THE TURKISH MISCALCULATIONS: HE WHO COOKS POISON, POISON SHALL HE EAT
Al-Thawrah (Government owned)
Aug 27 2012
Syria
by Dr Amin Muhammad Hutayt, a Syrian university professor.
When Turkey decided to assume regional leadership of the
neo-colonialism under the title of “neo-Ottoman” ideology or modern
Islamic caliphate, it thought that the road was open for it in view
of the strategic Arab vacuum, the Western embargo imposed on Iran,
and the decline in the Israeli role or capability, coupled with
volatility in regional circumstances that would prevent Israel from
playing the role it played when Shim’on Peres initiated the great or
new Middle East concept, which, according to his theory, is based on
“Zionist ideology” and Arab money.
Turkey thought that the best way to assume a Turkish leadership of
the region first and the Muslim world second could be done through
its economic capabilities and relations with more than one nation
in an independent state in Central Asia. This is in addition to its
Islamic history and present situation, which showed the ability of
the Islamists in it to tighten their grip on the state and skip the
obstacle of the army, which is the guard of Ataturk’s secularism.
Bearing this in mind, Turkey – the Justice and Development Party –
launched the “zero problem” strategy, thinking that it would knock
down borders with neighbours and overcome the tragic history with more
than one people and state in the region, and that this would enable
it to move quickly towards the new imperial dream. It then “stormed”
the Palestinian issue, which is considered the central issue of the
Arabs and Muslims (I mean the peoples and not regimes that guard the
West and Israel), and proceeded towards establishing or preparing to
establish strategic relations with countries in the region, beginning
with Syria, the closest neighbour that has a distinguished status.
Davutoglu, the architect of the “zero problem” strategy, viewed Syria
as a safe doorway to Turkey’s strategic depth (in the book he issued
in 2001), and Turkey cannot realize its dreams except by having a
special position in Syria.
Here we must note that Syria has responded to the new Turkish policy
and felt very comfortable to establish strategic relations with
it under the new approach – although Turkey is a NATO member state
that has special ties with Israel – because such relations will in
the minimum neutralize the Turkish force in the conflict with the
Zionist enemy, in addition to the possibility of benefiting from
it in more than one job that Turkey can do within the framework of
the conflict, the least of which was backing away from its blatant
support for Israel.
But Turkey was not honest or sincere in its efforts. It harboured the
opposite of what it exhibited because as soon as the Western aggression
against Syria was launched in implementation of a US plan based on the
“smart soft power strategy,” Turkey began to play the role of field
director of the aggression. It began its intervention by playing the
role of “teacher” of Syria and allowed itself to address Syria with a
colonial and arrogant language. It acted as if Syria was still one of
the states of the Ottoman Empire. Here came the first sign of Turkish
miscalculation when the neo-Ottoman tendency collided with a Syrian
Arab vigour that prevented the revival of the past and stressed the
sovereignty and dignity of Syria. This reflected on Turkey in the form
of Turkish outrage and hatred against Syria and that was translated
immediately in the form of Turkish engagement in field work against it.
During the field work phase, Turkey played the role of an interferer
conspiring against Syria on two levels:
On the political level, it sponsored a gathering of foreign
intelligence agents and groups of people harbouring grudge or striving
for power and established for them a council that was falsely called a
“Syrian National Council,” which was actually meant to serve foreign
interests in Syria. Turkey thought that its fabricated council would
substitute the legitimate authority in Syria, and here was the second
miscalculation because in the same way as this council was established
as a puppet, it continued to be a puppet that kept eroding to the
extent that it became a stinking corpse and a burden on its makers,
including Turkey in the forefront.
On the military level, Turkey has turned itself into a base for
terrorist mobilization and action against Syria as a prelude to the
implementation of a broad international operation spearheaded by Turkey
so that it would harvest the gains – as it thought – and Syria would
then become a back garden for the revamped Ottoman Empire. And this
was a miscalculation in a new form because international military
action was confirmed impossible and talk about it was only a waste
of time, something which made Turkey focus on an internal military
action that is implemented with criminal and terrorist tools.
Turkey pinned great hopes on terrorism against Syria and imagined that
Syria would fall within weeks and the doors of Damascus would be opened
to the new Ottoman sultan. That was another Turkish miscalculation
because Syria with all its official and civil national components
stood firm and broke the terrorist tide, something which placed it
before a bitter reality it had apparently not anticipated.
