Turkey's Sectarian War With Iran Over Syria and Iraq
Semih Idiz examines the evolution of the sectarian conflict between Turkey and Iran over Iraq and Syria.
One of the principle results of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq was that it released the Shiite genie out of the Middle East bottle. Clearly, in retrospect, the implication of Iraq’s demographic makeup — in which the Shiites constitute the overwhelming majority — was not considered sufficiently by the Bush administration at the time.
The result, with foreign Sunni Jihadist groups pitching in to turn the country into a sectarian bloodbath, is an increasingly polarized Iraq which has come to the brink of division along ethnic and sectarian lines. The U.S. invasion of Iraq also worked to predominantly Shiite Iran’s advantage, providing Tehran the opportunity to expand its regional influence by playing the sectarian card.
Tellingly, this period also witnessed the ratcheting up of Iran’s nuclear ambitions which not only sent shivers up Israeli spines, but also increased the threat perception of Sunni powers such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar that have always approached Tehran’s intentions with suspicion.
Turkey at that stage was still largely neutral, with the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan aiming for “zero problems with neighbors,” and ties with Iran featuring prominently in this equation. The good state of relations between Ankara and Tehran also afforded the Erdogan government an opportunity to project a new approach to Turkish foreign policy, free from outside pressures, and particularly those coming from Washington.
