The Turkish stance toward the us requests for the 2003 Iraq war : a case of norms versus interests ?

Abstract EN

The rejection of the US pleas for the 2003 Iraq War by the Turkish Parliament stands as one of the most controversial, divisive and much-debated foreign policy decisions in the Republican history of Turkey.

The pleas of the Bush administration, if fully accepted and executed by Ankara, were of the kind that would make Turkey part of the US-led war coalition.

Although the Turkish airspace was opened to the US and British war aircraft and missiles later on, and limited logistical support was provided during the war, the Parliament’s decision was a rejection of the US demands, which, though not sufficing to prevent the war itself, disrupted the military plans of the Pentagon, and had significant impact on the relations between Turkey and Iraq as well as between Turkey and the US.

The parliament’s decision is of paramount importance not only because of its crucial consequences but also because the decision-making process preceding it reveals the intense dilemma that was faced by the Turkish foreign-policy makers vis-à-vis norms versus interests in the implementation, if not formulation, of national interests.

The dynamics concerning this dilemma are well represented by the two main logics of action in International Relations (IR): the logic of consequences and the logic of appropriateness.

This article examines the Ankara’s decision-making process in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq War from the perspectives of those two logics with a particular view to the reasons and circumstances associated with the predominance of either of the logics and the shifts between them.