Kadir Ustun Quoted in Foreign Policy in an article by Kate Brennan on August 28, 2014.

While Washington focuses on when the United States might begin bombing Islamic State targets in Syria, another town in Iraq has the U.S. military’s attention.

The Islamic State has besieged Amerli, home to at least 13,000 Shiite Turkmen, since June 15. With militants surrounding the town, fears are growing that Amerli could be overrun and its residents slaughtered. In the meantime, inhabitants don’t have enough food or water and face “a complete absence of medical services,” according to the United Nations, which has implored the international community to intervene.

“The situation of the people in Amerli is desperate and demands immediate action to prevent the possible massacre of its citizens,” Nickolay Mladenov, the head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq, said Aug. 23.

The United States has not launched airstrikes or begun humanitarian airdrops there. However, Iraqi warplanesreportedly started bombing the area Tuesday while Iraqi forces, aided by Shiite militias, are preparing to launch a counteroffensive to break the Islamic State’s siege.

“We’re focused on reviewing options to assess how we can best help alleviate the situation in Amerli,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Thursday. “Our embassy and military personnel at our joint operation centers in Iraq are already working closely with the Iraqi government to share information and discuss ways to provide relief to those in need, and certainly we’re having ongoing internal discussions as well.”

A senior defense official told Foreign Policy that the Pentagon is monitoring the situation and ready to assist, if needed.

Local fighters have seen U.S. warplanes and drones flying over the besieged town for days but not striking, said Hayder al-Khoei, an expert on Iraq at Chatham House, a policy institute based in London.

“They are expecting a push tonight or tomorrow morning from the Iraqi security forces and Shia militias to break the siege; but they are extremely tired and there has been very limited humanitarian relief,” Khoei told Foreign Policy on Thursday after speaking to local fighters on the ground. Iraqi security forces are progressing toward Amerli but the Islamic State still completely surrounds the town, Khoei said.

The Obama administration on Tuesday was “nearing a decision to authorize airstrikes and airdrops of food and water,” according to the New York Times, but had yet to act by Thursday afternoon. In contrast, the Obama administration moved quickly earlier this month to save thousands of Iraq’s Yazidi community trapped on Mount Sinjar, driven there by the Islamic State.

“There is an opportunity to act and some would say a moral obligation to do so, but what are the criteria for times we act? The number of deaths? How sophisticated the media strategy is by the people on the receiving end?” asked Jon Alterman, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Without a clear strategy for fighting the Islamic State in Iraq, the pressure for the United States to respond to the day’s headlines and images will continue, he said.

“It’s time to make choices about what we’re going to do. What is important? What is vital? What’s intolerable?” Alterman asked.

The U.S. military’s current mandate is limited to protecting U.S. personnel and facilities, supporting Iraqi security forces and Kurdish defense operations, and assisting humanitarian efforts. It has bombed to protect U.S. personnel and facilities in Erbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region; to save the Yazidi community on Mount Sinjar; and to retake the Mosul Dam from the Islamic State.

U.S. airstrikes continued on Thursday in the vicinity of the Mosul Dam, according to U.S. Central Command. From Aug. 8 through Aug. 28, U.S. planes conducted 106 airstrikes across Iraq, two-thirds of which were near the Mosul Dam.

President Barack Obama touted the effect of the American airstrikes on Thursday, saying they had caused the Islamic State to lose arms, equipment, and territory. But he also tamped down expectations for further interventions.

“Where we see an opportunity that allows us with very modest risk to help the humanitarian situation there, as we did in Sinjar Mountain, we will take those opportunities after having consulted with Congress,” Obama said during a briefing at the White House. “But our core priority right now is just to make sure that our folks are safe and to do an effective assessment of Iraqi and Kurdish capabilities.”

Kadir Ustun, research director at the SETA Foundation, a Washington, D.C., think tank focused on Turkey and U.S.-Turkey relations, said that the United States and its allies, including the Iraqi government, will have to focus in the immediate term on saving these pockets of vulnerable people and protecting critical assets.

