27.06.2012

One step from a shooting war

The downing of a Turkish plane by Syria has brought the contradictions of Istanbul's soft-Islamist government to the fore. Esen Uslu explains

The shooting down last week of a Turkish air force reconnaissance plane by Syrian forces over the Mediterranean Sea represents yet another step on the road leading to a Nato intervention.

After the incident a disinformation campaign began immediately, with Turkey and Syria giving conflicting versions aimed at winning over international public opinion, while diplomatic as well as military moves were set in motion. Although neither version can be verified at this time, it is possible to draw certain inferences.

The Turkish plane took off from the Malatya base, which is part of the Nato air command - situated nearby is the mountain-top radar site at Kürecik that played an infamous role during the cold war. And recently we have seen the state-of-the-art AN/TPY-2 radar system added to the USA’s so-called ‘ballistic missile shield’ under nominal Nato control. It is also noteworthy that another component of the same defence shield is a similar radar unit based in the Negev desert in Israel.

The RF-4-ETM aircraft that was shot down is part of a batch that was phased out by the US and German air forces, and transferred to Turkey. Those planes have passed through several recent upgrading programmes to improve their structural integrity, engine, radar and avionics. The ‘ETM’ suffix indicates that it was the Turkish aircraft industry that carried out the upgrading of its photo and electronic reconnaissance suites.

These planes were scheduled to be further improved through the inclusion of up-to-date ELOP Condor-2 LOROP photo reconnaissance pods made by the Israeli defence industry. However, after the attack on the Mavi Marmara - the Turkish-owned vessel boarded by Israeli commandos in 2010, while attempting to sail to Gaza in breach of the Israeli blockade - the contract was terminated unilaterally by the Israeli side. Despite this, the planes’ electronic and optical suites are believed to be more than efficient; however, they need to receive flight information close to their target to obtain the relevant data.

Brinkmanship

Istanbul claimed that the plane was on a mission to calibrate the Turkish radar system, and that when it was warned by ground control that it had committed an incursion the plane was ordered out of Syrian air space. In the secret world of reconnaissance and intelligence, both information and misinformation are put out, so we cannot be sure if the aircraft carried any other specialist equipment. But its standard complement was sufficient to spy deep inside Syria from along the border - and collect electronic data about the status of the Syrian air defences.

It was also possible that the plane was approaching Syria from a seaward direction simulating a low-altitude attack in order to test Syria’s early-warning radar systems and tease out the response of the surface-to-air missile defence system, as it attempted to track the plane. That would reveal up-to-date data on Syrian electronic signatures to the sensors of the approaching plane.

A new Russian-made radar system has recently been deployed by the Syrians on a hill near the border with Turkey in order to implement the lessons learned in September 2007. During ‘Operation Orchard’, Israeli jets bombed the construction site of a nuclear facility in north-eastern Syria, and their approach and return routes were over Turkish territory. The Turkish side turned a blind eye, allowing the low-flying Israeli jets to use the radar screen provided by the mountains lying along the Turkish-Israeli border, until they turned south to their target from deep inside Turkey.

Syria previously had quite a substantial number of surface-to-air missile sites, some old and some new, but they were designed to meet attacks coming from the sea and from the southern border. With the recent addition of the new radar on the Turkish border, the Syrian air defence system has succeeded in closing a gap.

Testing the capabilities of such radar and missile systems and collecting up-to-date data is crucially important for Nato planners, who are in the process of drawing up various contingency plans in relation to Syria. Of course, testing radar and SAM defences and collecting electronic data in such a manner would be a very dangerous form of brinkmanship, but an old airplane and a Turkish aircrew are considered expendable items in such a high-stake game.

Neo-Ottoman

How much the soft-Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) government of Turkey was aware of this particular mission is hard to tell. It would, of course, be aware of the general state of play, but it is quite possible that the government was kept in the dark about the actual operation.

While the AKP has done a lot to push back the boundaries of military tutelage over the political and social life of Turkey, it still does not have full control over the military-industrial complex. At present more than 60 generals and high-ranking officers, as well as scores of retired officers, are in detention and several trials are going on of those accused of trying to subvert the constitution. However, currently the top brass seems intent on maintaining the semblance of civilian control. But disputes between military officers, security personnel and state intelligence occasionally flare up and are easily discernible. So the flight could also be a part of a deceptive move forcing the government to act.

The media controlled by junta supporters (including the press of the former Maoists!) are full of articles on how the Islamists have weakened our proud army, and warning that unless all the accused officers are released at once the country will suffer a devastating defeat in the event of an armed conflict. Even in the mainstream media such nationalistic, militarist opposition to the AKP government has become more visible.

As has been widely publicised in the western press, Syrian rebels have been recruited from among the refugee camps along the border with Turkey, which are home to more than 24,000 people. The oil-rich Arab countries provide the finance for the military training carried out by US officers, and the rebels’ general supply routes into Syria are protected by Turkish military and paramilitary forces. Meanwhile diplomatic efforts to amalgamate the different groups and forces of the Syrian opposition under a unified command have been centred on Istanbul.

