As Iraqi Army forces enter Mosul proper and anti-ISIS coalition forces encircle the city, the complex and bloody operation to safely wrest a city of approximately one million people from the grip of ISIS militants will continue to dominate headlines. However, for the region’s power players, the question of what comes after Mosul’s fall may be more important than the conduct of the campaign itself.
Indeed, that question seems to have driven relations between Turkey and Iraq to the breaking point. Over the past month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi have engaged in a swiftly escalating war of words over the presence of Turkish troops at the Bashiqa airbase in northern Iraq. From Abadi’s claim that the base is an unsanctioned violation of Iraqi territory, to Erdogan’s assertion that the Iraqi Prime Minister should “know his place,” angry rhetoric has led to real world escalation. Turkish units based at Bashiqa have already participated in the operation to retake Mosul – against Iraqi wishes – and, on Tuesday, Turkish tanks and troops were seen massing at the border town of Silopi. This led Abadi to warn that “the invasion of Iraq will lead to Turkey being dismantled.”
Why have relations between Turkey and Iraq deteriorated to this point, and what does it mean for the future of Iraq?
In fairness, ties between Ankara and Baghdad have been shaky for some time. When former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki first came to power in 2006, relations with then-Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan glowed with talk of security, energy, and trade cooperation. However, by 2010, that rhetoric had cooled considerably. Specifically, this falling out can be traced back to Turkey’s support for the cross-sectarian (though predominantly Sunni) al Iraqqiya parliamentary bloc led by former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and former Vice President Tariq al Hashimi during Iraq’s 2010 elections.
Seeing an opportunity to challenge the absolute centralization of power in Maliki’s Shiite majority, Ankara played an active role in forming a Sunni consensus behind Iyad Allawi, and the al Iraqqiya list won a majority in parliament. However, during U.S.-brokered negotiations to form a power-sharing arrangement in anticipation of American withdrawal, Ankara’s favorite lost out to the incumbent Maliki. When Maliki decided to issue an arrest warrant for Sunni Vice President Tariq al Hashimi on dubious terrorism charges, just a day after the departure of U.S. forces, Ankara immediately offered asylum for Hashimi, throwing relations with Baghdad into shambles. Following this split, personal antagonism between Erdogan and Maliki bled into the public sphere, with al-Maliki describing Turkey as an “enemy of the state” for its “interference in political matters.”
Today’s spat between Erdogan and Maliki’s successor, Haider al Abadi, is in some ways, an extension of that original falling out. When Ankara’s bid to push Ilawi and the Iraqqiya bloc to power failed, Turkey lost much of its ability to influence political decision making in Baghdad. In large part, that influence was ceded to Iran, which enjoyed extremely close ties to the Shi’a-dominated Maliki government. The Abadi government has attempted to distance itself from Tehran and bridge some of the Sunni-Shi’a gap following the rise of ISIS in Iraq. However, Iran still wields powerful influence over the Iraqi government and continues to play a key role in the fight against ISIS.
Turkey’s presence and interest in Mosul and the Sunni-majority northern district of Ninewa can be partially read as an attempt to set up a bulwark against encroaching Iranian influence near Iraq’s border with Turkey. This, combined with real concerns for the Sunni and Turkmen populations in and around Mosul, explains much of the rhetoric Turkish officials direct against the involvement of Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) – often described as Iranian-backed Shi’a militias – in the Mosul campaign.
Rather than cede Mosul entirely to the central government in Baghdad, Ankara would like to see an enhanced role for its local allies in Ninewa, Atheel, and Osama al Nujaifi. The Bashiqa base is central to this plan. According to Senior Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Aaron Stein, “Turkey intends to use the base as leverage to ensure that the Nujaifis play a role in post-Islamic State Mosul,” as well as to position Atheel Nujaifi – head of the Mutahidun party – to regain lost seats in Iraq’s parliament. Similarly, Erdogan’s insistence that Turkey requires only the approval of Masoud Barzani, President of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), to base its troops at Bashiqa suggests that Ankara would like to further support the KRG’s independence from Baghdad and deepen its alliance with Erbil.
Yet, perhaps more important to Erdogan than these geopolitical concerns is the political reward that foreign policy posturing reaps at home. Following the attempted military coup against the President and his Justice and Development Party (AKP)-led government on July 16, Erdogan has capitalized on a resurgent nationalism to unify political momentum behind him. To build upon this momentum, writes former Turkish Parliamentarian Aykan Erdemir, Erdogan “has been fanning the flames of jingoism and irredentism to unite nationalist voters behind his dream of a centralized presidential system.” According to Erdemir, “the Turkish population is sensitive about the status of Mosul, both because the city was perceived to be part of the Turkish “homeland” until 1926, and because of the precarious status of its Turkmen population.” That sensitivity offers Erdogan the opportunity to present himself as both a foreign policy strongman and the protector of vulnerable Sunni Arab and Turkmen populations in Iraq.
However, domestic advantages aside, Erdogan may be shooting himself in the foot by pursuing this rhetorical battle with Baghdad. Despite Turkish media assertions that Abadi is an agent of Tehran, the Iraqi Prime Minister has actually worked to dull Iranian influence throughout his tenure. Now, the issue of Bashiqa has made that work doubly hard, as it allows political opponents like Maliki to attack Abadi for allowing Turkey to breach Iraqi sovereignty. It is an “odd irony,” notes Stein, “that Turkey is working to blunt Iranian influence in Iraq, yet the rhetoric that Erdogan uses ends up bolstering Iraqi officials linked to Iran.”
Fritz Lodge is an international producer at The Cipher Brief. Follow him on Twitter @FritzLodge.