But “a whack-a-mole strategy is not going to solve the problem” that’s been created by the rise of the Islamic State, he added.

For now the fate of the residents of Amerli lies in the hands of Iraqi forces — and the Islamic State.

“Like the Yazidis of Sinjar, the Turkmen of Amerli will be slaughtered if no one comes to their rescue,” Khoei said.

This analysis was published by Daily Sabah on June 09, 2014.

President Obama’s commencement speech at West Point was criticized by many from the right and left for failing to outline a foreign policy vision for the remainder of his term. The address revealed that the president intends to continue his administration’s minimalist approach and emphasize multilateralism in issues of global concern. U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has implications for Turkey as a regional stakeholder with specific national security interests in Syria, Iraq, Iran and beyond. President Obama’s references to confronting terrorism and supporting the Syrian opposition, in particular, will have direct implications for Turkey’s Syria policy.

Much of the president’s speech was aimed at defending the administration’s past policies within the general framework of “more internationalism and less unilateral military action” to demonstrate U.S. leadership around the world. Obama’s address clearly showed that his administration is still haunted by the legacies of the Afghan and Iraq wars. Making a strong case against rushing into military interventions that could take the U.S. into unfamiliar territory with unforeseen consequences, the president emphasized a multilateral approach to global issues that do not pose a direct threat to the U.S. The president promised a $5 billion fund for U.S. allies to counter al-Qaeda and its affiliates and pledged to support the Syrian opposition as an alternative to terrorists and a brutal dictator.

The promise of support for the Syrian opposition should be welcome news for Ankara, which for some time has been advocating for a robust effort to empower the opposition. However, training and arming the Syrian opposition would have been much more effective in 2012 and 2013 in ensuring that the opposition was able to hold territory and push forward toward regime-controlled areas. It would have also helped to deter al-Qaeda-affiliated groups and prevent them from taking hold. Going forward, support for the opposition has to be much more robust and comprehensive to make a serious difference.

Turkey has long been frustrated by the lack of strategy among Western allies to address the challenges posed by the Syrian conflict. The hyper-focus on terrorism and chemical weapons has taken priority for the West, deterring an expansive involvement in supporting the opposition. President Obama’s speech promised to limit the administration’s focus in countering terrorism and create an “alternative” by supporting the opposition. This minimalist approach revealed little in terms of what the administration’s Syria policy will be. If it remains a lowintensity effort to help the opposition stand their ground against al-Qaeda and the regime, it will almost certainly fail to bring about the needed political transition or eradication of terrorism in Syria.

The president’s speech emphasized multilateralism in confronting global challenges in an era when emerging powers are asking for more representation in multilateral institutions. This is especially true for Turkey, which in recent years has raised its profile in international platforms and sought larger roles in global governance. In this sense, the president’s multilateral approach should be welcomed by Turkey. However, if multilateralism becomes a substitute for an absence of U.S. policy, it will become problematic, as regional players like Turkey cannot gauge the administration’s exact intentions. This was evident last year when Obama backed away from the decision to punish the Assad regime for using chemical weapons, creating widespread confusion and misperceptions about U.S. policy. If the U.S. is increasingly seen as an indecisive power in the region, multilateralism will do little to build an international effort that will achieve results. Nevertheless, if Obama means to work with allies like Turkey to bring an end to the Assad regime (the stated policy goal of the U.S. and Turkey) and push for a meaningful political transition by empowering the Syrian opposition, then there will be great room for cooperation.

Multilateralism, in the absence of a clearly articulated policy goal and willingness for international leadership, will not achieve results by itself. While the Obama administration’s shift away from the unilateralist and hawkish policies of the Bush era has been positive for Turkey and the region, the increasingly minimalist and hesitant U.S. attitude toward regional issues has prevented high levels of cooperation between the U.S. and Turkey. If efforts to counter terrorism and support the Syrian opposition are not designed according to broader policy goals, they are less likely to be effective in providing a solution to the Syrian conflict.

