CIAO DATE: 08/2011
June 2011
United States Institute of Peace
The U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq is reordering political dynamics not only in Baghdad but also in the broader Middle East. Nature abhors a vacuum, and a number of actors are seeking to fill the outsized role that America has played in Iraq over the last eight years. The two rising powers in the region, Iran and Turkey, share borders with Iraq and are rapidly becoming the most influential external actors inside the country. Their political sway was made clear during Iraq’s extended 2010 cycle of government formation, when they were respectively instrumental in consolidating the two leading political groupings: Ayad Allawi’s Iraqiyya and (eventually) Nouri al-Maliki’s National Alliance. The connections between Iraq and its two neighbors extend further than politics, however. Turkey and Iran are Iraq’s two main trading partners, and deep cultural and religious ties date to the centuries-long struggle for the control of Mesopotamia between the Ottoman (Turkish) and Safavid Persian (Iranian) empires. The relationship between Turkey and Iran has received heightened attention in the United States since the effort by Turkey and Brazil to negotiate a deal on the handling of Iran’s nuclear fuel in mid-2010. Although Ankara argues that Turkey’s new foreign policy platform of “zero problems” with its neighbors and independent stance toward Western policy in the region poses no contradiction to its traditional Western alliances, some American policymakers and analysts view this approach as a realpolitik move by Turkey to reorient itself to the Muslim world, including Iran, based on Turkish economic and energy interests. Others believe that, despite this shift, Turkish and Iranian relations remain dominated by mutual mistrust and that the two countries view themselves as competitors for influence and preeminence in the region. More recently, a flurry of analyses has looked at Turkish and Iranian involvement in Iraq and whether the two countries consciously consider themselves rivals there. To date, however, commentary has been more scant on how Iraqis relate Turkish and Iranian activities to their national interests and their ongoing struggle to define their national identity.
Resource link: The Coming Turkish-Iranian Competition In Iraq [PDF] - 270K