Turkey thought that the defence practised by Syria and its coherent
regional alliance within the axis of resistance, which is consistent
with an emerging international front, would not have the strength
to confront and at best not burn the Turkish fingers with its fire,
and here lies the most serious Turkish miscalculation because the
field and theatre acted against Turkey and its dreams. Here we will
stop at the following basic elements:
1. Turkey is unable to win the terrorist battle, in which it and
the front of aggression against Syria were involved, and there is an
implicit Turkish conviction that the hopes it pinned on toppling the
Syrian regime were a futile dream and hopes impossible to be achieved
because the Syrian people alone are the ones to decide for themselves.
2. Turkey is unable to mount a direct military intervention with
its military forces to make up for its failure. Turkey knows that
everything it says about safe zones, humanitarian corridors, buffer
zones, and other such things is based on the idea of mounting foreign
military intervention in Syria. All these things are impossible to
implement due to Syrian solidity, Iranian firmness, and firm Russian
rejection of such an intervention even if this leads to a comprehensive
international military confrontation. Turkey and its allies are not
prepared for that.
3. There is a serious and real Turkish fear of the future of the
terrorist action it led against Syria under US supervision and
guidance, and here we remember the phenomenon of the “Arab Afghans,”
who became a burden and a problem for the countries from which they
set out to fight the Soviet Union. As soon as the Soviet troops
left Afghanistan, these turned into “unemployed fighters” and their
countries began to feel the threat they posed. Turkey today is not
far from this. Therefore, Turkey hastened to seek the help of the
United States. Contrary to rumours that the recent military meeting
between the two countries was held to prepare plans for a military
intervention in Syria, it was held to prepare security plans to defend
Turkey, which is afraid of counterattacks from the Syrian castle,
which withstood the terrorist and hostile hurricane.
4. Turkey is scared about the opening of files that are about to
explode in its face although it tried to conceal this in the context
of the so-called “zero problems” policy, which has turned into a
“zero friends” policy. The most dangerous thing here is that the
renewal of hostilities is more closely connected to peoples than
regimes. We will mention here the four basic files affecting the
essence of the Turkish entity and haunting the Turks:
A. The sectarian file: Turkey thought that starting a sectarian
fire in Syria will burn only Syria, forgetting that its community
is ideologically and religiously heterogeneous and that geographic
proximity makes fire in a neighbouring country inevitably spread to
its house and this is what Turkey has started to feel.
B. The national file: Turkey thought it has enduring power to prevent
the painful Kurdish move against it, and this is another aspect of
miscalculation because the Kurdish move, which has reached a painful
and effective level, has started to haunt the Turks and force them
to seriously reconsider the whole file.
C. The political file: Turkey thought that its reliance on the NATO
will enable it to overcome the positions adopted by regional countries
and enable it to impose policies that are fit for it, but it found that
it was slowly getting itself in a fatal political isolation. The ones
on whose friendship it was counting in its aggressive policy against
Syria are now moving away from it for fear of its ambitions, and the
ones in whose enmity it found a benefit because it was able to crush
them and dictate its orders on them, demonstrated such steadfastness
and strength that shocked it. It has thus become a country with a
“zero friends.”
D. The security file: Despite Turkey’s denial of decline in Turkish
security, this has become a painful reality, especially for economists
and more specifically those working in the field of tourism. During
the past six months, Turkey lost more than 50 per cent of its regular
revenues.
In view of all this, Turkey is now panting after the United States and
begging it to pull it out of the quagmire it entered because it did not
only lose in the aggressive attack on Syria and did not only expose its
reality and the falsehood of its claims, but also it is not sure if it
can protect the cards it has in its hands. Demonstrations in Antioch,
Armenian claims, Kurdish attacks, and the voices of the Turkish
opposition and the Turkish political parties’ objection to Erdogan’s
policy, in addition to the regional countries’ lack of confidence in
it or reluctance to deal safely with it, are accumulating to generate
a hurricane, the winds of which will not go in the direction desired
by the ships of Erdogan and Davutoglu. This will remind them of the
proverb: He who cooks poison, poison shall he eat.
[Translated from Arabic]