Turkey and ISIS: The Hegemony of Political Hyperreality

Politics is a process that moves forward not just through realities, but also through images. At times, images actually surpass reality and a situation that Jean Baudrillard refers to as hyperreality surrounds us. Today’s global politics is shaped through the interaction, struggle, and negotiation of political hyperrealities alongside concrete realities. Most of the time, actors’ rational behavior cannot obstruct images from influencing global political processes.

By accepting political hyperreality’s hegemony, it is obvious that global politics cannot be managed on a realistic basis. In line with this, it is also obvious that political hyperreality has a useful side for those involved. Political hyperreality also functions in creating an environment of fear, pushing an actor facing it into taking a position quickly.

Alongside this, those who give in least to political hyperreality are politicians and decision makers. Although they also sometimes use the language of political hyperreality, they do so in a conscious manner with a specific political gain in mind. In truth, it is journalists and researchers who contribute to the literature of politics and get caught up in political hyperreality much more than politicians.

While U.S.-Turkish relations can be conceptualized in different ways in different periods, at its most basic, it can be described as an alliance. From the point of view of both U.S. and Turkey’s foreign policy makers, it is a relationship that for the most part continues on a rational basis. Turkey’s attempts to create an area of socio-economic integration after 2002 did not cause a break in this alliance as some commentators have claimed, but in fact enriched it with new content.

Turkey developed a new foreign policy vision after 2002 and attempted to surpass the delay syndrome that occurred in those searching for a new order in the aftermath of the Cold War in its area. Unlike in the past, Turkey evaluated its cultural and historical depth as a factor of strategic depth. And it built this on very secular grounds.

Turkey is an actor that can continue a rational alliance with the U.S. while also bringing in its own priorities when it comes to political and strategic priorities. Even though Turkey is transforming its historical and cultural depth into a foreign policy tool, it is not doing this in a manner oriented toward Islam, but rather handling it within a secular framework.

Is there any analytical worth in listing these plain truths and simple realities one after the other? In an environment where there is much surrender to a high ratio of political hyperreality, yes, there is analytical value and meaning to underlining these realities.

American policy makers know very well Turkey’s position vis-a-vis the Syrian crisis and its distance with the actors fighting here. When sitting down with Ankara, negotiations are held within this framework and alliances are attempted with different dimensions. Unfortunately, however, many journalists and writers are announcing their ideas while under the influence of political hyperreality.

In the past few days, Ankara allowed coalition forces led by the U.S. to use İncirlik Air Base in their fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Interestingly, rather than discussing the strategic gains of this situation, debates began over why Ankara had not previously given permission for this. However, this situation has rational justifications from Ankara’s standpoint and has nothing whatsoever to do with Turkey being a Sunni country or with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamic orientation. Would it mean anything to remind those who comment in that way that ISIS labeled Turkey and Erdogan with the epithet “infidel” two years ago?

As a border country to the war, Ankara has to calculate the threat posed not just by ISIS, but also those that will be caused by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime and the PKK. Despite labeling ISIS a terrorist organization, deporting 1,600 ISIS member