It has been five years since Muhammed Buazizi, a young man in Tunis who earned his living from peddling, attempted to commit suicide by burning himself, as a result of the lawless and the unjust practices of the Tunisian police. Now, December 17 refers to an interesting coup attempt in Turkish history from two years ago. Yet on the same day five years ago, the revolution process that would force Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had been ruling the country for 23 years, to abandon the country upon the reaction of Tunisians, who poured into the streets following Buazizi's demonstration. The mass mobilization that spread from Tunis to other Arab countries also brought to an end the Hosni Mubarak administration in Egypt, which ran the country with a military dictatorship for 30 years.
Syria was one of the most critical stops of the Arab revolutions that developed in many Arab countries with demands such as freedom of expression, improvement of democratic rights and participation in the decision-making processes. It has been almost five years since the people of Syria started their civilian and democratic mass protests against the Baath regime that had been ruling the country since 1963, and its tangible form since 1970, the Assads regime.
The Bashar Assad regime, which reacted extremely harshly following the peaceful mass demonstrations, escalated the violence to frighten and oppress the opposition, which led to a civil war in the country, and with the extension of the crisis, the situation in Syria turned into a global fault line. The mention of Assad in Syria today does not only refer to Bashar Assad, but also to Russia and Iran. The meaning of the argument that “Bashar Assad should also be at the table during the transition period,” is the idea that if politics in Syria is going to be reshaped, this cannot happen with the exclusion of Russia and Iran.
Last week we touched on Russia's Syria policy, its massacres particularly on the Turkish border and crimes against humanity. However, we did not go into detail on the analysis of the position of Iran, which is in the region as a “Muslim” country.
The Iranian Revolution, also known as the Islamic Revolution, created a stir in the entire Muslim region with its universal messages. Although Rouhani Khamenei's messages of unity aimed at Muslim communities, to bring closer the Shiite ideology and Sunni faith, were inadequate, his efforts were watched carefully by the non-Shiite elements of the Muslim world.
Such that, the universal messages and revolutionary spirit in the early stages of the Iranian Revolution, raised interest not in the Muslim world alone, but also in the reputable intellectuals of the West. In 1978, Michel Foucault showed open sympathy toward the Islamic movement in Iran. Yet, it would only be a short while after the revolution that he expressed his disappointment.
The clearest slogan of the Iranian Revolution was to be with the “oppressed,” in other words, the “weak.” It is difficult to say the content of this slogan was fulfilled in the true sense during the era of Khamenei. However, taking into consideration that Khamenei took action with the concern to institutionalize the revolution, it could be claimed that certain developments in internal politics as well as the impact of the Iran-Iraq War, made it difficult to apply the universal emphasizes of the understanding of “weak” in foreign policy.
After the death of Khamenei, the Iranian administration showed a clear tendency of Persian nationalism with a much clearer emphasis of Shiism in its regional policies. Iran's regional policy has taken the form of supporting Shiism and elements that would feed its cultural background against other elements. This policy, from time to time, has also been configured with the concern of countries such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Yemen shaping or adjusting its internal politics. Let alone Iran, which claims Islamic Revolution, undertaking a universal role, it is stuck in a discriminatory, separationist and sectarian position even within Islam. This sectarian view is one of the basic motivations of Iran's Syria policy. The first outside intervention in the Syrian civil war was, within this context, from Iran. This approach by Iran increased its distance from the Muslim world. What is more is that the policies followed by Iran sowed the seeds of the worst possible disaster scenarios, namely sectarian wars in the upcoming term in the region. In this context, Iran's red line in Syria boiling down to Bashar Assad, who has the blood of 400,000 of his own people on his hands, is very strange. The authority of Ali Khamenei's adviser Ali Akbar, who declared Assad's political future as Iran's red line, indicates the continuity in Iran's unethical position toward the Muslim world.
Iran's hostile attitude, which is holding on to the system with the diplomatic efforts of Turkey, while under the embargo of the entire world due to its nuclear program, is going into history. Iranians are aware that Turkey is the base of their agreement with the West.
Instead of this mission by Turkey giving rise to sincere emotions in Iranian decision-makers, it developed an interesting feeling of lowliness. With the naiveté of not being able to understand the strangeness of complete hate speech toward Umar, a companion of Prophet Muhammad, who honored Iran with Islam, rather than thanking him, we are perhaps trying to make sense of the traumatic policies and discourses against Turkey.
Let us remind that, despite this, the result of the agreement between Iran and the Obama administration is not yet clear. It is difficult to figure out what they might face in the event of a new wave of embargoes. Iran's policies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen are estranging us from the Muslim world. In this state, the Iranian administration is very openly betraying Khamenei and the Islamic Revolution. It already started to rapidly eat its children after the Revolution and now, it is devouring what was left of the Revolution.
