The real Turkey-Iran battle over Iraq
Monday, October 29, 2012 at 12:00PM Blogged a piece a while ago about how Iranian products just aren't making it in Iraq, while Turkish ones are far more welcome. This FT piece by Daniel Dombey (whom I cite a lot) argues that what the geo-pols consider Turkish empire re-building is undergirded for the most part in wanting to dominate export models (my read of his analysis). Why?
Turkey has hit that middle-class phase where the people want to consumer a lot and thus imports rise - along with consumer credit. Unless you combat that with exports, you end up a bit too much like the US.
Iraq has just overtaken Italy as Turkey's second-biggest export market, with the KRG leading the way.
Turkey has similar eyes for Syria and - ultimately - a post-changed-regime Iran.
These are good ambitions, the best kind of "imperialism" - really: making consumers happier than the crappy regime that lords over them.
Reader Comments (2)
What does the yellow on the map mean? Looks sorta like the range of Kurdish territories, but I didn't think they went all the way to the Persian Gulf.
Yes, the "Kurdish populated" territories are always very loosely defined. Surely in some parts of the yellow area, the percentage of Kurds is as little as 10%. These maps also serve a geopolitical aim, notice the extension to Mediterranean sea and Persian gulf as well, while the reality is Kurdish majority areas are landlocked in the high mountains.