Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2000, Pages 14-15, 81

Two Views

Consequences of the Israel–Turkey Alliance

The Israel–Iran Alliance Failed: Can Israel and Turkey Fare Any Better?

By Andrew I. Killgore

The secret Israel-Iran alliance from 1972 to 1979 disintegrated when Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was forced to flee his country following a year-long political cataclysm. Israel had sought the clandestine alliance with populous, non-Arab, Muslim Iran to make up for its own isolated population of only 4 million resident Jews surrounded then by 200 million Arabs deeply resentful of Israel’s seizure and occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, the Golan Heights and Sinai during the 1967 Arab-Israel war.

The ambitious shah was happy to align himself with Israel because he believed it was a significant step toward realizing his anachronistic dream of reconstituting the great Persian empires of old. Using Israel’s political clout in Washington, augmented by the U.S. arms lobby, the shah was able to buy grossly excessive amounts of American military equipment to support his new status of American surrogate in the Persian Gulf.

While cheerfully recycling Iranian petro-dollars, the United States, silent partner in the Israel-Iran alliance, also incurred serious foreign policy disadvantages. American actions aroused Arab suspicions about what the U.S. was up to, given ancient mutual antipathies between Arabs and Persians, and the fear of further Israeli expansion.

Moreover, American diplomats increasingly doubted the shah’s good judgment and grip on reality. Israel may have gained some psychological security from the link to Iran. But no real military support was possible from an Iranian military system in which even an Iranian major who wanted to travel from one Iranian city to another could not do so without the shah’s written permission.

In the United States, however, politicians could obtain media and financial support for their personal political campaigns by permitting Israel’s potent Washington lobby to continue to set the U.S. Middle East policy agenda, even while that agenda clearly undermined long-term American national interests in the Middle East and elsewhere.

By encouraging the shah to overreach himself, spending his formerly impoverished country’s new-found petroleum revenues on arms when instead it so desperately needed the educational infrastructure to effect social and economic reform and modernization, Israel and a compliant U.S. ensured his downfall.

Today no U.S. politicians understand that Iran might have evolved peacefully into a progressive and prosperous nation and the Persian Gulf wars of aggression of the past 20 years might have been completely avoided if a politically naïve Iranian monarch had not been “used” to bolster Israel and its American patron/puppet.

For Israel, however, the 20 years of chaos in the Persian Gulf that followed the collapse of the Iran-Israel alliance has not been a total loss. It has distracted the world from enforcing U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, mandating Israeli withdrawal from lands seized in the 1967 war in return for Arab recognition of Israel’s “right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.” Now, as the time approaches to comply with that 33-year-old land-for-peace resolution, which is mandatory, not voluntary, the Israelis have found another way to delay, and perhaps avoid altogether, the withdrawal from Palestinian lands, and either do the same in the case of Syria’s Golan Heights, or extract a very steep financial price from the U.S. for doing what Israel has to do anyway.

The current U.S.-sanctioned Israel-Turkey alliance is a new means toward avoiding the U.N.’s “land-for-peace” settlement, although if the Israelis would simply comply they could, by almost universal agreement, gain legitimacy as a Middle East state and eventual acceptance by their regional neighbors. Ironically, it is the very success of Israel’s Washington lobby that prevents what could turn out to be Israel’s last chance for peaceful integration into a region where the growing demographic disparity between Arabs and Jews (275.9 million Arabs to 6.1 million Israelis in mid-1999) makes such integration increasingly unlikely.

The U.S. also takes on problems for itself by promoting the Israeli-Turkish tie. Among countries that don’t like it are Greece, Armenia, Cyprus, Iran, Russia and even Kazakhstan. And, of course, the Arabs don’t like the resulting encirclement of Syria.

Inside Turkey, the ruling secular military elite is happy because the alliance brings the Israel lobby’s talents to bear on the problem of ensuring continued U.S. grants of sophisticated military equipment to Turkey. But much of the rest of the Turkish population is not so happy. Are the arms to be used to counter external threats, and if so, from whom? Or will they be used to impose Kemalism, Turkish secularism, on unwilling Turkish Islamists and Turkey’s many ethnic and sectarian minorities?

How the serious political strains in Turkey between the military/secular elite and much of the rest of the population will be affected by the Israel-Turkey alliance, and the vast inflow of arms it will bring, remains to be seen.

As in the case of Iran, if Turkey’s rulers substitute arms for overdue democratic reforms, civil disturbances or even civil war could follow. Are U.S. policymakers aware of the dangers they are courting for Israel’s sake? Do U.S. policymakers have plans for dealing with such unintended consequences?

