While overshadowed by the debate about Russia and Ukraine, what to do about Turkey is as consequential a foreign policy fault line among Republicans today. At its root is how to assess the Middle Eastern country: Is it a partner for peace in the region or a terrorist sponsor that will set it alight?
President Donald Trump, or at least Don Jr., is in the former camp. Both appear partial to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Trump admires Erdoğan’s strongman rule. He also knows Erdoğan as a businessman willing to deal in a transactional way. Trump believes self-interest motivates the Turkish dictator but does not care: Erdoğan has told Trump he can guarantee stability in a troubled region for a price. If Trump sacrifices the alliance with the Syrian Kurds who helped the United States defeat the Islamic State and does not interfere as Turkey seeks to transform the Middle East in its image, Erdoğan promises not only that the region will no longer suck up U.S. resources, but also deliver on Russia-Ukraine peace and even bring Iran to the table for the deal of the century.
Within Washington, think tanks such as the Hudson Institute and Washington Institute for Near East Policy have promoted the benefits of a U.S.-Turkey partnership and speculated about rapprochement between Washington and the Turkish capital of Ankara under Trump 2.0. Three years ago, Michael Doran, for example, lamented, “Why Are So Many Observers Missing Turkey’s Potential as an Israeli (and American) Ally?” as he tried to deconstruct the arguments against a strategic partnership with Turkey.
Could outsourcing regional policy and security benefit U.S. interests? Certainly, Trump and Vice President JD Vance are skeptical about the wisdom of a U.S. military presence in the region and any significant financial involvement. Under such circumstances, a Turkish strategy sounds almost too good to be true. Alas, it is.
First, it is time to put examples of Turkey’s historic partnership with the U.S. to bed. Turkey only joined the Allies in World War II in February 1945 when it became clear Nazi Germany would lose; until that point, Turkey profited by selling raw materials and industrial supplies to the Nazi war machine. When the Cold War erupted, Turkey fought with the U.S. in the Korean War, but that was 75 years ago. Turkey’s partnership against the Soviet Union, which included Turkey permitting the U.S. to station nuclear missiles on its territory, was also important. However, Erdoğan’s Turkey is as different from pre-Erdoğan Turkey as Former Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran was from the Shah’s. That Khomeini sparked a sudden Islamic Revolution while Erdoğan oversaw a slow creeping one matters little when both countries end up in the same place.
Today, Turkey, not Iran, is the chief cheerleader, if not a sponsor, of Hamas. Turkey smuggles weaponry to the Gaza Strip and allows senior Hamas operatives to launder money in Turkish banks and plot terrorism from Turkish soil. It is not just sympathy for the Palestinians but rather Erdoğan’s support for their Islamist fringe. The same holds true with Erdoğan’s material and logistical support for the Islamic State. In Libya and Syria, he has supported the Islamist fringe. Just as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps deployed its proxy groups around the Middle East, so too does Turkey, airlifting Libyan and Syrian Islamists and Islamic State alum to Azerbaijan to participate in the ethnic cleansing of Armenians.
Antisemitism and a deep-seated hatred for the Jewish state also color Erdoğan’s policy. How else to explain the interception of $2.5 million meant to jumpstart Hezbollah’s recovery at Beirut’s international airport late last month? Or the signs on storefronts in Istanbul that say, “No Jews allowed?”
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The Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi once pitched rapprochement, if not partnership, with Iran as a magic bullet to resolve the most intractable problems. It was always nonsense, but it had a consequence: Lifting sanctions helped the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps access hard currency that it could reinvest in terrorism. Today, the Turkish panacea does the same.
It is not possible to be both pro-Turkey and anti-Hamas; they are two sides of the same coin.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential. He is director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.