Die Türkei, Katar und die Krise am Golf

Passend zum Titelthema in der Jungle World ein längeres und sehr informatives Interview in der Hurriyet mit Birol Başkan über das Verhältnis der Türkei zu Katar, beider Bedeutung nach den Anschlägen von 9/11 und die Rolle der Muslimbrüder im sog. arabischen Frühling:

After 9/11 the U.S. adopted a more hostile attitude toward the Middle East. There were the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the discourse of "spreading democracy and human rights" in the Middle East was threatening to all authoritarian regimes of the Middle East. In that context, several things happened that paved the way for Turkey to play a more active role in the Middle East. Egypt and Saudi Arabia, all the giants of the Arab world, were troubled by the discourse and policies of the U.S. and basically there was a leadership vacuum in the Middle East. Also Turkey, especially after refusing to allow the U.S. to invade Iraq from the north, unintentionally and calculatedly became a kind of country that could stand up against the U.S., which created sympathy among Arab populations. This context presented an opportunity for Turkey to return to the Middle East economically and politically. From the U.S. perspective, Turkey was also an ideal case: Democratic and secular but with an Islamist party in power. It was a perfect model that the Bush administration could present to the Middle East.

Similar factors also paved the way for Qatar to play a role much larger than its size. But there are also some historical preconditions such as Al Jazeera: Qatar’s rulers invested in this network back in the 1990s, and it turned out to be a very good soft power asset. There was also the perceived rise of Iran, which expanded its sphere of influence in Iraq and was already influential in Syria and Lebanon. This created another dimension to the regional context. Basically Arabs needed another state to balance Iran's increasing influence.

Turkey and Qatar adopted very similar positions on Hamas and when the Arab Spring broke out they adopted similar positions on many issues. Both had good relations with the global Muslim Brotherhood and both played roles in regional and sub-regional conflicts, in peace talks between Palestine and Syria for example. Also when Saudi Arabia and the UAE were quite hostile to Iran, especially after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Turkey and Qatar had excellent relations with Tehran.

From afar, Turkey and Qatar are very unusual partners with almost nothing in common. But somehow they both came to adopt similar policies on major issues and to expand their influence. By the emergence of the Arab Spring they were on the same page on all issues. This can be explained largely by their shared perspective on the transnational Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood. In Turkey the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of course comes from the political Islamic tradition, which is distinct from the Muslim Brotherhood but shares a lot in common. The Qatari ruling family is by no means Islamist - it is more like a kind of 19th century Ottoman ruling family, reformist in many ways and trying to break the conservative hold on society by introducing a kind of Westernization - but the local allies it has employed in the state definitely have Islamist backgrounds.