Rethinking Turkey-Iraq Relations

The Dilemma of Partial Cooperation

Mehmet Akıf Kumral

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781137561237
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137551931
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Asiatische Geschichte

This book explores key historical episodes to understand the reasons and consequences of the enduring partiality problem in cooperation between Turkey and Iraq. Notwithstanding their mutual material interdependence and common cultural heritage, these two close neighbors have stayed far from achieving comprehensive cooperation. The author examines contextual-discursive dynamics shaping Turkey-Iraq partial cooperation around critical events, such as the Saadabad-Baghdad pacts, the Gulf War, the US Invasion, and the war against ISIS. Leading pro-government Turkish daily newspapers of the period are analyzed to highlight ambivalent ontological-rhetorical modes and ambiguous political narratives-frames that perpetuate paradoxes of partiality in Ankara's rationalization and contextualization of cooperation with Baghdad and Erbil.

© The Author(s) 2016

Mehmet Akıf KumralRethinking Turkey-Iraq RelationsMiddle East Today10.1057/978-1-137-55193-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Theoretical and Empirical Outline

Mehmet Akif Kumral^{1, 2}

(1)

Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

(2)

Gaziosmanpaşa University, Tokat, Turkey

Keywords

Contextual reasons and consequencesDiscursive reasoningsOntological modes and rhetorical modelsPartial cooperationPolitical narratives and framesTurkey–Iraq relations

End Abstract

This book is a monograph aiming to analyze theoretical and historical implications of Turkey–Iraq relations. By looking at the critical turning points of almost a century-long relationship, it seeks to understand reasons and consequences of puzzling swings between cooperation and non-cooperation shaping the history of this particular dyad. Based on systematic, long-term, and comparative analysis of contextual and discursive data, the author finds out that Turkey has faced perennial political paradoxes persisting in episodes of both cooperation and non-cooperation. To a great extent, contextual challenges have thwarted Turkish governments’ ambitions from developing more cooperative relations with their Iraqi counterparts. Turkish foreign policy elite caught up in discursive dilemmas in their making of relations with Iraq. Concisely put, Turkish officials oscillated in between realistic (material) and idealistic (ideational) conceptions of cooperation. Hence, Turkey’s discourse of cooperation with Iraq remained partial. As witnessed by experienced observers, like Henry Barkey (2012), puzzles of partial cooperation have begun to reshape Turkish–Iraqi relations in recent years. In the near future, the partial cooperation dilemma would deepen since Ankara has to straddle in between Baghdad and Erbil in order to articulate more comprehensive foreign policy discourse toward Iraq.

In fact, William Hale (2007) and Åsa Lundgren (2007) emphasized the significance of “political paradoxes” and “policy dilemmas” impeding Turkish governments’ efforts to forge better relations with Iraq. Canonical textbooks have also improved our understanding of global and regional contextual conditions within which Turkey–Iraq relations have evolved. Table 1.1 offers a general comparison of some major books covering theoretical and historical dimensions of Turkey–Iraq relations. The reader could realize that available studies have not offered a comprehensive framework to understand long-term contextual–discursive dynamics that shaped the Turkey–Iraq dyadic relationship through cycles of cooperation and non-cooperation. An English book on this topic has been an academic need. This work has been envisioned to meet that demand.

Table 1.1

General comparison of some major books covering theoretical–historical dimensions of Turkey–Iraq relations

Scholar	Primary Theoretical Perspective	Temporal Focus	Significant Case Studies	Turkey’s Foreign Policy Position	Main Contribution for Empirical Analysis of Turkey–Iraq Relations
Brown (1984)	Realism	1774–1980	Baghdad Pact	Roughly included	Historical analysis of global–regional dynamics
Walt (1987)	Neo-realism	1955–85		Not included
Hinnebusch (2003)	Structuralism	1800–2000	Baghdad Pact-Gulf War	Roughly included
Barnett (1998)	Constructivism	1920–95		Not included
Hansen (2000)	Neo-realism	1989–98	Gulf War	Included
Hale (2007)	Neo-realism	1991–20051991–2005	Gulf War-US InvasionGulf War-US Invasion	ExaminedExamined	Historical-comparative analysis of global–dyadic dynamics
Lundgren (2007)	Constructivism				Historical-discursive analysis of dyadic–local dynamics

By inquiring contextual–discursive aspects of the partiality paradox in Turkey–Iraq bilateral cooperation, the author provides a scholarly contribution to the extant literature. All in all, this book demonstrates the significance of episodic, cross-episodic, and overarching analyses to resolve persisting puzzles of partial cooperation in Turkey–Iraq bilateral relations. In order to denaturalize partial cooperation, the author uses an integrated taxonomy. The conceptual framework is built by drawing insights from the findings in various research areas, most prominently International Relations (IR), Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), Middle East Studies (MES), Turkish Foreign Policy (TFP), narrative theory, discourse analysis, and rhetorical criticism. The research design is particularly adapted from “critical-constructivist” approaches (Weldes 1998; Hopf 1998; Ruggie 1998), “narrative” explorations (Brand 2014; Browning 2008; Suganami 2008; Smith 2005; Hopf 2002; Fisher 1994) and “historical-critical” discourse analyses (Fairclough and Fairclough 2012; Weiss and Wodak 2003; Yeğen 1999).

