Shining crescent

Turkey is a country in the first league of international diplomacy. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was exuberantly boasting in comments to the media that “Turkey had become such an important and big player that even a fly could not fly in its region without Turkey being informed in the first place.”

Opposition deputies since then have been ridiculing that statement as the shortest surviving joke of all ages. Can anyone imagine what great successes the Turkish foreign policy team has achieved over the past few years? The Armenia rapprochement was imposed by a hilarious lady who must have been aware in the first place that it would not work. However, protocols were signed. It could have been a great achievement but the Turkish team, like the Armenians, had accepted it under duress. Not only did neither of the two countries endorse it through their parliaments, they did whatever was possible to kill it. Thus, the Armenia front is heading to 2015 with prospects gloomier than ever.

There were red lines in the Iraq policies. No, Turkey would never, ever accept the Kurds carving out an independent state from Iraq. Now, Iraqi Kurds are inching towards transforming their de facto state into de jure, about to go to referendum for independence. Surprisingly, the principled and foresighted Turkish foreign policy team apparently still believes they are faced with a bluff in northern Iraq. In the meantime, a deputy chairman of the ruling party, also a Kurd, was rather happy, saying Turkey might be enhanced by embracing an independent Kurdistan.

The Arab Spring was to bring democracy to the entire region. Through zigzagging yet apparently unforeseen policy undertakings, the region’s “great country” became, in less than two...