This story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.net/en/.
   License: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/
   international.
   --------------------------------------------------------------


Soap operas will not save Turkey’s reputation in Lebanon
By:   []
Date: None

Despite an ongoing maritime dispute with Israel, the Lebanese government began exploration activities in 2018, but the presence of oil and gas reserves has not yet been confirmed. Jabbour thinks that the possibility of a discovery is attracting the attention of international powers: “Turkish officials’ rush to Lebanon immediately after Macron’s visit was targeted at defending Turkey’s energy interests in the EastMed, and at reasserting Turkey’s right to have access to the oil and gas resources that may be found off the shores of Lebanon. Ankara’s deployment of the Oruc Reis military vessel in the Mediterranean during Macron’s visit was meant to convey the message that Turkey stands ready to defend its interests against any potential French aggression.”

Persona non grata

Upon coming to power in 2002, Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) introduced a then-unprecedented approach to the Arab world. The western-oriented Turkey had left the Middle East as a ‘neglected backyard’. In a couple of years, the new government improved its relationship with the region. Its popularity among the Arab public increased hand in hand with an economic success story, embodied in high growth figures, and the beginning of the EU accession talks. Turkey was seen as a model for thecoexistence of Islam and democracy. It was a popular destination for tourists in the region and Turkish soap operas were aired on TV stations across the Middle East from the early 2000s, with a greater number in recent years.

It was during the term of Ahmet Davutoğlu as foreign minister (2009-2014) that Lebanon came back under Turkey’s spotlight. The country was a pivotal part of Davutoğlu’s ‘strategic depth’ doctrine, which promoted an active role and more involvement for Turkey in the Middle East to establish itself as a regional power. Official visits of politicians were joined by Turkish businessmen and Turkish products began to dominate Arab markets.

In the mid-2000s, Turkey had played an active mediator role in the Lebanese conflict and Turkish Armed Forces sent troops to the UNIFIL II peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon after the 2006 war with Israel. Thousands of Lebanese Turkmens living predominantly in and around the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli obtained Turkish citizenship. “Under the circumstances, the AKP allied itself with the Western- and Saudi-backed Sunni faction, namely the Future Movement (Al-Mustaqbal) of Rafic Hariri. Nonetheless, the close relations between the AKP and Hariri’s party/family avoided direct challenge with Iran, which backed the Shiite- dominated factions. It was a lucky time for Turkey,” says Mert. “A lot has changed since then, apart from the fact that the prime minister’s power is always contested in the Lebanese system and that Hariri’s son Saad is a French protégé,” she added.

Turkey’s military involvement in the Syrian war since 2011, its alignment with the Muslim Brotherhood, and its sectarian leanings have enraged many in the region. The toppling of one Muslim Brotherhood government after another marked the beginning of Turkey’s decline in the region. “Turkey interfered with the internal affairs of many Arab states including Syria and Egypt. This has had a catastrophic impact on its image,” said Noureddine. “Turkey gained historic opportunities between 2002 and 2010, but Erdoğan wasted these chances with his expansionist policies during the Arab Spring. This potential for Turkey completely ended after 2011.”

“Turkey’s loss of influence in Lebanon in recent years is, in a way, a collateral damage fromthe Syrian crisis,” added Jabbour. “Sunnis in Lebanon have been disappointed by Turkey’s inability to topple the Syrian regime of Bachar Al Assad. As for the Shias, they now consider Turkey as their enemy as Ankara is siding against the Alawite regime of Assad.”

“Middle Easternisation” of Turkey

The AKP’s foreign policy predicaments coincided with domestic challenges to its tightening grip on the country. The nationwide wave of protests in 2013 not only rocked Turkey but also tarnished Erdoğan’s image. Three years later, the country witnessed a coup attempt. The main suspects were the Gulenists, a network with members occupying strategic positions in the state apparatus, and the AKP government’s long-time ally.The episode was followed by a two-year-long period of emergency rule during which thousands of civil servants, academics, and members of security forces were purged and journalists imprisoned. The conversion to the presidential system was the last blow in a series of authoritarian steps. This democratic decay was accompanied by economic meltdown. For Noureddine, “The admiration [of the Arab world] evaporated after Turkey’s economic and democratic system collapsed.”

Turkey’s recent evolution shows that instead of serving as a model of democracy for the Arab world, it ended up adopting the very model of authoritarianism embodied by Arab autocracies,” Jabbour commented.

Coskun Aral, is a veteran Turkish journalist who lived in Lebanon for a decade during the 1980s and reported on the Lebanese Civil War. In his view, “We were not like Lebanon, but I can say that we have become so. Lately, in Turkey a lot of things have started to look like it.” He cited the dissatisfaction with and indifference to politics among Turkish young people. “This is exactly the case with the Lebanese youth nowadays.”

An uninfluential ‘colonial’ power

If one side of the Lebanon crisis requires humanitarian action to solve short-term problems of poverty, food shortage, shrinking hygiene supplies and the urban destruction caused by the blast and the financial crisis, the other side is a more painstaking effort to reach a social consensus that will reform and reshape the state. The political system generates no effective executive power but frequent political deadlocks.

Since the resignation of the former prime minister, Saad Hariri, in 2019, political rows among Shia, Sunni and Christian factions have prevented any reform efforts, the precondition for the West to release the massive financial aid that the country needs to restore economic stability and diminish its skyrocketing inflation rate. The system had long been recognised as a problem. It’s the reason thousands have taken to the streets since October 2019, protesting the corrupt and uncompromising elites that have been in their political positions for decades, and the confessional system that makes progress impossible.

During its visit after the Beirut explosion, the Macron delegation put forward a relatively concrete action plan that, before everything else, requires a reform government made up of technocrats. The plan envisaged extensive governance and public finance reform, including closer consultation with civil society, more scrutiny over public spending and the deposits in Lebanon’s central bank, enactment of a judicial independence law and strong efforts to curb corruption and smuggling.

The reforms would be followed by a fundraising conference under the coordination of France. But with prime minister-designate Hariri failing to form a government after nine months of trying, the reality of a new government is still an open question and the implementation of the plan seems far from a reality.

The government impasse, mainly caused by the stubborn political parties unwilling to waive their political power, attracted fury in the Elysée Palace and Paris sanctioned certain Lebanese politicians for what the French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, called “involvement in the current political blockage and corruption”.

While France has concrete reform demands on the table, Ankara has thus far offered no way out of the current crisis and no structural reform package for long-term stability, only occasional donations and construction projects, despite its economic and political interests in the country. “Turkey’s diplomacy in Lebanon seems to be event-driven,” commented Jabbour. “Instead of ‘acting’ in Lebanon by putting forward clear suggestions and coming up with new proposals to find an effective solution to its multifaceted crisis, Ankara seems to be on the defensive and to be only ‘reacting’ to events and evolutions on the ground.”

According to Noureddine, Turkey is not in a position to act as a mediator. “The Turkish government offers economic and humanitarian aid to Lebanon, which is not in a condition to reject such offers. However, Turkey cannot be a part of a political solution to Lebanon’s crisis. Except for parts of the Sunni community, no Lebanese group has a positive approach towards Turkey. So, the circumstances are not appropriate for a potential Turkish mediation.”

[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/soap-operas-will-not-save-turkeys-reputation-in-lebanon/