PRINCETON – As the world watches the obliteration of
the Syrian city of Homs and the
crisis spills into neighboring Lebanon,
it is time to ask what separates great powers from small powers. Turkey’s
international star has risen steadily over the past few years, with Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan being lionized in many Middle Eastern and North
African countries, and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu traveling the world as
the representative of an increasingly influential power. Indeed, Turkey
and Indonesia
have joined the BRICs (Brazil,
Russia, India,
and China) on
the list of the most important rising global players.Now, in Syria’s carnage, Turkey is facing a critical test of its regional and global aspirations. It is time for its leaders to stop talking and start acting.
Davutoğlu first raised the idea of establishing a buffer zone for the Syrian
opposition on the Syrian-Turkish border three months ago, when the Syrian death
toll was roughly half of what it is now. By mid-November, Erdoğan was the second regional leader (after Jordan’s
King Abdullah) openly to call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step
down. At the end of November, Davutoğlu again confirmed that the Turkish
government was mooting various relief plans, including the possibility of a
buffer zone.Yet the only real action since then has come not from Turkey, but from the Arab League, which sent in monitors and formulated a plan for a political transition in Syria. After Russia and China vetoed that plan at the United Nations, and with Syrian forces around Homs (and Zabadani) giving every indication that they intend to flatten everything in their path, Davutoğlu proposed holding a conference “as soon as possible” to “promote international understanding with all countries concerned.”
A conference? Turkey is essentially proposing more talk, again delaying doing something that would make a difference on the ground.
Killing is never to be undertaken lightly. The Turks have many reasons to worry about the consequences of sending their soldiers into Syria, even for the most demonstrable humanitarian purposes. Turkey and Syria still have border disputes; for many Syrians, scenes of Turkish troops crossing the border, even behind lines of Syrian opposition fighters, would rally nationalist pride and strengthen Assad’s narrative of foreign-inspired terrorism and insurgency.
Yet Turkey is in the best position by far to demonstrate to Assad that the international community is serious about stopping the killing. Working closely with local coordinating committees, it should provide logistical, intelligence, weapons, training, communications, and even air support to help the Free Syrian Army establish no-kill zones along Syria’s northwest border.
In particular, Turkey could help the FSA to cut the Syrian army’s lines of communication, and deny government forces access to entire areas through the coordinated use of early-warning intelligence and anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. The FSA might then be able to isolate local Syrian army commanders and try to negotiate truces and defections, ultimately building a defensible chain of population centers. If that strategy fails, Turkey and Arab League states would have to contemplate sending in ground troops, with extensive logistical and intelligence support from NATO.
Turkey is currently on the spot, but the larger lesson applies far beyond Syria and, indeed, the Middle East. Power stems not just from size, strategic location, a strong economy, able diplomacy, and military capacity. It also requires the will to act – the understanding that true leadership means the courage to take and implement even decisions that are deeply unpopular in some quarters.
The United States has sometimes been too ready to turn to force. The invasion of Iraq, without compelling evidence of weapons of mass destruction, international legitimacy, or sufficient preparation for the responsibilities that would follow, is a stark reminder of the human and material cost of plunging into war.
On the other hand, President Bill Clinton’s decisive action with regard to
Kosovo in 1999 saved a country, just as NATO’s intervention in Bosnia
four years earlier brought the parties to the table and stopped the killing.
Similarly, Britain’s
willingness to place troops off the shore
of Sierra Leone in 1999 helped to
end a horrific conflict within weeks, and France’s
intervention in Côte D’Ivoire
last spring, under a UN mandate, stopped a post-election civil war that was
rapidly spinning out of control. |
| Atrocity in Dili, September 1999: the decapitated body of a young Timorese male is dragged behind a motorcycle by an Indonesian policeman and his accomplice |
Syria is a far more dangerous assignment than Haiti, to be sure, but if, say, the government of Paraguay or Uruguay were brutalizing its citizens on a mass scale, the world would rightly look to Brazil to lead a response. In Africa, Nigerian troops have often played a critical role under the mandate of either the African Union or the Economic Community of West African States.
States that are eager to enjoy the trappings of great-power status – the deference accorded their diplomats, high-level global parlays abroad and important diplomatic conferences at home, and the assumption that they must be consulted on major events or crises in their regions – must accept the burdens that go with it. They must be prepared not just to talk, but to act.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former director of policy planning
in the US
State Department (2009-2011), is Professor of Politics and International
Affairs at Princeton
University.