This analysis was published by Daily Sabah on May 6, 2014. 

Turkey established close relations with its Middle Eastern neighbors, including Syria, during the past decade to achieve interdependency through economic and political engagement. Turkey judged that interdependence and integration would result in gradual reform and increased economic opportunities for the peoples of the region.

However, the Arab Spring made it clear that change had to come sooner, as a regional revolutionary wave was set in motion. Decades old authoritarian structures were shaken to their core and regional and global players were forced to reconsider their regional policies. Turkey made a conscious strategic choice to side with the people power movements. The rationale for this choice was that repressive regimes throughout the region were unsustainable, and legitimate administrations reflecting the will of the majority had to be established. Today, as clear-cut regime change in Syria does not appear imminent, Turkey and its Western allies must agree on a common strategy to empower the opposition to arrive at a political solution.

With the onset of the Arab uprisings, Syria posed the most difficult challenge for Turkey but also for the broader international community. The Bashar al-Assad regime had been built from the beginning to squash any opposition movement. When faced with an existential threat, the regime was reset to its “factory settings” and has been fighting for its survival ever since. The regime had at its disposal a wide range of tools it could deploy, from its police state to its international alliances and from its chemical weapons arsenal to divisions within the opposition. Clearly, these options were not at all clear at the beginning, and the regime had to give up much of its independent decision-making to outside actors such as Iran.

Hezbollah’s support proved critical for the regime, but it came at the expense of the regime’s sovereignty. The Syrian regime was fighting for its survival, but Turkey’s decision to support the opposition was never an existential threat. The regime marshaled all its military power and internal and external alliances to survive.

The failure of the international community to come up with a framework to empower and support the already fragmented opposition meant that the Assad regime could more easily play the game of divide- and-rule. Turkey’s support has been insufficient to bring about unity among the opposition. The challenge has been enormous, especially if we consider that even the fairly unified Syrian regime had to be supported militarily by outside actors to survive. The plethora of opposition groups throughout the country has made it close to impossible to unify the opposition in the absence of the kind of overwhelming support needed to seriously destabilize the regime. As outside help has been minimal largely due to the clash of interests among regional and global players, there is no one united opposition front fighting against the regime.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the international community is not fully committed to supporting the opposition because of its misgivings about the rebels (disunity, radicalism, etc.). Lack of support prevents the emergence of a serious alternative to the Assad regime. It is true that even if the opposition were united and strong, there would be no guarantee of success. However, the emergence of al-Qaedalinked groups could have been prevented or at least the opposition would have had the wherewithal to confront such groups that threaten neighboring countries’ security. They have complicated an already difficult situation to begin with and gave Western powers an excuse to stay away. The fact is that this problem is not going anywhere. The current prolonged stalemate in Syria will continue to pose security threats to all its neighbors.

The Syrian conflict is increasingly less likely to end in a clear victory by the regime or the opposition. A political solution is not on the horizon because of the protracted nature of the conflict and the fact that all fighting sides think they are winning. In the absence of a consensus and a common strategy with its Western allies, Turkey has narrowed its focus to supporting the opposition, securing the border and managing the refugee crisis. Each one of these activities attempts to address enormous challenges that are very difficult to overcome without a concerted international effort. They are also not enough to bring an end to the conflict. Without a dramatic shift in the balance of power between the regime and the opposition, which is unlikely without outside help, neither side has an incentive to come to the negotiating table for a political solution.

There is no magic solution in Syria, and the country seems destined to be unstable for the foreseeable future. Turkey remains committed to regime change in Syria and supports the opposition, but the regime’s fall is far from imminent. While the opposition may not prevail anytime soon, Turkey is unlikely to pull its support without a negotiated political solution. However, this support alone will not change the balance of power on the ground. The Western allies need to work with Turkey to create a unified and effective opposition to force the regime to the negotiation table.

It may be too late for this to succeed, but there does not seem to be a better option unless, of course, the international community is prepared to let the Syrian opposition fail.