback of anyone who actually read it. This leads to sweeping generalizations and deceptive juxtapositions. For example, much has been made of a recent BBC poll that "indicates Turkey is now the most anti-American nation on earth," with 82 percent allegedly hating America. But this is laughable. There are plenty of other nations more "anti-American" than Turkey. And if one looks at the original article, it seems the only specific question that the BBC asked was whether or not the reelection of George W. Bush had made the world a more dangerous place. A full 21 out of the 24 countries surveyed agreed with this statement; only a few percentage points after Turkey were citizens from a couple other key (and non-Muslim) U.S. allies, Argentina and Brazil. Of course, none of these facts have stopped neocon mouthpieces like FrontPageMag from tarring Turkey as "a new al-Qaeda state." Very helpful.

Indeed, my frequent trips to the country over the past six years have shown me that in the vast majority of cases, any American, so long as they act sensibly and respectfully, will be treated well by most Turks. And a recent AP report conceded as much: "while criticism of Bush and U.S. policy has skyrocketed, there is little hostility toward Americans on the streets."

Isolating the Real Enemy

For the authors of Metal Storm, in fact, part of the task was to point out the real enemy from the American side. "Our book reveals," says Turna, "that Turkey should not be anti-American, but [rather] harshly criticize Bush and his neocon politics."

That said, it is truly remarkable (but not very surprising) that the ever aware U.S. government is trying to bury the problem, while also attacking the phenomenon of Metal Storm. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, meeting recently with Turkish leaders, "raised concerns about the negative image of the United States in Turkey." According to Burak Turna, "U.S. officials made comments on the book to [the Turkish] media … some U.S. diplomats are very angry with us." And an unnamed U.S. diplomat in Turkey cited by the CSM in mid-February stated in exasperation that "we're really pulling our hair out trying to figure how to deal with this."

Really, it's not so difficult, as William S. Lind subsequently pointed out. Rice and the diplomats should have considered which Americans and which policies in particular are responsible for Turkish unease. But the neocons have never been very interested in introspection.

That's the unbelievable scenario described in Metal Storm.

The Neocons Step Up Anti-Turkish Aggression

At the same time, the neocon-driven Bush administration is also pushing the Turkish government to grant it unpopular military concessions – something that can only increase Turkish hostility toward the U.S. But what else could be expected of them? Now the neocons are clamping down and tightening the screws. A recent AEI event called "Can the U.S.-Turkish Relationship be Repaired?" was attended by in-house notables such as Richard Perle and Robert Pollock, "who wrote the Wall Street Journal op-ed painting Turkey as rapidly turning into a hotbed of vicious anti-American attitudes," as well as Middle East Forum editor (and former Office of Special Plans disinformation specialist) Michael Rubin, "who recently questioned [the ruling Turkish party] AKP's links to Islamic capital." A partial report of the proceedings shows that these overblown demagogues were quite vicious themselves in attacking the Turks from all sides – something which would have been inconceivable until the Iraq war.

Why all the intimidation? The AEI event seems to have been backup for the Bush administration's "proposal to use the southern air base of Incirlik as a cargo hub for U.S. forces operating in the region." Now, the U.S. has been using Incirlik, near the southern city of Adana, for a long time already, but the current proposal would see it become a vital center for the U.S. war effort in Iraq – something the Turks vetoed in a March 1, 2003 parliamentary vote that was incidentally a rare victory for democracy. But the decision also caused immense displeasure among the neocons, who had counted on Turkey to be faithful as ever and expedite the war.

Any decision to increase American use of the air base will be an unpopular one in Turkey, but probably not a devastating one for relations. However, there is now a real risk that the administration might go all the way in alienating the Turks, whether or not an "agreement" is reached. Turkey's NTV television is cited as reporting

"[T]he government might officially reply to Washington over the Incirlik proposal in the coming weeks, before the 90th anniversary of an alleged Armenian genocide at the hands of the late Ottoman Empire arrives on April 24.

