Erdoğan is, perhaps, one of the most controversial topics in Turkey, Europe, and some parts of the Middle East. For those who are unfamiliar, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the current Prime Minister of the Turkish Republic and soon he will be celebrating his unrivaled 10th year in power. He has a host of accomplishments and here is a brief list: He won 3 consecutive elections in Turkey, all with record breaking voter support. He also has a lot of international support. He has been quite influential in the region and his quasi-zealous religious background, anti-Israel rhetoric, as well as, pro-Hamas stance provide him with a fan club among much of the Muslim population in the Middle East. He does not hesitate to answer any European leaders arrogant talk, usually in the same tone—providing him with great support among the populous who feel a certain sense of pride in their leaders talking back to the West. He revitalized the Turkish economy and made it one of the fastest growing economies in 2011.
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Welcome to Issue Six of Unrest Magazine.
In our brief existence as a publication, we’ve been amazed to witness how quickly the world can change. From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street there is a renewed interest in mass movements and large scale social protest. Marx and Marcuse are back on reading lists and course syllabi. Liberal frameworks of intervention, democratization, and post-conflict peacebuilding are increasingly coming under scrutiny for their failure to address the contradictions inherent under global capitalism. Afghanistan and Iraq remain tragically mired in violence as a result. It is of little wonder that we find ourselves at this present juncture again confronted with the challenge of addressing what C. Wright Mills (1959) described in the Sociological Imagination as the intersection of biography and history, the collision of our private lives with social forces that appear beyond our control.
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This month a new flotilla is scheduled to set sail to Gaza. As will be recalled, in May 2010 a violent confrontation at sea between Israeli naval forces and pro-Palestinian activists led to the death of nine people and many more injured; before a Turkish vessel aiming at breaking the Israeli blockade of Gaza was escorted to a port. As a consequence, relations between Israel and Turkey dramatically soured and Israelis standing in the international community further eroded. Judging by the rhetoric of the parties involved today another collision seems imminent, with more flotillas forthcoming in the future.
As scholars of conflict resolution, we believe that such situations call for constructive adaptation on the part of those involved. To that end we propose the IDF take initiative and create the first ever Conflict Resolution Commando unit.
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The recent agreement between Iran, Turkey, and Brazil is another challenge to the United States’ already fragile foreign policy ego.[i] The agreement mediated by President Lula of Brazil attempts to resolve the tension between Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the United States determination to curb them, using a regional partner, Turkey, to propose an alternative solution to additional UN mandated sanctions. Mr. Lula’s efforts at non-coercive diplomacy received a lukewarm response from the United States as a successful agreement jeopardizes the effectiveness of the sanctions Senator Clinton hopes to push through the UN Security Council.[ii] Senator Clinton indicated that Iran’s willingness to compromise should be considered superficial at best.[iii] The attempt to find non-coercive means for dealing with international conflict threatens what little international capital the U.S. possesses as a result of its faltering military missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the United States forges ahead with its plan to impose sanctions (needing the support of China and Russia), non-great power actors like Brazil are challenging the dominant frame of power politics. President Obama, much like his predecessor President Bush, seems incapable of recognizing that the U.S. no longer has the power to deter countries from pursuing and developing nuclear technology. Nor does Mr. Obama seem willing to think beyond the stale realism and coercive diplomacy of the Reagan years. The question is not whether the U.S. should keep pursuing its current strategies abroad, of which Iranian case is but one example. Instead, the United States needs to recognize its declining influence in the global arena and adjust to these challenges without the use of lethal and often, ineffective coercive means.
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