How was Obama's red line crossed?

Photo: Reuters

by Aydoğan Vatandaş - Allegations made by America's most highly regarded investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, that Turkey was behind the sarin gas attack that took place last year in Syria never found much voice in the American mainstream media.

In fact, the US administration even went so far as to openly reject the allegation. The fact, however, that such an allegation was rejected by the administration does not mean that it is not a threat to both the Obama administration and to Turkey.

In fact, Hersh has been known throughout his career to have made many interesting allegations, quite of few of which were refuted at first but then later turned out to be true. One thing is certain: Over time, Hersh has become a trusted name for many deep sources within the state that wish to see certain truths illuminated.
Hersh first wrote about the Syria allegations for the London Review of Books in an article published on Dec. 19, 2013. Because the Turkish public was so focused on the Dec. 17 government corruption claims, not much attention was paid to the sarin gas attack allegations.

In his Dec. 19 article, Hersh accused the Obama administration of ignoring intelligence reports about the chemical attack in Syria and of hiding the truth. It is well known that Hersh wanted to see the first of his series on this topic published in the famous New Yorker magazine. But the magazine, a well-known personal favorite of Obama's, refused to publish it. For those interested in learning more about Hersh's personal investigative reporting accomplishments, my advice would be to read Robert Miraldi's “Seymour Hersh: Scoop Artist.”

So yes, the Obama administration denies Hersh's discoveries. But it should not be forgotten that similarly, the Lyndon B. Johnson administration also denied Hersh's claims that US forces in Vietnam were using illegal weapons, and that these claims turned out later to be very true. Likewise, former US President Richard Nixon publicly denied Hersh's allegations about the My Lai massacre, though later, when it emerged that these allegations were in fact true, the news was front page story material for newspapers all over the world.
Hersh's previous allegations

Hersh was also in the spotlight for his allegations about US involvement in the overthrow and killing of Chile's Salvador Allende; although then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger denied Hersh's claims on this front, they, too, later turned out to be true.

In 1975, Hersh wrote about how the US's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was reading private letters belonging to American citizens. His claims on this front were again denied, but later, a US Congress investigation showed that he had in fact been right.

Here is what can be said about Hersh: He is a very careful journalist. He appears never to have been tricked or cheated by any sources. He has produced no news thus far that has turned out to be untrue. He has succeeded in winning over the trust of some very deep information sources.

In other words, he is an absolute nightmare for governments and politicians all over the world.

When one reads Hersh's final two articles examining the sarin gas attack in Syria, it becomes clear that his real target is not the Turkish government, but rather the Obama administration.

What Hersh is really doing is accusing Obama -- who wants Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's departure for political reasons-- of ignoring Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government organizing a sarin gas attack that wound up causing the deaths of 1,500 people. All of this is why the White House's denials of these allegations makes a lot of sense for Washington; after all, the accusations are aimed at not only the Erdoğan government, but additionally -- and most pointedly -- at the Obama administration.

And to wit, it was common knowledge that the Washington, D.C., meeting which took place last May between Obama and Erdoğan, the main focus of which was the use of chemical weapons in Syria, was a tense one that did not go well, and that Ankara did not walk away feeling as though it got what it had wanted. At this meeting, Erdoğan presented evidence that Assad had been using chemical weapons in Syria

Relying on information provided by a high-level contact in the intelligence world, Hersh wrote that when National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Undersecretary Hakan Fidan tried to bring up the use of chemical weapons twice during that particular meeting, he was interrupted by Obama; in response, Erdoğan noted with tension that his [Obama's] red line has been crossed.”

Of course, people closely following the subject had already heard essentially all these allegations. Rumors that Obama had not lost his cool at those meetings on Syria, but that later, in various settings, he had been heard making extremely critical comments about Erdoğan, had spread from the back corridors of Washington, D.C., all the way to the back corridors of Ankara. In fact, after the May meeting, Obama and Erdoğan did not speak personally for many months; in the latest talk between the two leaders in February Erdoğan reportedly complained about Fethullah Gülen, and it was claimed that Obama heard him out, although the White House has denied this.

The difference in the views of Turkey and the US on the Syria matter continued with Russia's prioritization of the Geneva 2 initiative. During this time, Turkey portrayed an image of not contributing anything positive and was actually accused of sabotaging, rather than supporting, the talks.
'US behind Gezi protests'

And so, as the tension continued between Turkey and the US over Syria that spring, the Gezi uprisings exploded in İstanbul. It has not been forgotten that around that time, Erdoğan and his close circles made statements intimating that the hand of the US, in fact, might have been behind the Gezi events. In addition to making people think that Erdoğan really believed that the US was behind the Gezi events, it also strengthened allegations that certain developments that occurred might have angered the US administration.

Personally, I believe that the most important point in Hersh's article went largely unnoticed: Erdoğan did not, in fact, return empty-handed from the May meeting on Syria. Based on sources in the CIA, Hersh notes that Obama had allowed Turkey to ignore the sanctions against Iran for a while, and that within this framework some $13 billion had entered Iran in 2013 alone, with 15 percent of this amount being shared between Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates as a bribe.

In statements published in the Turkish press on Tuesday, it was noted that Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab's boss, Babak Zanjani, asserted that Zarrab had not carried out his business in Iran on his own and that what lay behind it was actually a very complicated organization.

In the meantime, it is quite curious to note the actual date that Zanjani was added to the US' "black list" in the wake of findings made by financial intelligence units working with the US Treasury Department.

On the 283rd page of the official summary of proceedings -- which were not read out in Parliament and which came after the Dec. 17 corruption investigation, when four government ministers resigned -- there is a note regarding telephone conversation that took place between Zarrab and another Iranian business figure. Credit herein goes to Hürriyet reporter Tolga Tanış, who was the first one to notice this detail from the summary of proceedings.

The aforementioned telephone conversation was recorded on April 10, 2013. What happened one day later? On the US Treasury's "Press Center' webpage, (http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl1893.aspx), a press release shows that one day after that recorded telephone conversation, Zanjani was placed on the "black list" based on allegations of involvement in laundering billions in Iranian money.

In other words, as Hersh himself wrote, it is clear that at the May meeting between Obama and Erdoğan, business with Iran had been discussed, which means that US intelligence was definitely aware of the telephone conversation mentioned above. As it has become clear in recent times that the US listens to many heads of state through the powers possessed by the National Security Agency (NSA), it is unreasonable to believe that the country is not engaging in eavesdropping on their counterparts in Turkey.

In the meantime, Zanjani's Turkish partners who were put on the US' "black list" on April 11 are now leading Turkey. Hersh's sources note that Obama is prepared to let things slide on this topic for a while longer.

It is simply not possible that the Erdoğan government was not aware that on April 11, 2013, Zanjani had been placed on the US' "black list." The fact that Erdoğan was already talking about a “song and dance” before visiting the US in May 2013, and that he referred to Obama's “red line” with regard to Syria, gives important clues about the pressure he is facing on this front. To wit, the public atmosphere in Turkey is one in which even the harshest allegations against Erdoğan can be scattered to the wind easily. In the US, it is exactly the opposite, where Obama might be lambasted for allegations of having made an unacceptable error in Syria as an ally. In fact, the Republican Party has already begun to mutter loudly on this front.

By now, it should be clear why Putin was the first major world leader to congratulate Erdoğan, and why Obama has still not done so.

*Aydoğan Vatandaş is an investigative journalist based in New York.

Published on Today's Zaman