Israel’s marginal gains from the alliance, which may result in further postponing a lasting settlement with its Arab neighbors, are not worth the risk of throwing the Middle East into a new round of turmoil, this time based upon thwarting democratic evolution in Turkey. No matter how many new external crises Turkey’s military rulers incite with Syria, Cyprus, Greece or Iran, the Turkish people will soon realize, if they don’t already, that their country, too, gains nothing from the alliance except inevitable future trouble.

Perhaps, as history begins to repeat itself with another doomed Israeli alliance, American public opinion will finally come to grips with the fact that the sure losers from all such doomed made-in-Israel and paid-for-in-Washington Middle East alliances are the United States and its people.

Andrew I. Killgore is the publisher of the Washington Report.

Who Encircles Whom? Israeli–Turkish Flanking of Syria Warms Relations Between Greece and Iran

By John P. Nordin

On June 28, 1999, the Greek defense minister visited Tehran. While he was there he claimed, and his hosts confirmed, that a defense agreement was going to be finalized between the two countries.¹ Immediately there was a curious reaction from the U.S. State Department. The spokesperson denied such a pact existed, and cited as his source the U.S. Embassy in Greece. However, official Greek sources never confirmed this denial.²

At first glance an alliance of Greece and Iran seems like an odd coupling that is without connection to larger strategic issues. On second thought, however, it makes sense, and so does the U.S. government’s wish that it would go away.

Greece and the Middle East

The meeting in Tehran was neither the beginning nor the end of Greek engagement with Iran. Two weeks later on July 12, the deputy foreign ministers of Greece and Iran met in Athens with their counterpart from Armenia for one in a series of annual meetings. In early September, the three foreign ministers met in Athens to sign agreements on a number of economic topics including, perhaps, Greek participation in an Armenian-Iran pipeline.³

Now that would make sense. Armenia and Turkey are certainly not allies. Since Armenia is supported by Russia, that brings the Russians into the equation. And Russia, remember, was going to provide missiles to Cyprus—missiles over which the Turks threatened to go to war.

So it could appear that the Greek outreach to Iran is motivated primarily by an aggressive desire to encircle Turkey. However, that conclusion omits too much of the context. Greek foreign policy is often driven by a search for allies to protect itself against its much larger Turkish neighbor.

Greeks have long hoped that its—and Turkey’s—membership in Western European institutions would do that, bringing publicity to bear on the Cyprus issue and also on what Greece views as Turkish claims against its territory. This hope has generally not been realized, leading to tension in Greece.

Then came Kosovo. In the West, Greek support for the Serbs is usually portrayed as little more than a semi-rational identification with their Christian Orthodox co-religionists. This is of a piece with Western views of Greek relations to the Middle East, which still assume the context of the socialist government of Andreas Papandreaou in the ’80s, when extreme Greek rhetoric and casualness about terrorism and security were upsetting Europe and the U.S.⁴

Those policies have long since been abandoned, and this view trivializes Greek concern with NATO. Memories of U.S. manipulation of Greek politics leads to Greeks being edgy about an extensive intervention into the Balkans by a U.S.-led NATO.

Greeks are upset that years of Turkish ethnic cleansing of its Kurdish population has produced little reaction from Europe or the U.S., even though the casualties may have been 10 times the number of victims of the atrocities that NATO used to justify intervention in Kosovo.⁵ Nor did it help that NATO bombed a Greek column bringing relief supplies to refugees.⁶ Opposition in Greece was extensive and angry, leading in one comic incident to a rearrangement of road signs in Thessaloniki, causing a NATO convoy to beach itself in the local vegetable market.⁷

Prime Minister Costas Simitis conducted a careful balancing act, avoiding active Greek participation in the NATO war that would have jeopardized his government, yet keeping the United States content with the level of cooperation it was receiving. Perhaps a more aggressive outreach to the Middle East only seems a prudent expansion of Greek options.

Iran’s Perspective

In welcoming Greek diplomacy, Iran was not acting merely out of hospitality, nor out of mutual admiration of their ancient cultures (a theme of much diplomatic banter when Greek President Constantinos Stephanopoulos visited Tehran last October). Again, Turkey is a key factor.

Turkey is regularly described as crucial because it is the “only Western Muslim democracy,” providing a bridge between the West and the Islamic world. This, however, ignores the reality that Turkey’s relations with the Muslim world are difficult.

Turkey is officially secular and its military has limited Islamic political influence. In fact, the Iranian press regularly expresses concern about the suppression of Islamic expression in Turkey, where even wearing a woman’s headscarf in a school or government office can be controversial. Thus Iran is attracted politically to countries that are not enamored of Turkey.