"A powerful Armenian lobby in the U.S. Congress is expected to push for a resolution recognizing the alleged genocide as part of an anniversary campaign. U.S. administrations have opposed such attempts in Congress in the past but observers say this year the George W. Bush administration may not be as willing to prevent such a move as it was in the past, given the growing mistrust of the Turkish government."

The Turks Ask: What Is the U.S. Really Up To?

While I guess we can learn something from "focus groups" held in American-style bagel factories and the Istanbul Ritz-Carlton, it's not the way I chose to do it on this month's visit to Istanbul. I was not particularly interested in dismissing the Turks as adherents of "mad conspiracy theories" or in making haughty and sweeping news-speak statements like "the real battle for Turkey is the battle for Turkish hearts and minds." Rather than interview Turkey's "pro-Western" elite, the kind of people whose voices are already heard in the media anyway, I sought out young Turks and Kurds who are far from influential but who have plenty of education and experience working with and for Westerners. People some of whom come from the "fundamentalist" places that the elite look down upon with fear and disdain, but who also understand well the differing mindsets of everyone from America to Germany to Japan.

According to them, the growing wariness of America owes specifically to Turkish observance of the American war machine in action. "People in Turkey are starting to talk about things in a new way," says Enver, a 24-year-old Turkish tour operator from the Aegean coastal city of Izmir. "If they [the U.S.] attacked Afghanistan, and then Iraq, and now are talking about Syria or Iran, who will be next?"

Kamer, a 32-year-old hotel manager and Kurdish Turk from the southeastern town of Mardin, nods in agreement. "Now, everything is changing. Even the people who used to say 'yeah, America!' no longer trust them. There is a feeling that the Americans screwed up big time in Iraq – so, many people are laughing at them, but they are also a little afraid of what they will do next."

Their view is shared by another Kurd originally from the Batman area, Apo, who now works as a bartender in a pub popular with American, Australian, and British tourists. "I've been in 23 countries, and met people from many more," he says. "The most common criticism of the U.S. is not against the [American] people but against the war policies of George Bush. I have friends and family in America, and I would like to visit there someday. So we Turks are not against America – but after seeing these wars against Muslim countries continue to unfold, we have for the first time become a bit mistrustful: what is Bush really up to? Is it all about Middle Eastern oil and control of Central Asia, like the book [Metal Storm] says? And what country will be next?"

A colleague of his, Fatih, adds that some Turks fear there is a religious dimension to this as well. "We can see clearly who supports Bush's wars: Israel and the Christian fundamentalists in America. These people are like crusaders. They want to make the whole world like them. It is true, Turkey is a secular Muslim state, but it is a Muslim state [nonetheless], and religious people here are afraid that they would like to 'convert' us someday."

The Self-Sufficiency Argument and the EU Backlash

It is interesting that many of these views are shared by the Turkish "elite." The Australian article, for example, cites young Turks who point out America's support for Israel as a prime factor behind tensions in the region. And the author cites a young academic who says, "[W]e're worried about the way America is attacking countries in the region and we might be on the list."

On a second front, the complex issue of potential EU membership, Turks are again leery. A young airline executive cited denounces the EU countries as "liars and hypocrites" bent on denying Turkey EU membership through subterfuge and deception. "Of course they are racist and prejudiced against us. We don't need Europe."

I have noticed these attitude growing for the past couple years, as Turkish-EU negotiations have intensified and Turkish exasperation with the union has grown. As the European states wound Turkish pride by threatening to keep them out, Turks are beginning to invoke the argument for self-sufficiency and national pride. Turkey is a major textiles and agricultural exporter; has developed industries in areas such as chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and automobiles; and boasts a growing tourism industry as well. As for mineral resources, the country possesses the world's largest boron reserves (64 percent), as well as 40 percent of the world's marble and large quantities of other natural resources, including magnesites, coal, chromite, and copper. Urban Turkey offers shopping malls, airports, hotels, and convention centers as modern as anywhere in the world. Don't these things count for anything, Turks ask?

Says Enver, "Turkey has everything it needs to be one of the richest countries in Europe. It doesn't need the EU, though the politicians keep saying that this is our only choice."

