DIMENSIONES DE LA MÚSICA a) Desarrollo de la percepción auditiva

As described in the Syria chapter, Turkey has worked hard in the past few years to develop a close relationship with Assad's Syria. Turkey did not just rush to intervene once the protests and later, violence, began; Turkey has been carefully cultivating a relationship upon which the Foreign Ministry believed they could rely when it came time to deal with these tough issues along with the Assad regime. For example, Turkey intervened with Syria in the August 2006 Lebanon Crisis when its relationship with Israel was becoming increasingly strained. Aras and Gorener's statements regarding Turkish intervention in the Crisis echo what Aras later told me regarding Turkey's attitude at the beginning of the Syrian protest; that Assad would listen to logic:

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Turkey’s involvement in this crisis stood in stark contrast to its former stance of deliberate non-involvement in Syria’s regional affairs and Middle Eastern conflicts in general, which again demonstrates the confidence of Turkish policy- makers that Turkish–Syrian relations were in such good standing that Syria would respond positively to Turkish demands in regional matters. 296

In contrast to 2006 however, Assad did not listen to Turkey and instead insulted the Foreign Ministry's years of relationship building by failing to heed its suggestions and eventually, demands.

Bülent Aras explained the Turkish government's and specifically Prime Minister's reasoning behind intervention in Syria. He began by saying that "geography has bitter historical memories."297 People need to understand the history and historical traumas before they can understand how governments in the region can make such drastic decisions. He described how the Prime Minister considered the Halepci massacre in Iraq in 1988, when Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against the Kurds. Then he considered the Hama massacre in Syria in 1982, when the Hafiz Assad regime decimated the village in order to wipe out the Muslim Brotherhood, killing up to 30,000 Syrians in the process. Dr. Aras described how the Prime Minister made an interesting statement when Assad began attacking the protesters; he said, "I will not let another Halepci and Hama happen in this geography." Dr. Aras went on, "Of course it's a very wise statement if you say I will not let another Hama or Halepci happen in this geography that makes you a regional leader, but later on you need to fulfill this promise. This high rhetoric sometimes puts the Foreign Ministry people into real trouble to fulfill it."298 This is a blunt reminder that though the Turkish government's grand humanitarian ambitions may be heartfelt and sincere, it is still easier said than done.

Though pledging to prevent massacres sounds like the "morally correct" position, the practical steps that must be taken in order to do so are not clear-cut. The

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Aras, B. and Gorener A. (2010). National role conceptions and foreign policy orientation: the ideational bases of the Justice and Development Party’s foreign policy activism in the Middle East. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies

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Interview with Bulent Aras May 24, 2013 298

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difference between refusing to support Assad due to his violence against the Syrian people versus actively working toward his overthrow causes Turkey to move from the realm of activist foreign policy to something more akin to nation building, or at the very least, the threat of military intervention. Once these promises are made public, the Turkish government must either take the necessary steps to fulfill them, or risk losing face not only in front of the international community, but the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees currently living in Turkey, along with the Turkish citizens who vote them into power. The tension between fulfilling their promises and balancing strategic considerations of their own power and limited military strength has caused the AKP government to entrench themselves ever deeper in the Syrian conflict without leaving themselves with a safe exit strategy. Therefore, Turkey will continue to shelter refugees, support the opposition, and to some extent, mediate among the various parties to the conflict in order to fulfill their promises to the Syrian people, but not at the level necessary to actually resolve the conflict. The amount of force necessary to allow the opposition to triumph over Assad is more than the Turkish government and military can muster alone. Not only is the strategy reactionary, but it illustrates the sharp divide between the AKP and previous administrations:

This is where the AKP’s perspective on regional matters is distinct from Ozal’s regional activism, which was primarily driven by a powerful economic initiative. AKP’s regional initiatives are often motivated by a normative moral framework. That is, Turkey is developing a strongly pronounced sense of responsibility to provide stability for the people and countries of the region with which it shares a common historical heritage.299

When the sense of responsibility is not matched by capability or international will, Turkey's involvement in an ongoing violent conflict becomes precarious.

In relation to international will, there seems to be differing views regarding Turkey's reliance on the United States. Due to Turkey's experience dealing with the United States when it attempted to mediate with Iran and the international community, Turkey has learned that "mediation is good when you do not put all your eggs into one

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Aras, B. and Gorener, A. (2010) National role conceptions and foreign policy

orientation: the ideational bases of the Justice and Development’s Party’s foreign policy activism in the Middle East’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies (p.83).

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basket."300 During the Iranian mediation attempt, Turkey and Brazil convinced Iran to meet the United States' conditions but in the end, the U.S. rejected the deal anyway. Perhaps the United States never expected Turkey to succeed in convincing Iran to accept the conditions. This experience taught Turkey not to rely on U.S. assistance in future intervention attempts. Dr. Aras assured me that Turkey's calculations in Syria are made without consideration of significant amounts of U.S. aid. However, Erdoğan's statements advocating humanitarian intervention make it clear that Turkey strongly desired to intervene in Syria, and the Turkish government worked hard to generate international support for such intervention. Since Turkey could not generate support for intervention, it's efforts to support the Syrian opposition were not enough to end the conflict decisively. We can only speculate how Turkey would have acted, and how much support it would have given the opposition, if it knew that international intervention would not be forthcoming.