On Feb. 16, following decades of disruption, Turkey and Iraq restored a rail link running from the northern Iraqi city of Mosul to Gaziantep in southern Turkey, via Syria. The move is a concrete illustration of Turkey's increased efforts to develop commercial ties with Iraq, initiatives that Ankara has in turn used to establish a platform upon which it can deepen its diplomatic role and limit destabilizing spillover effects from its volatile neighbor. The strategy has paid off, as demonstrated by the recent visits to Ankara of a host of Iraqi political players -- including 'Ammar al-Hakim, Humam Hammoudi and Osama al-Tikriti -- in the weeks preceding Iraq's upcoming national parliamentary elections.
In many ways, Turkey's rise as a major diplomatic player on the Iraqi stage serves as a counterpoint to Iran's magnified role, with both pro-actively promoting their interests by attempting to reintegrate Iraq into the region on their own terms. That stands in stark contrast to Iraq's Arab neighbors, who have
utterly failed to seriously prepare for the United States'
impending withdrawal.
Under the activist stewardship of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his "zero problems" regional policy, efforts to expand the reach of Turkish influence in Iraq have only accelerated. While lucrative economically, these initiatives have also enabled Turkey to increase its leverage with Baghdad as well as to better manage its geopolitically sensitive relationship with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
The depth and nature of Turkey's engagement with its neighbor were not pre-ordained. In fact, Turkey's domestic difficulties with its own restive Kurdish minority and its concerns regarding the national aspirations of Iraq's Kurds gave rise to well-founded fears that Turkey's initial post-war policy might include military intervention and direct meddling in Iraq's internal affairs. In July 2003, for instance,
the United States detained 11 Turkish special forces troops based in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah on suspicion of planning an attack against the Kurdish governor of Kirkuk.
While Turkey has engaged in intermittent bombing and limited military activities targeting camps of the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) in northern Iraq since then, Ankara has managed to gain the cooperation of the KRG in that effort, thereby avoiding broader escalation. In essence, Turkey's strategy toward Iraq's Kurds has largely been predicated on a policy of golden handcuffs to temper nationalist inclinations: Annual trade with the region now totals over $5 billion, and the KRG's reliance on Turkey as its primary outlet to the outside world has created a degree of effectively coercive economic dependence.
Turkey's involvement in Iraq mirrors, if on a smaller scale, that of Iran, the natural beneficiary in grand strategic terms of the fall of Saddam Hussein. Iran's magnified role in post-war Iraq is in many ways driven by geography, history, commerce and religious ties, as well as by Tehran's support to many of the Iraqi political organizations while in exile. But Iran's influence is also a reflection of the broader regional environment and the unimaginative, tentative, and self-defeating approach of the Arab world.
To be fair, the Arab world faced a difficult dilemma in Iraq, complicated by bitter recent history and the divisive U.S. invasion. Baghdad's nascent Shiite-led government has been wary of engaging with the broader region, due to still-fresh memories of Arab acquiescence and silence in the face of Saddam Hussein's brutal repression. The descent into sectarian civil war in 2005-2007 particularly fanned tensions with the Sunni Arab world, while the historical legacy of Iraq's crushing debt burden from the Iran-Iraq War complicated Baghdad's relations with the Gulf Arab states and continues to be a source of friction.
Iraq has also mismanaged its diplomatic relations with its regional counterparts. Most conspicuously, on separate occasions Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki hampered international efforts aimed at thawing Iraqi-Saudi relations by lashing out intemperately against the Saudi monarch. Al-Maliki's rhetorical excess also reversed the historic re-establishment of full diplomatic relations with Syria in the aftermath of catastrophic coordinated bombings in Baghdad in August 2009.
For the Arab states, their initial coolness toward Iraq was driven by the overwhelming unpopularity of the U.S. invasion in the region and a fear of being associated with the U.S. project in Iraq. The perception of an overbearing Iranian role in Baghdad further fueled the new "Arab Cold War" that came to dominate regional relations during the administration of President George W. Bush. Further, diplomatic outreach was complicated by the consuming violence: Egypt's first foray to re-establish post-war relations was aborted when its newly appointed ambassador was
kidnapped and murdered in Baghdad in 2005 shortly following his posting. And for Saudi Arabia,
Iraq's vast untapped oil reservesrepresent a potential long-term threat to its closely guarded role in international oil markets.
Yet despite these formidable hurdles, Turkey's example should be instructive. Ankara shifted toward a pragmatic strategy of engagement to frame its bilateral affairs and magnify its influence. While Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and other Arab states have re-established diplomatic relations, their efforts to deepen relations with Iraq have not extended far beyond the bare minimum of diplomatic protocol.
For the United States, the reintegration of Iraq into the Arab world should be a key plank of any post-withdrawal regional strategy seeking to establish the basis for long-term stability and limit the extent of Iran's influence in the region. Certainly, Turkey will be a significant player in this process and may serve as an important and discreet channel for mediation as the United States' role in Iraq shifts to a less obtrusive and more diplomatic one.
But regional reintegration will be lopsided without active Arab participation. While U.S. influence within Iraq has decreased, its ability to prod its Arab allies and its willingness to prioritize Arab outreach to Iraq within its bilateral relations with these countries remains an important tool to secure Iraqi goodwill and shape regional security dynamics. With the impending drawdown of U.S. troops, the Arab states' worst fears regarding an expanding Iranian sphere of influence will only be exacerbated by their own lethargy. Without a perceptible shift in approach, the Arab world will be party to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
**Michael Wahid Hanna is a fellow covering international affairs at the Century Foundation.
