December 17, 2010

A Little Pregnant



John W. Garver is a smart guy, and he is a professor of Chinese affairs at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech. You will have to bear with me on this, since his views on what Beijing is up to in the Middle East is critical to the world that is to be.

I will get to that in a second, since what is going on right here is what will bring it about, and there are others who are getting ready to play new roles on the world stage.

It is gratifying that Senator Nunn arranged to fund the school of International Affairs. He is a neat guy, the farseeing sort of American who seems to be in short supply these days.

I had a chance to brief him one time, on the topic of Kurdish refugees in the period immediately after the conclusion of active hostilities in DESERT STORM, and Saddam turned his attention to pressing the restive north toward the Turkish border, and the enclave of their invisible country that lies on the other side.

Senator Sam is a neat guy, very astute across a wide spectrum of thorny international issues. I am sorry there are not more people like him serving in the Government these days. He left the Senate when there was still a budget surplus, so it is hard to tag him with any of the mischief that has brought us low.

The tired parade of hypocrisy up on the Hill in these waning days of the lame duck session is depressing. The tax bill that was passed last night is another example. It only extends the Bush-era tax rates for two years, so that sucks on the one hand, and on the other, it digs us another almost trillion dollars in the hole.

They say that when you are concerned about how far in the ground you find yourself the first thing you ought to do is stop digging. Others, successors to the dismal science of Lord Maynard Keynes, say that the common wisdom is wrong.

When FDR tried to balance the budget in his second term, he may have brought on the recession of ’37-38. In June 1937, some of his economic advisors urged spending cuts to balance the budget. Roosevelt slashed Worls Progress Administration make-work infrastructure projects, and the economy took a sharp downturn in mid-1937, lasting for 13 months through most of 1938. Industrial production declined almost 30 per cent and production of durable goods went through the floor.

No one wants that to happen now, so we are gambling that we can make hard choices just as soon as things get better. Maybe in two years.

Something big is going to have to be done, but that is not the point of this outing. I think, for the purposes of looking at the world to come, we are going to have to accept that the massive military machine we have created is going to go hollow with budget cuts, and American influence is going to decline as a direct consequence.

I don’t necessarily agree with the contention that this is going to be The Chinese Century. There are structural demographic problems that are going to affect the Middle Kingdom, and there are other regional actors, like India, who will have major roles to play. And, of course, there is the Persian Problem.  

(Professor John Garver. Photo Georgia Tech.)

Professor Garver suggests that China is following a dual-track policy toward Iran. One aspect of China’s Iran policy suggests “a sincere effort to uphold the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime in cooperation with the United States.”

There is something else, thought, and darker. Beijing may believe that a nuclear-armed or nuclear-armed-capable Iran would serve China’s geopolitical interests in the Persian Gulf region. The brilliant success of the STUXNET computer worm that ravished the fuel enrichment program will be undone. It may take years, but eventually, unless there is regime change, the Mercedes Mullahs will have their Shia bomb.

(Mustafa Kemel Ataturk. Photo Kalkan LocalTurkishNews.)

I have always felt that the Turks might be an answer to the problem, and help contain the Iranians if we cannot bring their government to stop meddling. I observed to my journalist pal that perhaps a return to a modified version of the Ottoman Caliphate, extending through the Turkman-populated ‘Stans along Iran’s northern border, and extend a stabilizing Islamic face in Iraq might be useful.

The journalist is a real Turk, and was dubious about my ideas, since the notion of Ataturk’s secular Turkey was long gone. So was another old colleague, who for purposes of this narrative must remain on “deep background.”

He told me that the reporter was correct in saying Turkey is no longer secular.

“By constitution, it may still be, but that will change in the next year or so). Politically, the Justice and Development Party- the
AK party has been known in the West as being "mildly Islamic". That is rather like being a little pregnant.”

I trust his judgement on that. He lived and worked in Istanbul a half century ago, when Turkey was still truly secular, and the army enforced that with great vigor. The Republican People's Party (CHP in Turkish), which was Ataturk’s party, consistently won elections and enforced secularism.


(Prime Minister Erdogan.)

“They also were corrupt and rather inept.,” my colleague said.  “AK has done a good job running Turkey. As you know, I go back every two or three years. I have watched the changes over the years. The country is nothing like it was. It is incredibly prosperous and feeling its oats. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an neatly balances an "opening to the East" with a drive to gain entry into the EU. He makes changes to the Constitution, to laws, and to tradition using the excuse that these are necessary to gain EU entry.”

My associate smiled thinly. “In almost all cases they are, but I don't believe for a minute that Erdogan, Gul, and Davutoglu really believe they will gain access to the EU. Nor do they believe that they will somehow restore the Ottoman Empire. But they do realize that Turkey's natural place is with the East -- historically, culturally, and religiously. Erdogan is doing well in developing these relationships.”
 
“Most of my friends are older-generation secular Istanbul Turks. They despise AK and long for the return of CHP (or the Army). My Armenian friends, on the other hand, always hated CHP and, despite the fact they are Christian, they embrace the "mildly Islamic" AK Party, which has been a a lot more favorable to the Christian minorities than CHP ever was.”
 
“It's a new Turkey and will be fascinating to watch. They have 75 million very young people and a booming economy. "Mildly Islamic" they may be, but that should be of no concern to us. We need to sort through whether our enemy is terrorism or Islam. They are not the same!”

I know,” I said. “But it is hard to tell when people are blowing themselves up in Times Square or Stockholm.”

My friend shrugged. He is, above all things, a realist.

“By the way, if you want to follow what is happening in what is going to be one of the top ten economic powers in a few decades, you need to read Graham Fuller’s book “The New Turish Republic.”

I told him I would. I have been slogging through “The Ottoman Centuries” on and off, marveling at the heritage of Greece and Rome filtered through hundreds of years of court of the Sultan. But maybe I need to get out of the past and deal with the present as it is.

And deal with the future that is coming, whether we like it or not. I wish we had stopped digging a while ago, since by now I am pretty sure we are not going to.

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
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