Americas

Home page

Americas

US presidential debate dims hopes of US involvement in Syria

23 October 2012 20:21 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A televised foreign policy debate that took place at Lynn University, Florida, on Monday evening between US President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney has indicated that the US has no intention of becoming actively engaged in the Syrian crisis, analysts have said, making a fine-tuning of Turkey’s Syria policy a necessity, APA reports quoting Today’s Zaman.

â€œI don’t think the US would take greater responsibility in the Syrian crisis,â€ Murat Bilhan, vice chairman of the Turkish-Asian Center for Strategic Studies (TASAM), told Today’s Zaman in analyzing what the presidential candidates had to say with only two weeks to go before the US presidential elections.

Both candidates oppose sending US troops to Syria to topple the Assad regime. â€œWe don’t want to have military involvement there. We don’t want to get drawn into a military conflict,â€ Romney said during the debate, although he said the US should be more heavily involved in the crisis.

Romney, who is in favor of the US playing a leadership role in the crisis, believes the Syrian opposition should be provided with the arms necessary to defend themselves, but only after responsible parties have been identified within Syria. Obama is more cautious. Although he announced that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s days are numbered, Obama noted that providing heavy weapons to opposition forces in Syria may cause security problems in the long term.

Noting that it does not look as if Assad will lose his hold on power any time soon, â€œtaking the facts into account, a fine-tuning is needed in our regional policy,â€ Bilhan commented.

For Ã‡aÄŸrÄ± Erhan, a lecturer for the department of international relations of Ankara University, what Romney said about Syria is not different in any major way from Obama’s stance. According to Erhan, Romney’s discourse is mainly rhetoric. Noting that Romney does not favor US-led military action against Syria, Erhan told Today’s Zaman, â€œHe is also aware a solution to the problem in Syria is not possible without reaching an agreement with the Russians.â€

Americans are worried that any arms provided to the opposition groups in Syria could be used to â€œhurt them down the road,â€ by fundamentalist militants, as expressed by Romney, and that seems to be one of the reasons the US is hesitant in taking on greater responsibility in the Syrian issue.

â€œThere is no guarantee of support [expected by Turkey] to be provided by the US [regarding the crisis in Syria],â€ NÃ¼zhet Kandemir of BahÃ§eÅŸehir University told Today’s Zaman.

At the start of the Syrian crisis, the US encouraged Turkey to take a harsh stance against the Syrian regime. However, recently, as the discourse of the presidential candidates makes clear, Turkey no longer feels the open US backing it did in the past.

According to Kandemir, a former diplomat who also served as Turkish ambassador to Washington, Turkey is no longer as important for the US as it was during the earlier phase of the crisis. â€œIn connection with Syria, Turkey has no privileged position in the eye of either Obama or Romney,â€ he said.

Iran is another major foreign policy on which the attitude of the US is important for Turkey. In their discourse on Iran, both candidates were tough, making it clear they see a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities as a â€œlast resort,â€ but it was Romney whose stance looked even tougher.

Obama is in favor of increasing pressure on Iran by way of economic sanctions, which he believes will work to bring the Iranian economy to its knees. In their stance against Iran, the two presidential candidates gave the impression they want to demonstrate how deeply they are on the side of Israel. â€œAs long as I’m president of the United States, Iran will not get a nuclear weapon,â€ Obama said, while Romney vowed to toughen sanctions. Both leaders said they would stand by Israel in the case of an attack by Iran.

Erhan believes that Romney, should he be elected on Nov. 6, will adopt a harsher policy line against Iran, given that with their support from arms and energy industries in the US, Republicans usually take a hard-line attitude on foreign policy issues. An attack against Iran is a worst-case scenario for Turkey, not only because the country’s trade and tourism would greatly suffer as Iran is a major gas provider for Turkey, but because the attack may pave the way for a regional war.

Turkey may even become a target for Iran because of the NATO early-warning radar system it hosts in Malatya. Iranian officials have criticized Turkey for this with a threatening tone on numerous occasions. Noting that the US would also need to take international actors into account in the case of an attack on Iran, Erhan said the US cannot afford to completely ignore Turkey’s stance on any regional issue. â€œIn the region, the US needs Turkey more strongly than the other way around,â€ he commented.

Turkey may face difficult choices regarding Iran following the elections, given that both candidates have adopted a harsh discourse against Iran. â€œTurkey may go through difficult times,â€ Bilhan said. He suggests as a solution, that Turkey reconsider its attitude towards Israel, which he called â€œthe key to US policyâ€ in the region. Should Romney be elected and the current Israeli government re-elected in elections to be held at the beginning of next year, Turkey will have a hard time in the region, the analysts agreed.