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11. Britain’s Post-Colonial Foreign Policy Towards the Persian Gulf Security (1971-1991): An Alternative Approach

Author:
Esra Cavusoglu
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Abstract:
British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf in 1971, started a new era in the region with new political order and new security map. Iran and Saudi Arabia emerged as the guardians of the status quo to be filling the power vacuum left by the British in behalf of the West. Britain adopted a new post-imperial role in the region along with new post-colonial foreign policy in the post-withdrawal context. British policy towards the regional security is analysed in this article with central focus on the shift emerged in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution in the British policy. After 1979, Iran, no longer a Western ally, has been defined as the major internal threat for the regional security following the major external threat of the Soviet expansion in the British foreign policy. This paper argues that the shift in the British policy came along with a sectarianist approach towards the region. The sectarianization emerged with the securitization of the Gulf based on “Iran threat” within the determinants of the Anglo-American alliance on the regional security. The sectarianist discourse adopted by the British foreign policy was employed as an effective tool of the securitization of the Gulf that was deepened during the regional conflicts, the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Military Strategy, and Sectarianism
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, Europe, Iran, Middle East, and Persian Gulf

12. Framing a Presidential Foreign Policy in a Parliamentary System: Erdoğan and Mukhtars’ Meetings

Author:
Murat Ulgul
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Abstract:
During the period between his election as the Turkish president in August 2014 and the constitutional referendum that introduced a presidential system in Turkey in April 2017, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tried to demonstrate that he would not be a symbolic political figure in Turkish politics as many former Turkish presidents had been. Instead, he would keep shaping the domestic and foreign agenda of the country, as it would happen in a presidential system. One of the main ways he did this was through a series of mukhtars’ meetings, which began in January 2015. From that point, until the desired changes to the constitution were approved through public referendum, Erdoğan held thirty-seven mukhtars’ meetings. In these meetings he gave speeches about Turkish domestic and foreign policy directly to a group of mukhtars but, more importantly, indirectly to the Turkish public and foreign actors. This article will analyze Erdoğan’s foreign policy messages through his discourse in the mukhtars’ meetings and try to answer two controversial questions regarding his foreign policy ideology: Whether he is an Islamist and whether he is shifting the foreign policy axis of Turkey.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Military Strategy, Leadership, and Ideology
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Asia

13. Critique of ISIS’ Women Policy

Author:
Zehra Yilmaz
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Abstract:
This article addresses the policy employed by ISIS with respect to women. ISIS differs from other extremist organisations in terms of its impact on women and specifically, the number of female militants it has recruited from the West. Such high numbers of women joining ISIS is striking when considered in the face of the fact that ISIS is well known to be involved in rather oppressive and barbaric practices in territories under its control. Therefore, the article examined the rea- sons that trigger women to join ISIS and the promises of ISIS for women. The present review builds the policy employed by ISIS with respect to women upon the meanings attributed to women in the founding process of a state and the man- ner in which women experience this process. Focused on the policy employed by ISIS with respect to women, the article carries on the claim of extending beyond a cultural discourse inflicted with orientalist prejudices by addressing the matter from the perspective of the state and its gender perspective in contrary to research studies approaching ISIS and women from a theological standpoint.
Topic:
Religion, Terrorism, Women, ISIS, and Feminism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

14. Yemen’s Question: From the Struggle for Freedom to the Struggle for Survival

Author:
Ahmed A. Al Zandani
Publication Date:
04-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Abstract:
When Yemenis demonstrated almost 5 years ago, shouting “The People Want the Fall of the Regime,” they did not know how complex the situation is, and how regional and international powers will determine their future. As one of the objectives of the revolution, Yemenis deemed that by removing President Salih from power, the revolution would guarantee their freedom. But the politics of the Arab World and the Middle East proved otherwise. Since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire almost a century ago, the Arab World has been subjected to the hegemony of the great powers. Thus, the real obstacle for democratic transition within the Middle Eastern countries comes from outside rather than domestic threats. The objective of this study is to demonstrate that revolutionary leader’s reliance on foreign powers to change the political system and to achieve the revolutionary objectives was counterproductive in which constituted a huge obstacle in achieving those objectives, paving the way to civil war in Yemen, turning the struggle for freedom to struggle for survival.

