Today’s bombing in a historic Istanbul square frequented by tourists
was the indirect result of Turkey’s wildly adventurist policy toward the
Syrian conflict. It is a lesson to other countries, including the
United States: Do not believe you can control insurgent groups inside
Syria. Meddle too deeply in their conflict, and the war will come home
to you.
All of the dead killed in Istanbul were foreign citizens; eight were German and one was Peruvian.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that the suicide
bomber was a young Syrian. Efforts by the government to limit reporting
of the incident add to the presumption that the ISIS terror group was
responsible. That would make sense.
Erdogan was once a bosom buddy of the Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad.
When the first antigovernment protests erupted in Syria in 2011,
Erdogan advised his friend how to respond. Assad replied that he needed
no advice and would do what he believed best. That set off Erdogan’s
volcanic emotions. He vowed to do everything in his power to depose
Assad — including supporting terror groups like ISIS.
Turkey has
allowed foreign fighters to pass through its territory to join those
groups. It has allowed ISIS to maintain clinics inside Turkey where
wounded fighters are treated and then sent back to the battlefield. Its
intelligence service has illegally shipped weapons to insurgents in
Syria. When journalists discovered one caravan of weaponry, and military
officers protested, Erdogan had them arrested.
Under intense
pressure from the United States and its other NATO allies, Turkey has
begun to reassess its support for anti-Assad groups. That led ISIS to
carry out suicide bombings inside Turkey.
The first two served Erdogan’s
purposes because they targeted Kurds: one outside a Kurdish cultural
center in the border town of Suruc in July, which killed 33 people, and
then a horrific follow-up in Ankara in October in which more than 100
were killed as they marched to protest attacks on Kurdish groups.
Kurdish political leaders complained bitterly that the government was
not protecting them.
Erdogan sees two great enemies in Syria: the Assad government and
Kurds. He was happy to collaborate with any group, including ISIS, that
shared his wish to destroy those two forces. Terror groups, however, are
never satisfied with anything less than total commitment. It was folly
for Turkish leaders to believe they could manipulate Syrian rebel groups
for their own ends. They did not heed President John F. Kennedy’s
famous observation that “those who foolishly sought power by riding the
back of the tiger ended up inside.”
Today’s bombing in Istanbul
may be the incident that finally brings Turkey to shift focus and
concentrate its efforts on the true enemy: violent jihadist groups like
ISIS and the Nusra Front, which is Syria’s Al Qaeda affiliate. It is
late in the game for such a switch. By allowing ISIS and other
anti-Assad groups to move freely in Turkish towns along the border,
Turkey set the stage for conflict. It was inevitable that ISIS would
continually demand more from Turkey. When Turkey reached a limit, it
became an enemy.
Until now, terror attacks inside Turkey have been carried out either
in the border area, the Kurdish region, or places where critics of
Erdogan’s government gather. This one is different. It happened in a
historic square near magnificent mosques and Byzantine ruins that
attract millions of tourists each year. The dead include foreigners,
mainly Germans. This will naturally affect tourism, but more important
is the symbolism of such violence striking at the nation’s historic
heart.
In a rant that reflected his emotion-driven approach to
politics, Erdogan said foreign academics and writers shared
responsibility for the attack. He even named MIT professor Noam Chomsky,
a longtime defender of the Kurds, as one of them. That reflected his
evidently deep-seated view that Turkey’s estimated 15 million Kurds pose
more of a threat to the nation than terror groups like ISIS. Today’s
bombing may finally force him to reconsider.
This liberal order of openness, of vibrant
democracies, and of market economies was anchored on the transatlantic
relationship. But today, it shows few signs of being defended by most EU
governments. With the United States closing shop for the 2016
presidential election campaign and with U.S. interest in Europe so weak,
EU leaders will continue to pursue their own national agendas.
Two European leaders could change the dynamics of these trends: David Cameron, the British prime minister, and
Merkel.
Read more: Turkey’s meddling in Syria brings terror to Istanbul - The Boston Globe
