Foreign Policy 101?

Foreign policy advice for a new president from Michael Totten makes for a bracing read. Here's the short version for those of you in a hurry:

In essence: Get real about Russia, finish off ISIS in Syria, back the Kurds to the hilt, downgrade relations with Turkey, repair our relations with Israel and crack down hard again on Iran. World peace won’t break out if you do these things, but we’ll be a lot better off than if you don’t.

All this advice is based on one simple principle—you reward your friends and punish your enemies. It’s the first rule of foreign policy, one that has been with us since antiquity and will survive until the end of time. Presidents who behave as though this rule doesn’t apply to them are as doomed to fail in foreign policy as rocket scientists who ignore gravity. Hubristically declaring that it would not do “stupid sh*t” like its predecessors, the Obama administration flipped this rule on its head over and over again—with Israel, with Russia, with Iran, and with Turkey—with disastrous results every time.

So turn things around. Again: Reward your friends and punish your enemies. Tattoo that rule on the back of your eyelids if you have to.

Photographing the Flight From ISIS

Photojournalist John Stanmeyer brings images of some 66,000 Syrian Kurds fleeing from ISIS and flooding into Turkey yesterday.

Subversive LOLs

Smile and laugh on, you gorgeous women of Turkey!

The Middle East Friendship Chart

Obviously it's reductive and imperfect (where is Jordan?  I didn't see Lebanon either), but this chart is an interesting attempt to begin to think about the complexity of relationships in the Middle East.  I kind of want to add "Frenemies" as another relationship option and "Kurds/Kurdistan" as another player.  Note, though, how ISIS is pretty much hated by everybody.

Kurdistan Rising? A Referendum on Independence

It begins.  There are considerable concerns, of course.  Elsewhere, Israeli support for Kurdish independence is fueling criticism that this further oppresses the Palestinians and marginalizes the Kurds.  I haven't looked into reactions in Turkey yet, but you're perfectly capable of doing that on your own.

Kurdish Delight: Turkey and Israel Back Independent Kurdistan

Two quotations:

“In the past an independent Kurdish state was a reason for war [for Turkey] but no one has the right to say this now.” - Huseyin Celik, spokesman for the ruling AK party 

 “We need to support the Kurdish aspiration for independence. They deserve it.” -  Benjamin Netanyahu

Turkey: Hey, We're OK with a Kurdish Free State

Well, isn't this interesting.

I was just mentioning this to Alessandra:

"I wonder what made the Turks change their minds, eh?" 

"I bet they want the Kurds as a buffer zone between them and those [expletive referring to ISIS] in Iraq."

If You Strike Me Down, I Shall Become More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine: Turkish Twitter Edition

Via Samizdata comes this report:

Shortly after the Twitter ban came into effect around midnight, the micro-blogging company tweeted instructions to users in Turkey on how to circumvent it using text messaging services in Turkish and English. Turkish tweeters were quick to share other methods of tiptoeing around the ban, using “virtual private networks” (VPN) – which allow internet users to connect to the web undetected – or changing the domain name settings on computers and mobile devices to conceal their geographic whereabouts. 

Some large Turkish news websites also published step-by-step instructions on how to change DNS settings. 

On Friday morning, Turkey woke up to lively birdsong: according to the alternative online news site Zete.com, almost 2.5m tweets – or 17,000 tweets a minute – have been posted from Turkey since the Twitter ban went into effect, thus setting new records for Twitter use in the country.

Big Pharaoh's "Complete Idiot's Chart to Understanding the Middle East"

Big Pharaoh's a long-time Egyptian blogger (and tweeter), and this pseudonymous wit has come up with the fittingly, deceptively named, and only partly tongue-in-cheek chart that the WaPo ran a few days back.  If you haven't had a chance to look, take a gander:

Even Big Pharaoh himself admits that it's incomplete and he's constantly having to add to it.  I have to say too that there aren't enough red lines directed at Israel, but perhaps hating Israel is taken so for granted that it's not even necessary to note the fact.  Since the "USA" means for all intents and purposes "the Obama Administration," it should really have green lines going in every direction possible, y'think?

Analyzing the Middle East

A letter sent to the Financial Times:

Quote of the Day: Reporting from Istanbul

Here's a heck of an intro:

I’ve always been a critic of armchair reporting. But when your armchair is four blocks away from Taksim Square, it has one of the best views of the uproar in Istanbul any diligent reporter could ask for. I’m now able to calculate with great precision the time between the beginning of the screaming, the sound of the shot, and the entry of the gas through my window. It’s two and twelve seconds respectively.

The Post-WWI Map That Ruined the Middle East?

Cartography matters: thoughts from a PhD candidate in international relations at Georgetown.  The collapse of the Ottoman Empire opened a Pandora's Box.

A Thought on the Turkish Protests

Dance Dance Revolution

In Turkey.

"Erdoğan Over the Edge"

Claire Berlinski is an American journalist living in Istanbul.  Do take a look at her account of the current tumult in Turkey.  A blurb:

"But in truth, these protests weren’t about the park or even about the shopping malls. They were about a people exhausted by Istanbul’s uncontrolled growth; by its relentless traffic; by the incessant noise (especially that of construction); by massive immigration from the countryside; by predatory construction companies—widely and for good reason believed to be in bed with the government—which have, over the past decade, destroyed a great deal of the city’s loveliness and cultural heritage. But most of all, they are about a nation’s fury with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s growing authoritarianism, symbolized by Istanbul’s omnipresent police ... "

The Turkey Shoot of 2012: Day 6

Oh, dear.

Shelling Across the Syrian-Turkish Border

Shots fired both ways across the Syrian-Turkish borders, and tonight Turkey has called for UN action (though what that might be is unclear at the moment).  From the letter delivered to the Security Council by the Turkish envoy Ertugrul Apakan:

"This is an act of aggression by Syria against Turkey. It constitutes a flagrant violation of international law as well as a breach of international peace and security."

Turkey, you'll recall, has been a member of NATO for 60 years.  Anyway ... Good grief, people.  I was hoping that the only bombshells of the day would be the purely verbal ones lobbed in the presidential debate.

Syrian Military Defecting to Turkey

Hmmmm:

Dozens of members of Syria's military defected to Turkey overnight with their families, a Turkish official said Monday, at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries over Syria's downing of a Turkish military plane. 

On a related note, this.

Quote of the Day: On a French Bill

Quote:

"I suppose it'll add some spice to history exams though. Get the wrong answer and you not only fail: you get carted off to jail as well."

Some un-studious undergrads of my acquaintance should be quaking in their books, ha!  The quote refers to a new French bill that, if made law, would criminalize denying that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenians in 1915-6.  (For what it's worth, I think this bill and others like it are a bad idea in principle.)  Anyway, the bill is currently stalled because of questions of constitutionality, and Turkish EU Affairs Minister Egemen Bağış flatly denied the charges of genocide and dared the French to go arrest him. Oh, my. 

Forgotten History: Forbidden Coffee

Did you know that one ruler of 17th century Turkey (Sultan Murad IV) made drinking coffee a capital offense?  Oh, come on.  Coffee is the greatest addiction ever!