With the downing of the aircraft, a blow was struck against the two publicly declared foreign policy aims of the AKP. Those aims - dubbed ‘neo-Ottomanism’ - are “zero problems with our neighbours” and “increasing the presence of Turkey as a role model in the region on the basis of its economic, social and cultural strength”. The AKP regards its Islamist credentials as an important asset.

However, recent unexpected developments on the southern shores of the Mediterranean in the shape of the Arab uprisings against various dictatorships, as well as deteriorating relations with Israel, have severely tested these neo-Ottomanist pretentions. And the government still seems unable to find its footing in the international arena.

By coincidence, on June 25 the Financial Times published a supplement on Turkey, including a headline which read: “Rising power, growing questions”. The article went on to explain how the underlying weaknesses of the Turkish economy are stalling its ambitions: “Not since there was a sultan in Dolmabahçe Palace [ie, before World War I] has Turkey been so active in the region. Surveying the world from the same spot, [prime minister Recep Tayyip] Erdo?an is all too aware - and his officials freely admit - that what comes with that more active role is a region likely to be unstable for at least a decade. He also knows his country’s economy is deeply entwined with his own political fate.”

After the blatant shooting down of one of its aircraft, the initial response of the government was quite subdued. It claimed it had to collect all the necessary information before proceeding to the international arena. It put together a package of evidence which stopped short on many details. And instead of acting as a ‘regional power’ and formulating its own response, it ran to Nato - but did not invoke clause 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty dealing with an attack on a member-country.

After all those measured steps ,Erdo?an made a speech to the AKP parliamentary group on June 26, stating that the government had changed the rules of engagement for Turkey’s armed forces deployed along the Syrian border. Any further hostile act would meet with an immediate and appropriate response. Press reports indicated that reinforcements are being deployed to the southern borders. That means we are one step away from a shooting war.

Intervention and consequences

The AKP government’s liberal facade is affixed to its conservative, Islamist core. Its knee-jerk reactions split open that facade and reveal the core. In Syria, the Alawi-minority-based army has been the mainstay of the Ba’athist regime that rules over the Sunni majority. And now suddenly the AKP’s anti-Alevi stance has been brought into the open - possibly with very dangerous consequences within Turkey.

Syria represents another relic of the cold war era, where the Russians and Iranians have been striving to maintain their dominant position. Syria has also been in the forefront of Arab hopes in the face of an expanding Israel. With the Muslim Brotherhood victory in the elections in Egypt, Syria has now been deprived of almost all its support in the Arab world. So a hardened stand against Turkey and a veiled Nato intervention could be a way of winning popular support for Damascus in the Arab world.

In such an international arena, where political fault lines are superimposed on gas and oil supply lines, the AKP government has limited options. However, it has been trying its best to show the western world its agreeable side. It has just signed a new agreement with Azerbaijan to supply gas to Europe via the pipeline being constructed across Turkey.

The day after the downing of the reconnaissance aircraft, the Turkish air force carried out nine bombing runs in the Qandil mountains deep inside Iraqi Kurdistan, where the headquarters of the PKK guerrillas is situated. According to the AKP government and its supporting media, the recent examples of increased Kurdish guerrilla activity inside Turkey are operations sub-contracted by Syrian intelligence. The AKP is also stepping up its repression of Kurdish legal opposition groups on the pretext that they support the separatist aims of the PKK - thousands of elected members of municipal councils, trade unionists, intellectuals and university students have been targeted, and they are now the subject of harsher treatment.

The AKP has tried to divert attention from the Kurdish war and a possible intervention in Syria by highlighting issues such as religious training and the role of women that always find a favourable audience among religious, conservative sections of the population. It has initiated a campaign against an alleged increase in abortions through caesarean operations. It has introduced a new system whereby any woman undertaking a pregnancy test will be informed of the result by SMS - a copy of which is sent to her husbands or parents! Women’s organisations have been leading the opposition to these attacks, and for a while the government seemed to backtrack. But after the downing of the plane, the relevant minister was brought out to declare that the government would introduce new legislation before October.

It has also introduced a new system in primary education, where eight-year-olds will be subjected to compulsory religious education. The secularist opposition to this has been quite vocal.

Despite all these diversionary tactics, and the drummed-up nationalism and militarism in response to an ‘unprovoked attack’, the general public seems set against an intervention in Syrian affairs at the behest of the US and Israel. However, the weakness of the left in Turkey, and the seeming inability to draw Kurds and Alevis into close cooperation with the working class and trade union movement in the struggle for democracy, still persists.

Without such a unified opposition, any chance of a creating a strong movement defending peace seems unlikely in the short run. One hopes that the learning curve of such a unified, democratic opposition to a bloody intervention would be quite steep and that the forces for democracy will be quick to act.