Evolutionary game-theoretic models (Stark 2010) could not help to comprehend historical and theoretical implications of partial cooperation predicament. Both statics of theory and dynamics of history (Hammer 2008) inform much deeper understanding of partial cooperation. This book aims to critically analyze partial nature of Turkey–Iraq cooperation in the long term. For this purpose, it offers an alternative reading of cooperation between two neighbors. In fact, Ankara has long strived for establishing full-fledged cooperation with Baghdad. This long-held goal has yet to be achieved by Turkish foreign policy makers. The reasons and consequences of this enduring policy predicament need more systematic analysis of both contexts and discourses within which cooperation became (im)possible. Conditions of (im)possibility for Turkey’s bilateral cooperation with Iraq have emerged out of mutually constitutive interaction between Turkey’s making of contextual reasons and its discursive reasonings. Therefore, the author conceives (non)cooperation as discourse in context. In line with this conception, the book develops a research design that is generalizable and replicable.

The research plan is in line with pragmatist philosophy of IR (Jackson 2009; Friedrichs and Kratochwil 2009). In a pragmatist spirit, the author attempts to incorporate two meta-theoretical positions: Bourdieu’s meta-theory of practice (1990, 1998, 2003) and Habermasian meta-theory of communicative action (1984, 1989, 1998). With this integrated meta-theoretical perspective, cooperation is conceived as historically based and theoretically driven communicative practice. By taking a communicative practice perspective, this book focuses on experiential dimension of Turkey’s cooperation with Iraq.

Eclectic analyticism (Cornut 2015; Jackson 2011; Sil and Katzenstein 2010) provides valid epistemological basis to integrate macro- and micro-level conceptualizations. Combinations of macro–micro conceptual categories serve for practical purposes. By developing combined conceptual taxonomy, this study makes an important contribution to discourse-oriented research. The innovative conceptual framework offered by the book addresses practical needs of discourse scholars particularly working in areas of international relations and foreign policy (Holzscheiter 2014).

Research Design: Combining Macro–Micro Levels of Analyses

The aim of this research is to critically analyze reasons and consequences of partial cooperation in Turkey–Iraq relations. In fact, there are solid substantial reasons that entail full, rather than partial, cooperation in this dyad. It is widely accepted that Turkey has always been interconnected to Iraq in many respects. Material (border trade, oil–water exchange) and non-material (socio-cultural interaction) factors establish strong ties between the two countries. Given this interconnectedness, one expects the prevalence and continuity of cooperation in Turkish–Iraqi relations (Gözen 2009: 212). Turkish foreign policy makers continue to envision “maximum cooperation” with Iraq (Yeşiltaş and Balcı 2013: 20). In contra to commonsensical expectations, the cooperation between Ankara and Baghdad still remains partial at best. Understanding this partiality demands a much deeper analysis.

The political cooperation, if defined as “policy coordination” (Milner 1992: 467), between the Government of Turkey (GoT) and the Central Iraqi Government (CIG) still remains weak. This might incur some damage on domestic and regional policies of the Turkish government. To a certain extent, the fate of the so-called solution process of the domestic Kurdish question in Turkey is dependent on the disarming of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partia Karkaren Kurdistan—PKK) militants located in northern Iraq. Without the collaboration of CIG and Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), this would be a highly challenging political–military task for GoT. Ankara also needs to sustain an efficient political–military strategy against the terrorist threat posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also known as ISIL or the Islamic State, IS). In the foreseeable future, these two trans-boundary terrorist organizations (PKK and ISIS) would continue to exploit the regional power vacuum and hold operations around trilateral (Turkey–Iraq–Syria) border areas. Given these likely prospects, Ankara would possibly need to coordinate its policies with both Baghdad and Erbil.

Nonetheless, Turkey–Iraq relations have failed to reach ambitious goals of cooperation put forward in the “joint political declaration” of 2008 (Dışişleri Bakanlığı 2008). In recent years, it seemed that Turkey–Iraq “High-Level Cooperation Council” began to lose its raison d’être. Could Turkey cease to strive for “strategic partnership” with Iraq? Would Turkey enter into another episode of non-cooperation with Iraq? Or is Ankara, once again, moving toward a new phase of partial cooperation between Baghdad and Erbil? Time will exactly tell which one of the paths actually holds.

International, regional, and local reasons could be held accountable for Turkey’s failure in building the context of comprehensive cooperation with Iraq. But, one could not fully address the partial nature of cooperation without analyzing discursive reasonings of Turkish foreign policy makers. In this regard, partial cooperation needs to be treated as both discursive practice and contextual experience. Along with this view, partial cooperation has to be taken as an episodic constellation of contextually constitutive and consequentially transformative pragmatic acts. That is to say, discourse and context are mutually constitutive and transformative. Discourse is influenced by and creates consequences on context. This implies conception of a mutually transformative relationship between contextual and discursive aspects of (non)cooperation.

In order to analyze (non)cooperation, one needs to observe continuity and change at both contextual (macro) and discursive (micro) levels. By tracing macro–micro level interactions, this researc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Introduction: Theoretical and Empirical Outline
• 2. Prelude to Cooperation: Saadabad Pact and Dyadic Costs
• 3. Epilogue of Cooperation: Baghdad Pact and Regional Ramifications
• 4. Prologue to Non-Cooperation: Gulf War and International Implications
• 5. Finale of Non-Cooperation: US Invasion and Local Losses
• 6. Conclusion: Cross-Episodic and Overarching Findings
• 7. Post-Script: Perpetuation of Partial Cooperation
• Backmatter