Mon, Nov 24, 2003 page9

• With Istanbul bombs, Britain and Turkey run out of luck

  • By Martin Woollacott / THE GUARDIAN
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  Britain and Turkey, apart from both being close allies of the US, have had another thing in common in the months since Iraq was invaded. They have both enjoyed a rather astonishing run of luck, a run which came to a sudden end for both of them with Thursday's bombs in Istanbul.

  Britain's luck has had two dimensions. The first was that its forces were assigned the quietest region in Iraq, and thus have suffered very light casualties, compared to the toll on the Americans. The second was that, in spite of Britain being America's main military partner, there had been no successful attacks in this country or on specifically British targets abroad. Diplomatic missions, synagogues, hotels and places of entertainment have been hit across the world but it has been Americans, Australians, French, Israelis, north Africans, Jews, Iraqis and, of course, bystanders of many nationalities, but usually of Muslim faith, who have been killed.

  Turkey's luck has been of a different order. By miscalculation rather than deliberate design it took no part in the campaign against Iraq, providing neither its own troops nor transit for the US forces which had wanted to use Turkish territory. When, at US urging, it later did agree to send a substantial number of men to join the occupation forces in Iraq, Turkey was let off the hook because of the objections of Kurdish members of the Iraqi governing council. The government was able in effect to withdraw the offer, thus keeping the goodwill it had regained with the Americans without having to risk its troops or strain its support among the Turkish people, a majority of whom are opposed to a deployment in Iraq. The ruling Justice and Development party, the AKP, given its Islamic character, would have found this a particularly difficult balancing act.

  Participation in either the campaign or the occupation would also have carried the risk of provoking attacks by al-Qaeda or related groups on Turkish soil. Although it lost substantial American aid that would have helped its faltering economy and eased its large debt repayment burden, Turkey could until very recently privately congratulate itself on narrowly escaping a place in the front line.

  But the trouble about being out of the front line is that this also makes you into a place where the soft targets represented by the assets of more prominent actors are relatively easily accessible. Last Saturday came the bombing of two synagogues, and on Thursday the strained ceremonials of US President George W. Bush's visit to Britain were counterpointed by the two attacks in Istanbul. They were simultaneously a blow against both Turkey and Britain.

  Together with the bombs and killings that are daily events in Iraq and the less frequent, but still ominous, occurrences in places like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, the picture can be seen as one in which attacks are becoming more frequent, more widespread, and more coordinated. However this overstates matters. The attacks may in the first place be less coherent or cunningly plotted than we imagine.

  Secondly, there are other patterns at work here, not at all favorable to the attackers, notably the reaction of the security forces and of the local population. As bomb succeeds bomb, the radical groups in many Muslim countries that have taken up what they see as the duty of jihad are losing key members both in the attacks themselves and in the arrests which follow. Their capacity to mount new operations may thus diminish rather than increase. In Turkey, arrests have already been made in connection with the synagogue bombings, although how sound they are remains to be seen.

  They are also losing, not popular support, which they do not really possess in most places, but the romanticized image which they were able to exploit in the past. Local residents yesterday reported a rocket position that threatened Canadian troops in Kabul. The townsfolk of Ghazni in Afghanistan the other day pursued and apprehended the men who killed a young Frenchwoman working for the UN and would have burned down their homes had they not been stopped.

  People in Nasiriyah in Iraq were tearful at the loss of the Italian policemen and fearful that the Italians would leave as the result of the recent attack on their base.

  When the majority of victims are local people rather than Westerners, as is increasingly the case, the reaction can be even more vehement. It is certainly true that the dynamics of these situations are complex. Heavy-handed sweeps by security forces, particularly by foreign security forces, can alter the popular perception of radical groups and allow them to recruit more than enough replacements for those killed or arrested. Painful and dangerous times can lead to the view that, although it is bad that the bombers and attackers are ruthlessly killing their own people in their attempt to get at their enemies, the ultimate blame belongs to the foreigners who set these murderous events in motion. While such a transformation of popular feeling has often been the aim of terrorists, it has also often eluded them in the past.

  Yet it would be foolish to be too sanguine. Apart from the immediate human suffering, the impact of such attacks can be profoundly destabilizing. Turkey's stock exchange plunged yesterday and would have gone down further had the exchange not been closed.

  European stocks also wobbled. A country in need of investment and credit is now at least a little less likely to get either. If the attacks are repeated, that could affect the fortunes of Turkey's relatively new and untried government for the worse. Possible Turkish membership of the union would look very different as a proposition if an active radical Islamist network was still operating in that country. The Turks, however, may be able to identify and neutralize what may be their relatively small range of radical Islamist groups, and thus limit any such damage.

  For Britain, and for the government of Tony Blair, the stakes are higher. The prime minister may insist that the attacks are not a consequence of the Iraq war and, insofar as there was terrorism before Iraq, he has an argument. But it is a hard case to prove. We may now have to join the Americans in the costly business of further fortifying our diplomatic missions and to a lesser extent the business offices, churches, clubs and residential areas constituting the far-flung British expatriate world.

  The damaged consulate in Istanbul, a beautiful mansion that used to be the embassy when Istanbul was the capital, and thus a symbol of how far back relations between what were then two empires go, is an indication of how history itself can become a target. It may be that the curious near-immunity to attack we seem to have enjoyed until now, whether here at home or in the Muslim countries where we have a significant diplomatic, commercial, and cultural presence, is at an end.
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