15. Foreign Policy as Domestic Power Struggle: The Northern Iraq as a Battlefield Between the AKP and the TAF in 2007-8

Author:
Ali Balci
Publication Date:
08-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Abstract:
The issue of rapprochement with Kurdish parties in the Northern Iraq turned a discursive battlefield between Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) and the ruling Justice Development Party (AKP) after the 2005 General Elections in Iraq from which Kurdish groups emerged as a strong political actor in Iraqi politics. When the AKP government declared its policy of rapprochement with the Kurdish regional government at the beginning of 2007, the then Chief of General Staff Yaşar Büyükanıt publicly criticized and rejected this new policy. Büyükanıt declined to talk with Kurdish leaders on the grounds that they were supporting for the PKK. This exchange of statements was the part of a political snowball rolling to which other areas of the struggle were included. The rift between the AKP government and the TAF over how to deal with Iraqi Kurds started just as Turkey gears up for key presidential elections. This paper will attempt to analyze the battle over the Northern Iraq between the TAF and the AKP in order to answer the following questions: How the TAF and the AKP came face to face on the issue of the Northern Iraq? Under what conditions the Northern Iraq turned a discursive battlefield between the TAF and the AKP? What was the function of the Northern Iraq in the domestic power struggle between the TAF and the AKP?

16. Making Drones Illegal Based on a Wrong Example: The U.S. Dronified Warfare

Author:
Gloria Shkurti
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Abstract:
A concoction between the technology, entertainment and military has resulted in a ‘new’ kind of warfare, which has started to determine the American counterterrorism strategy, the dronified warfare. The U.S. for a long time now has been the leader in the production and usage of armed drones and has attracted a lot of criticism regarding the way how it conducts the drone strikes, which in many cases has resulted in civilians killed. The U.S. dronified warfare has become the main determinant when discussing the legality, morality and effectiveness of the drone as the weapon, as many critics fail in distinguishing drone as a weapon and dronified warfare as a process. This paper argues that if analyzed separately from the U.S. example, drone is a legal and moral weapon. Nevertheless, the paper emphasizes the fact that the U.S. must change its current way of conducting the strikes by being aware of the fact that the irresponsible way it is acting in the Middle East and regions around, sooner or later will backfire
Topic:
Science and Technology, Military Strategy, Counter-terrorism, and Drones
Political Geography:
United States and North America

17. Policy Change for the Displaced Kurds in Turkey: Europeanization and Conditionality

Author:
Onder Canveren
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Abstract:
International and regional organizations can act as persuasive actors with re- gard to minority rights in a given country by raising awareness, putting the issue on agenda, and endorsing a new platform in a country which may lead to a policy change. Despite the general observation that Turkey’s Europeanizati- on process has had limited impact on the minority issues in Turkey, there are numerous examples that the European Union (EU) has played a constructive role in improving of rights and fundamental freedoms for the Kurdish populace living in Turkey. The Law on Compensation for Damage Arising from Terror passed in 2004 is a case worth addressing in order to ascertain both the symbo- lic and discursive policy change. The aim of this article is to explain how the EU used democratic tools to promote change in Turkey’s political structure for the displaced Kurds. The Europeanization of Turkey, based on specific con- ditionality, is taken as primarily responsible for granted for the shift and the policy change. In this policy-oriented case study, hypotheses from Rationalist and Constructivist Approaches in Europeanization literature are investigated to explain the causes and constitutive relations of the policy shift from repudiate to compensation.
Topic:
Migration, Regional Cooperation, Minorities, and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Asia

18. Assessment of Israel’s Position in the 1991 Gulf War

Author:
Furkan Halit Yolcu
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Institution:
Turkish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
Abstract:
The Persian Gulf War was one of the defining incidents that shaped the current situation of the Middle East. There has been a vast amount of studies about this conflict but on a specific case why Israel stayed out of the conflict even though she was attacked continues to be an intriguing question for researchers. Saddam’s decision on invading Kuwait and the war following this is going to be summarized in order to present the structure when this incident took place and also to build an environment in which Israel’s decision on refraining itself from the war is going to be analyzed. Israel is perceived as one of the most agg- ressive countries in the Middle East mostly because of the wars that it included so far and the grand projects that it wants to put in practice in the future. With these assumptions it is rather hard to understand Israel’s passive behaviour during the Persian Gulf War and possible reasons of this is going to be main focus of this study to understand the motivations behind such policy. Israel’s state in that period and its capacity will be analyzed in order to understand whether this decision was taken directly and solely by Israel or it was a result of long-going dependency to another country or any other possible situation. Possible reasons that resulted with Israel’s passive attitude will be under the scope to explain whether what Israel did was rather rational or not. In addition to that, the advantages that Israel enjoyed and disadvantages that it faced will be shown at the last part of the study.
Topic:
Military Strategy, Military Affairs, Conflict, and Gulf War
Political Geography:
United States, Iraq, Middle East, Israel, and North America