Failed Turkey Coup Puts New Strains on U.S. Policy

23.07.2016 23:04

Failed Turkey Coup Puts New Strains on U.S. Policy Failed Turkey Coup Puts New Strains on U.S. Policy

Turkish officials press U.S. to extradite cleric, as country’s instability complicates West’s efforts against Islamic State.

The failed coup attempt in Turkey has fueled a sharp conflict with Washington over the fate of a Turkish cleric in the U.S., while posing a broader challenge to the West’s efforts to fight terror and promote liberal democracy.

Senior Turkish government officials are pressing the Obama administration to extradite cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom they blame for orchestrating the attempted coup. The gap between the two allies’ agendas became clear Sunday, when U.S. officials responded to Ankara’s demands that he be handed over by spelling out the legal procedures and evidence hurdles involved in that process.

More broadly, any erosion of democracy in Turkey, a key U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic State and a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member, complicates some of the most critical tests facing President Barack Obama in his final months in office and his successor thereafter.

Turkey’s strategic location and Western ties have made it a cornerstone of U.S. strategy against Islamic State as well as efforts to resolve the Syrian conflict and stem the flow of migrants to Europe.

While the U.K.’s recent Brexit vote threatens the European Union, the coup attempt in Turkey poses new challenges to NATO, by adding a sudden outbreak of instability on the alliance’s eastern flank and stoking concern over the Erdogan government’s reaction.

That all spells a period of uncertainty for the West’s two most important multilateral institutions.

An immediate question is how much importance Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan places on the prompt extradition of Mr. Gulen, the Turkish cleric who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999.

Secretary of State John Kerry warned Ankara on Sunday against accusing the U.S. of “harboring” Mr. Gulen, saying any extradition request would be considered under U.S. policies and procedures.

The U.S. has an extradition treaty with Turkey, but the process can take months or longer, depending on the particulars of the case.

The Justice Department must weigh the charges and evidence, and can then seek an arrest warrant if justified. A judicial hearing rules on extradition, and the defendant can appeal an adverse ruling. The secretary of state makes a final determination on handing someone over, based partly on humanitarian concerns, such as the likelihood of torture or mistreatment.

The U.S. has another vital, immediate interest: Incirlik Air Base in southeastern Turkey. The military asset, central to the U.S. presence and strategy in the Middle East, has been thrust into the fallout over the coup bid, unsettling crucial military ties between Ankara and Washington. U.S. aircraft operations there had returned to normal Sunday after Turkey closed airspace around the base for a time.

The coup attempt caps a month of major global developments: terrorist attacks from Turkey and Bangladesh to France and the U.S., moves by Russia and China to reassert power, and more saber-rattling from North Korea.

The dynamic unfolds as Mr. Obama de-emphasizes the role of the U.S. military in global hot spots and as populist and anti-globalization sentiments fuel the American presidential race, adding up to potential shifts in America’s global role.

“What we have is a world that’s unraveling and a United States—still the most important country in the world—that’s retrenching. It’s a toxic combination,” said Richard Haass,president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “Centrifugal forces are much stronger right now than anything trying to move toward balance.”

Another growing concern in Washington and other capitals is how far the democratically elected Turkish leader Mr. Erdogan may now tread into undemocratic tactics against his opponents.

Not long ago, the U.S. viewed Turkey as a model for how democracy and Islam could coexist. Any new strides toward an authoritarian state there would embolden countries like Russia and China, said Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, further undermining the principles of liberal democracy the West has sought to spread since the end of the Cold War.

“After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it seemed like we had momentum, but that momentum has stalled if not reversed in the last few years,” said Mr. McFaul, now a political-science professor at Stanford University. “It feels like the end of an era.”

Concerns have been building for some time in the White House and on Capitol Hill about Mr. Erdogan’s intensifying crackdown on dissent. U.S. officials are insisting Turkey not use the attempted coup as a license to crack down further.

 

“I think we’re all concerned, and we have expressed that concern, that this not fuel a reach well beyond those who engaged in the coup, but that they strengthen the democracy of the country,” Mr. Kerry said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

Turkey has been important to the U.S. as a stable, democratic ally bridging the West and the Middle East. But Mr. Obama will hand over a U.S. relationship with Turkey that looks far different than it did when he took office. Gone is the U.S. hope of a Turkey embracing democratic principles and setting an example for the Middle East. Yet Ankara remains critical to U.S. counterterrorism efforts and intelligence, leaving the next U.S. president to decide what kind of ties to pursue.

Mr. Erdogan’s moves also give credence to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s argument that the stability of nations depends on strongmen.

Uncertainty about Turkey’s direction comes on top of a host of crises Mr. Obama’s successor was already set to inherit in the Middle East and North Africa. The 2015 Iran nuclear dealhasn’t led to a broader change in relations between Washington and Tehran; Libya and Egypt pose problems for the next administration; and U.S. ties with its Gulf allies and with Israel are strained.

Elsewhere, China continues to try to assert control in the South China Sea and rattle its neighbors, while Washington and Beijing have yet to reach agreement on an approach to North Korea, seen as one of the most pressing challenges facing the next administration.

The array of crises unfolding at the same time looms large in the U.S. presidential race, with presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump saying the events show the world “spinning apart” and blaming his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, Mr. Obama’s former secretary of state.