The U.S. and West’s “personal” criticisms aimed at Turkey’s leadership do not explain the the current crisis. It is a special amalgamation of the U.S. and West’s global existence and disintegration in its administration skills, as well as Turkey’s goals and the foreign policy losses it has accumulated in minds for decades...
Since the start of the second millennium, the U.S. and West launched a new Middle East project, and developed such an imagination for its personal interests that it started to push Turkey around – which is a keystone not only for the region but also for Eastern Europe and Eurasia and, in Americans’ own description, an “extraordinary strategic country.”
There could be no simpler explanation to supersede President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s statement about the S-400 missiles: “The most important deal in our history.” Such that, what the U.S. and its associates need to comprehend is not Washington-Ankara relations alone, they also need to review their perspective of the whole region in question.
Similar to the S-400s, the Peace Spring Operation is also a strong indicator of the destruction Turkey-West relations are facing. Forget about relations going back to what they once were, even a status quo that will freeze the crisis cannot be produced.
***
Americans are surprised too. They calmed themselves by saying Turkey is going through a temper tantrum. And after overcoming this, it is going to go back to its familiar and “proper” behavior to support the U.S.
Yet, Turkey was not experiencing any hysterical fit.
It was not the last decade or the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government’s whims that were in question. Erdoğan simply popped a pimple that could no longer be tolerated, and let its puss run dry. That is the relief we feel.
That open sore has been festering for more than seven decades. It was in its final stages in 1989. Foreign policy analyses of the 1990s explain very well that we had quite some baggage; long years passed with complaints that, with the Cold War having ended, the U.S. will no longer need Turkey, and that NATO will no longer need a shield in the south wing. That was the hysteria.
It might seem funny today, yet the truth is, there is a similarity between the spiritual state of the “dominant” media, academia and intellectual world of the time stoning the U.S. military convoys retreating from the east of the Euphrates in tears, to “stop them from leaving.”
What offers greater opportunity – diplomatic/commercial/military/political maneuver options – to Turkey, the single-pole, U.S.-centered world, or a multi-polar world?
Which one can satisfy our desire for independence, our character?
***
What the West misunderstands is that they based the improbability of a Turkey-Russia alliance not on the disastrous outcomes of their own policies, but on the presumptive enmity of Ankara-Moscow relations’ history, geopolitics and culture. Yet, the “culture” in question was American culture. Thus, they tried to reiterate the two countries’ war history.
Truth is, that war history allows this. But war is the purest formula for enmity. It is the final point, then it ends.
Another matter of importance is the “cooperation” periods of Turkish-Russian relations. Let us not get into that now, however, the first example that comes to mind is the similarity between the “global political conditions” of the two countries helping each other in the War of Independence, and the global political conditions” of today.
This has to be what President Erdoğan was referring to when he emphasized on the occasion of the 96th anniversary of the Turkish Republic that, “The War of Independence is ongoing.”
***
The new map that emerged after the collapse of the Berlin Wall does not include a Turkish-Russian border that will breed a crisis. This is an important factor.
***
What comes next is simple: The future and balance of Turkish-Russian relations will be determined by the U.S.’s choices.
If Washington plans this well, even if relations are not as they used to be, relations with Russia will not deepen and remain stagnant. As a matter of fact, this is best for a world with three architects.
***
Everything aside, does the U.S. currently have this common sense?
The so-called Armenian “genocide” resolution and decision to impose sanctions due to the Peace Spring Operation say the opposite.
It is their choice at the end of the day.
However, the reactions against the so-called Armenian genocide remind us a little of those old days.
Beware! We are not Pavlov’s dog. Had the Congress decisions been accepted in that former state of the world, they could have led to different outcomes. Our fears back then were related to the conditions and our power back then.
The “sin” should be evaluated correctly. They wasted their bullets and we are outside the shooting range.
Let alone, a third of these resolutions was approved at the House of Representatives simultaneously with the other two. Are we not going to see the common mind between the decision paving the way to the process of U.S. President Donald Trump’s impeachment and that which is aimed at us?
***
As a result of this resolution, let us not confuse our conventional and outdated conditionings with our strategic concerns.
Those who suggested, “If we had the support of the Israeli lobby, these bills would not have been passed,” in other words, “Let us make peace with Israel,” and those who carry the sin of everything happening in the Middle East should not forget that it is our country who dares to disrupt plans to establish the “Deal of the Century” or the “terror corridor.”
Let us stop crying, “We are finished. That’s that; they will take us to court with the genocide decision, they will take land.”
For God’s sake, who is giving and taking land these days?
