https://themilitant.com/2018/08/24/us-turkish-rulers-clash-over-course-in-mideast/
US, Turkish rulers clash over course in Mideast
SWP: 'Stand with working people in Turkey'
By Terry Evans
Vol. 82/No. 33
September 3, 2018
Turkish government has let U.S. forces use Incirlik base in Adana,
Turkey, above, for decades. But disputes between U.S. and Turkish
governments have heated up in wake of Syrian civil war.
Reuters/Umit Bektas
Turkish government has let U.S. forces use Incirlik base in Adana,
Turkey, above, for decades. But disputes between U.S. and Turkish
governments have heated up in wake of Syrian civil war.
Sharpening disputes between the propertied rulers in the U.S. and Turkey
over their conflicting economic, political and military interests in
Syria and more broadly in the region lie behind the current trade
sanctions being imposed back and forth between the two capitalist powers.
The escalating dispute takes place as the “world order” put together by
the U.S. rulers after they emerged as top dog at the end of the second
imperialist world war is coming apart. And at the same time the
institutions and alliances cobbled together by Washington’s rivals —
like the EU — are being torn asunder.
As the Syrian civil war winds down, Washington has moved to work more
closely with the rulers in Israel, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf
monarchies, and Egypt to target the Iranian regime and its Hezbollah
ally. Ankara is in a bloc with Moscow and Tehran enforcing their
separate interests in Syria. As part of this alliance, the Turkish
rulers control a “de-escalation zone” in Idlib and parts of Latakia,
Hama and Aleppo, where opponents of the Bashar al-Assad regime have been
increasingly centered.
At the same time, Turkey remains a member of U.S.-dominated NATO.
Washington froze the assets of two Turkish government ministers Aug. 1
after Ankara refused to release U.S. evangelical pastor Andrew Brunson.
Turkish authorities imprisoned Brunson in 2016, claiming he aided a
failed coup against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and
backs Kurds fighting for their national rights. They are attempting to
use Brunson as trade bait to get Washington to extradite Fethullah
Gulen, a former ally of Erdogan who lives in exile in the U.S. Ankara
accuses him of being behind the 2016 coup attempt.
In response to Washington’s sanctions, the Turkish government retaliated
with their own protectionist measures. The U.S. administration then
doubled tariffs on steel and aluminum sold in the U.S. by Turkish
bosses. Ankara imposed its own punitive duties on goods traded by U.S.
companies in Turkey.
But it’s not an equal exchange between Washington and the Erdogan
government. The U.S. rulers sit atop a far larger and more robust
capitalist economy than the capitalist class in Turkey. As Washington
imposed its sanctions there, the lira, the Turkish currency, nosedived,
hitting working people the hardest.
A decadeslong ally of Washington
For decades the Turkish rulers have joined Washington in the bloody
imperialist conflicts it waged around the world. They sent over 20,000
Turkish troops to fight in Washington’s 1950-53 Korean War and thousands
joined the U.S. war in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001. During the 1991
Iraq war, the Turkish government enforced the anti-Iraq blockade, opened
its airfields to U.S. bombers, and mobilized troops along its border
with Iraq.
The Turkish rulers turned over a hunk of their Incirlik Air Base for the
exclusive use of the U.S. Air Force, including the stationing of dozens
of B61 nuclear bombs there. Since 2015 the Pentagon has used the base
for airstrikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
In exchange, the Turkish rulers have sought military aid, loans from and
trade with the U.S. capitalists, and Washington’s backing for the
regime’s efforts to crush the struggle of Turkey’s oppressed Kurdish
population for a homeland.
The roots of today’s clashes between Washington and Ankara lie in their
divergent interests in the bloody aftermath of Syria’s civil war.
As the Assad government lost control of many parts of the country, and
in the absence of any working-class leadership, reactionary Islamic
State seized control in parts of Syria and Iraq, inflicting greater
misery on working people.
Unwilling to deploy U.S. troops on the ground, Washington relied on the
Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic
Forces, which the YPG led, to do most of the fighting. With the aid of
U.S. air power, they ousted Islamic State. As a result, the SDF
consolidated control over an autonomous area east of the Euphrates River
covering some 25 percent of Syria, including the Kurdish region that
lies on the border with Turkey. Washington stations 2,000 troops there
today.
Erdogan charges that Washington is protecting the YPG, who he says are
allied with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey. The Turkish
government has waged a decadeslong war against the Kurds’ fight for
independence there. The Turkish army invaded the YPG-held province of
Afrin, in northwest Syria, earlier this year, driving them out. Erdogan
repeated Aug. 18 his often-made threat to drive the YPG away from the
border in Kurdish northeastern Syria.
Amid these conflicts the Turkish rulers have developed closer relations
with Moscow. The Turkish government says it will deploy a Russian-made
S-400 missile defense system next year. In response, Washington withheld
the delivery of F-35 jet fighters Turkey had ordered, saying the Russian
equipment could enable Moscow to pry out the jet’s “top-secret” systems.
In an op-ed in the Aug. 10 New York Times, Erdogan said that if the U.S.
government didn’t drop the sanctions and treat Turkey’s demands
seriously, he would find “new friends and allies.”
“Turkey has established time and again that it will take care of its own
business if the United States refuses to listen,” he said.
But the White House’s course isn’t aimed at breaking with Ankara. As it
has done elsewhere, the administration seeks to utilize threats and
punishing sanctions to force the Turkish rulers into negotiations where
Washington gets what it wants.
The White House rejected Ankara’s offer to release Brunson in exchange
for backing off threatened sanctions against the Turkish government’s
Halkbank. Earlier this year a U.S. court convicted a Halkbank executive
of breaching U.S. sanctions on Iran.
The impact of Washington’s sanctions has fueled the decline in the
Turkish lira, stoking inflation. The cost of food is rising at a rate of
20 percent this year.
Rising prices fall hardest on working people there, who also face a
widespread government crackdown on political rights. These intensified
following Erdogan’s stepped-up military offensive against the Kurds in
2015 and his consolidation of sweeping executive powers in the wake of
the 2016 failed coup attempt.
Ruling by decree, he has shut newspapers that express even a hint of
opposition, purged hundreds of thousands from universities and other
government jobs, and imprisoned some 80,000 people.
“Workers have no stake in backing the U.S. government — that serves the
bosses here against working people — in its wars in the Middle East or
its trade conflicts with the Turkish rulers,” Osborne Hart, Socialist
Workers Party candidate for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, said Aug. 20.
“The SWP demands the immediate lifting of all duties and sanctions that
Washington has imposed. We stand with working people in Turkey who
confront the assaults of the Erdogan regime. U.S. troops, planes and
bombs out of the Middle East!”
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Witch hunt by liberals against Trump a danger to
workers
•US, Turkish rulers clash over course in Mideast
•SWP: Speak out against bosses, gov't attacks, abuse
•White nationalist rally shows less support for racism in US today
•Join fight to end prison officials' censorship of the 'Militant'!
•Demand US rulers sign peace pact ending the Korean War!
Feature Articles •‘Teamster Bureaucracy’ is a must read for workers today
Also In This Issue •Working people welcome Eritrea-Ethiopia peace deal
On the Picket Line •Workers at Indiana construction site walk out
against racist firings
•Puerto Rico teachers protest ‘worst school start in decades’
•Teachers in New Zealand strike over pay, conditions
Books of the Month •Fidel Castro: ‘Maurice Bishop was a true revolutionary’
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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