Apo agrees. "Turkish people want to live well, but they have been brainwashed by the media to believe that only the EU can help. Yet now is coming a generation of young people, many from western Turkey, who are not so sure. They have educated themselves about the issue. They know what's going on. They know what we can expect to gain from the EU – but also what we can lose."

A Future Superpower Role for Turkey?

Distaste with the EU's prevarications and tricks, mistrust with America's incessant warmongering, and a new sense of self-confidence could conceivably lead the Turks to seek a more active role in world leadership. How might this play out? "My friend, there is too much support for an all-Turkish alliance," says Enver. He is referring to a possible scenario long considered, which would see Turks create some kind of union with their ethnic kin in Azerbaijan and the Central Asian states. While such a possibility is popular, at least among a certain percentage of the population, Kamer avers, "our politicians are very pro-Europe, and want to keep the people down. So they haven't moved very strongly in this direction."

It is in this context that Apo recounts the pan-Turkic dream of Turgut Ozal. A towering figure in modern Turkish politics, Ozal served as prime minister from 1983-1989, and thereafter became president until his death in 1993 of a heart attack. Ozal was enthusiastic about creating a Turkish sphere of influence, one that would stretch "from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China."

With the fall of the Soviet Union, Turkey began energetically seeking out new allies among its ethnic peers in Central Asia. In 2004, former Indian Ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan K. Gajendra Singh credited "the dynamic leadership" of Ozal for a plan that provided training, loans, and investments into the billions of dollars for the Central Asian republics after 1991. However, following Ozal's death in 1993, the pan-Turkic project was put on the back burner. Subsequent governments showed less interest in ethnic projects than in religious ones, and despite various resumptions of interest, a pan-Turkic alliance never really got off the ground.

Until recently, the primary opposition to Turkish influence in Central Asia has come from the Russians, who wished to retain their influence over military and energy affairs. However, now that increased American intransigence has driven the two ancient enemies closer together than ever before, things are changing. And America's frenetic democracy-building adventures in Central Asia are also proving a headache for the Turkish government, as it tries to decide how to react to events such as the destructive coup in Kyrgyzstan, which has revealed a vacuum of power that perhaps neither Russia nor America can adequately fill. Is it possible that Turkey could exercise some influence, here and in the other republics America is seeking to revolutionize?

It is clear that adventures such as Kyrgyzstan reveal the U.S. to be just as obsessed with limiting the influence of Russia and China as it is with controlling energy sources and pipeline routes. However, it has shown relatively little awareness of other unifying regional factors, most importantly the shared Turkic background of the Central Asian states, which, if augmented by Azerbaijan and Turkey, could make up one of the largest and richest ethnic blocs in the world. Is it just possible that continuing neocon intransigence could drive Turkey to assert itself more forcefully, both as a leader of allies and in its budding friendship with ancient antagonist Russia?

This is a very large and complex subject, one well beyond the scope of the present article. But it is worth speculating for a moment over what the "map" could look like if, after a few years, oafish neocon belligerence backfires and Russia and China are joined by the Turkic bloc in an alliance fundamentally hostile to American interests. To some, it might sound as ridiculous as the plot of Metal Storm. But then again, none of the U.S. government's adventures in this part of the world have materialized quite as the "experts" expected. No doubt, the world has more surprises in store for them yet.

Inevitably… the Sequels

So what happens next? The road ahead is clear for the authors of Metal Storm, at least. In true American style, they are franchising their product. While 37-year-old co-author Orkun Uçar forges ahead on Metal Storm 2, 30-year-old Turna is working on Metal Storm 3, as well as another novel on a similar theme, World War 3. In the latter work, he tells me, the scenario of a future pan-Turkic alliance figures strongly in the plot. It sounds like it will be another rousing bestseller.

What is most remarkable is the degree to which the authors' viewpoint coincides with that of the public at large. Turna echoes the mentality of Turks I and others have spoken to recently when he declares that

"Turkey can be and should be a superpower in the world. We have all the resources and historical background for that. The EU would benefit from us but there is little benefit we can take from them. Turkey is a must for Europe's future, if they want to stay as one, but they are not a must for us."

As every reader of futuristic, high-velocity fiction knows, only time will tell.