Other Iranian concerns are dictated by its interests in Syria, with which there is growing cooperation. By contrast, Turkey and Syria have nearly gone to war over the Kurds, and Turkey’s plans to build dams on the Euphrates and restrict the flow of river water to Syria.

Economics also is a factor. Greece’s imports from Iran are almost entirely oil. President Stephanopolous brought a delegation of business people with him to Iran, signaling a desire for expanded business connections⁸—welcome to Iranian officials given the economic struggles the country is undergoing.

Encircling Syria

However important these issues, the key factor in Greek-Iranian relations is the defense agreement signed by Turkey and Israel in 1996. Contents of this pact have been only partially revealed. The public provisions include access to port facilities, exchange of military personnel and information, and allowing the Israeli air force to train in Turkey’s large airspace.

The common U. S. weapons systems of the two countries have also led to contracts for upgrades and training between the two countries.⁹ Additionally, Turkey has benefited from enlisting Israel’s politically potent U.S. lobby to advocate its interests in Washington.¹⁰

The existence of this level of military cooperation contributes, on the one hand, to Middle Eastern countries looking to connect with countries less sympathetic to Turkey (i.e., Greece) and, on the other, to Greece looking to Arab countries and Iran for support against Turkey.

A direct target of the Israeli–Turkish axis is Syria, as the defense agreement gives Israel a way of flanking, if not encircling its Syrian neighbor. The treaty apparently also created joint Turkish-Israeli listening posts on Turkey’s borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran that send intelligence directly to the Israeli armed forces.¹¹

The military agreement increases Israeli power in dealing with Syrian proxies in south Lebanon, and in negotiating with Syria for return of the Golan Heights. Israel might not be willing to risk the international consequences of an aggressive war on Syria, but Turkey, covertly aided by Israel, could likely do so (it nearly did last year) with fewer consequences.

Circling Back

However, all these nations are, from time to time, playing one country off against another. Immediately after the Greek president’s successful trip to Iran, Iran turned around and had a positive exchange of ideas with Turkish officials on a variety of economic topics.

Equally quickly after Greece’s alleged efforts to encircle Turkey, Greece and Turkey launched the most wide-ranging talks they have had in years. This is popularly considered to be the spontaneous result of human sympathy in the wake of the earthquakes. However much that added impetus to the effort, the new Greek foreign minister had laid the groundwork for this development before the disasters occurred, a development to which his Turkish opposite number was receptive.

Thus, it would not be the least bit surprising if Greece’s overtures to Iran were aimed in part at provoking some concession from NATO. Likewise, Iranian overtures to Greece may be designed to increase U.S. motivation to court Iran.

Thus U.S. reluctance to acknowledge warming relations between Greece and Iran springs both from a State Department choice to ignore another crack in its crumbling containment policy, and not to call attention to the consequences of the military cooperation agreement between Israel and Turkey.

Dr. John P. Nordin is a free-lance writer living in the Denver area.

Footnotes

¹Stratfor, “Greece Announces Pending Defense Pact with Iran and Armenia,” July 1, 1999. www.stratfor.com

²Stratfor, “Greece Assures U.S.—No Military Accord with Iran,” July 3, 1999. “Greece, Iran discuss defense sector cooperation,” Embassy of Greece (in the U. S.) Press Office, June 29, 1999.

³“Greece, Armenia and Iran sign cooperation memorandum,” Embassy of Greece (in the U. S.) Press Office, Sept. 9, 1999.

⁴Spiros Kaminaris, “Greece and the Middle East,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 3:2, June 1999.

⁵Jennifer Washburn, “Turkey and Israel Lock Arms,” The Progressive Magazine, December 1998.

⁶Athens News Agency, “Greek humanitarian convoy in Kosovo bombed,” May 6, 1999.

⁷Associated Press, “Turn left at the tomatoes,” April 29, 1999.

⁸“Stephanopoulos arrives in Tehran,” Kathimerini English Edition, Oct. 13, 1999.

⁹Alain Gresh, “Turkish-Israeli-Syrian Relations and their Impact on the Middle East,” The Middle East Journal, into the Balkans vol.52:2, Spring 1998. Alan Makovksy, “Turkish/Israeli Cooperation, the Peace Process, and the Region,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Watch No. 195, April 26, 1996. Middle East Realities, “New U.S./Turkey/Israel Alliance Circumvents and Bottles up the Arabs,” July 1998.

¹⁰Robert Fisk, “Jerusalem Draws in the Turks to Spy on Arab Forces,” The Independent, Feb. 24, 1999. Washburn, op. cit.

¹¹Gresh, op. cit. Fisk, op. cit. Michael Eisenstadt, “Turkish-Israeli Military Cooperation: An Assessment,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Policy Watch No. 262, July 24, 1997.