One week after the Mavi Marmara debacle, the consensus opinion is that Turkey's response to the crisis was a seminal point of maturation for Turkish foreign policy. For those who have long believed AKP harbors crypto-extremist sentiments, Erdogan's fiery speeches have validated years of suspicions. In their view Turkey has become confident enough to reveal its true colors. Realists instead view Turkey’s response as an inevitable and pragmatic statement of Turkish independence from the West. Steven Cook sums up the argument in his recent Foreign Policy piece:

It is hard to admit, but after six decades of strategic cooperation, Turkey and the United States are becoming strategic competitors -- especially in the Middle East. This is the logical result of profound shifts in Turkish foreign and domestic politics and changes in the international system. […]Today, Turkey is all grown up, sporting the 16th largest economy in the world, and is coming into its own diplomatically.

No matter your perspective, the underlying message is the same: Turkey is on the rise and Mavi Marmara was a turning point.

The way I see it, AKP’s emphatic response has actually been a profound strategic mistake. Simply put, Turkey has far too many ethnic and territorial issues of its own to lecture Israel about the Gaza blockade. Israel’s supporters have been quick to point out this contradiction. U.S. Congressman Aaron Schock explicated the argument in a recent Jerusalem Post op-ed:

One needs to ask: If the Kurds or the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) across the Turkish border in Iraq rained 10,000 rockets on Turkish civilians, what would the Turks do? After all, the Kurds have legitimate disputes with the government of Turkey, and have been viciously repressed. What if international NGOs decided to airlift humanitarian supplies to PKK refugees in Iraq, with those shipments containing civilian equipment that could easily be made into weapons?

Israeli student groups are even preparing a "peace flotilla" of their own to draw attention to what they view as glowing hypocrisy on the part of the Turkish government.  (The flotilla’s port of call remains TBD.)

Direct comparisons between AKP’s relations with the Kurds and Likud’s relations with Palestinians are for the most part specious. Over the past year AKP has made a good faith effort to resolve the Kurdish issue. Unfortunately the southeast initiative was sabotaged by Turkey’s secular courts and deep-seated skepticism in the Kurdish community. This subtlety, however, matters little in the battle for public opinion.

If Israel and its allies successfully paint Erdogan and Gul as hypocrites where does this leave Turkey?

Read more after the jump ----->

In the short-term AKP will likely continue to strike a defiant pose. Israeli criticism will legitimize Turkey’s new position as an independent foreign policy force in the eyes of its supporters. In the mid and long term however, the prognosis for Erdogan and Co. isn't so good. 
 
Before the Mavi Marmara debacle Turkey was a Muslim country that could engage Israel in a positive and productive manner. Now they are just another Muslim country complaining about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians but powerless to actually change the situation. Turkey has lost its cherished and valuable claim to cross-cultural legitimacy.

Imagine six months down the line: Israel continues to successfully blockade Gaza. The 5 + 1 countries have moved forward with sanctions against Iran leaving the Turkish fuel exchange deal behind as a footnote in the pages of history. The Kurdish separatist movement fueled by international sympathy and benefiting from severed ties between Israeli and Turkish intelligence organizations is back; bombings are once again a weekly occurrence. How will Turkey look then? In a word: impotent.

Turkey's foreign policy has come a long way during AKP's tenure but it is clear there is much more to be done. AKP's recent successes have had little to do with actual work and more to do with opportunism and grandstanding, much of which was intended for domestic consumption. The Mavi Marmara is no exception to this pattern.

AKP needs to do four things if it hopes to play a sustained and productive role in the region:

1. Tone down the ridiculous rhetoric. Erdogan isn't doing his cause or his people any favors by or calling Israel a terrorist state or justifying Darfur by proclaiming that "Muslims do not commit genocide." It is possible to maintain the support of your base and make a stand for the causes you believe in without sounding like an unhinged lunatic.

2. Continue to do things that the West won't do. Keep trying to broker a deal with Iran, criticize Israel's policy vis-a-vis Palestine, etc. In the long run, an independent, strong and moderate Turkey is in America's interest. We have to accept that moderate doesn't mean a country that does everything we tell it to.

3. Find solutions. Instead of griping and complaining Turkey needs to find viable strategies to achieve its goals. For example a more productive measure might be to negotiate with Egypt for a permanent increase in the flow of humanitarian goods through the Rafah crossing.

4. Pick better partners. Hamas and Omar al-Bashir are beyond the pale. AKP should instead to work closer with the Palestinian Authority and other moderate Arab countries like Jordan.

-Evan