Tunisia and the regional politics

On Monday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems to have had a phone conversation with his counterpart Kais Saied of Tunisia, and emphasized the importance that the parliament Saied suspended should continue its work. The action Tunisian president carried out against Ennahda, AKP’s brother party, has constituted a serious issue for Erdogan’s politics on the region.

Without doubt, it would not be right to assess the developments in Tunisia just in the context of 2011 Arab uprisings and the regional politics. Every country, every locality has its own history, its own context. Consequently, one should not lose the perspective of emphasizing the activity of Tunisia’s own social movements, the opportunities of their impact on the politics and capabilities. While assessing the regional politics, however, the use of comparative method is also a must. It is possible to account simultaneously for both the independent initiative of Tunisian people and the regional and global conjuncture that it is developing in. I would like to stress on this point before going into evaluating the events in Tunisia in the context of the regional politics.

The politics of alliance, which Erdogan had been trying to conduct since Arab uprisings in 2011, had assumed a huge setback due to the coup in 2013 by General al-Sisi. Since that time, Turkey has no viable geopolitical doctrine or strategy. On the contrary, Turkey is in an odd position: For its regional ambitions, not having found any support it desired from the Western alliance, the government turned to the cooperation with such forces that it rivalled, even clashed in the region. It succeeded with this position in extracting some diplomatic gain (for example in Astana) while supporting the sides clashing with each other in Syria and Libya. There should not be a consistent doctrine to expect from such a contradictory position. Even under such conditions, it is preferred to conduct politics with daily reactions, and not to have any doctrine, or any principle. But the disadvantage of this position is for the myopic politics to develop further, for the future insecurity to emerge, and finally for the initial goals to completely fade away. With unexpected moves, changing alliances in Syria, Libya, Erdogan’s politics turned Turkey to execute operations beyond its borders likes of which have never been seen in its history. Nevertheless, such manoeuvres were not enough to avert structural transformations in the region, they would not be.

From the regional politics standpoint, the action of Kais Saied resulted in the loss of influence for Qatar and Turkey while it made the position of United Arab emirates, Egypt, Russia and France stronger. The events in Tunisia would also directly impact the power balances in Libya. It is not a secret that the leader of Ennahda and the speaker of Tunisian parliament, Ghannouchi has supported es-Serrac of Libya (whom Erdogan has also supported). On the other hand, since he assumed his position, President Saied has changed the stand of Tunisia around, and taken the position opposite of Ghannouchi. In the upcoming days, we can also foresee this position to become clearer.

Yet now, it is already known that we will not see a similar process in Tunisia similar to that of al-Sisi coup. Specific to its own, the conditions of Tunisia differentiate this country from the rest of North African countries. However, from the standpoint of the region politics, it would not be an exaggeration to conclude that a new defeat has been added to the defeats Turkey-Qatar axis has suffered since 2013. It is even obvious that this defeat will generate serious outcomes for Turkey’s internal politics over the Blue Homeland doctrine. Having been used as a concept for public diplomacy and public relations rather than as a strategic doctrine, and having functionally lost its meaning, we have got one step closer to see the Blue Homeland officially removed from circulation. And this development will cause as much distress amongst Islamists-Ihvanists as Nationalist-Euro-Asianists sharing the regional power ambitions of AKP. There has happened an important change in the geopolitical composition that is a constituent element of the current government coalition. The consequences of this deserve to be carefully observed from the regime’s standpoint.