Column Says Erdogan, Gulen Catspaws for Western Interests in Middle East

Column Says Erdogan, Gulen Catspaws for Western Interests in Middle East

The Erdogan-Gulen Duo, Shackled By Western Praise, And The Role Of The Kurdish Political Movement

As the AKP (Justice and Development Party) Sunni Islam brotherhood sees the PKK as the only obstacle preventing them from influencing the Kurds and becoming a regional power, they have developed the recent political (more than 2,000 KCK (Assembly of Communities of Kurdistan) arrests) and bloody military operations.

The way Obama and Erdogan embraced outside the accustomed diplomatic style, stunning even the European leaders at the G-20 Summit in Cannes recently, was most interesting.

Turkey, the AKP government and the Gulen-Erdogan relationship are the key actors in the political map that is trying to be shaped in the Middle East (Liberal Sunni Islam with Shi`ite Islam under its watch).

Before carrying out its intervention in Iraq, the United States felt the need to replace its hard-line approach towards radical Islam with a more liberal political Islam that would balance out the region`s conditions. It began making the necessary ideological and theoretical region-sensitive analyses.

All the ideological codes used by the United States such as political Islam or liberal Islam are products of the United States Strategic Studies Institute and the CIA. The place where they could most successfully implement this program was Turkey with the AKP as its organized force.

When we go back a bit, (we can see how) the theological-ideological structure for liberal-political Islam centered on Fethullah Gulen, who resides in the United States, was shaped taking its influence from the philosophical Islamic notions of Said-i Nursi, notions based on education and preaching non-violence.

Interestingly enough, Fethullah Gulen, who was once condemned to death by the Kemalists, was pronounced in 2002 and 2003, first by the British strategic studies agency and later by the Economist, as the most modern appearing Islamic prophet of this age.

When we establish a historical context, we see that just as in the 19th century when the Ottoman Empire was a quasi-German colony, Kaiser Wilhelm II took a trip to the orient during which he heaped praise on Sultan Abdulhamit calling him, “the greatest and most powerful Caliph of the Islamic world.” This praise, for some reason, came at a time when German theoreticians were preparing and marketing the ideology of pan-Islamism. In other words, the Germans wanted to enter the orient but they needed a vehicle. What could be better than the Ottoman Empire?

Pan-Islamism was the German policy of venturing into the orient via Islam, while Pan-Turkism was their policy of venturing into the Caucasus in the name of the Turks. And both programs were drawn up by German military-political theoreticians.

Back to the subject at hand; it was Germany who called Abdulhamid “the most glorious Caliph of the Islamic world”; it was the United Kingdom that called Fethullah Gulen the prophet of our times, and it was Obama who presented Tayyip Erdogan as the BOP (Greater Middle East Initiative) leader and a hero, and who embraced him affectionately. There are historical parallels here.

We are not saying that history repeats itself. What we are saying is that there are historical and social ties linking what is going on today to what went on in the past.

Taking these historical phenomena as our start point, as orient society was used to mysticism and praying so its leaders were open to praise, prayer and sycophancy.

Western empiricism has always exploited this weakness of the orient`s, and still is. Pronouncing a man, who has been sentenced to death in his own country, as a prophet; to call another man, who was a city mayor up until recently, the Chairman of BOP and to embrace him; what smarter way can there be to run the imported political Islam policy than to use these two!

And look at the bully from Kasimpasha, who is always on the lips of the Turkish columnists. It makes you think w hen a person who does not have the mental or intellectual capacity to run the state is groomed for regional leadership that exceeds Turkey.

When studying 19th century Russian diplomacy, Marx said it was rife with praise and sycophancy. When Western rationalism and realism is transformed into political power it has the strength to put aside honor and pride. In Western policy praise and even sycophancy are based on motivation for the strategy that they want to put into effect.

In psychological terms, if you want somebody to do something, you first praise him. That is the formula. The person being praised is praised not because of what he has done, but what he will do. The Erdogan-Gulen duo is highly praised by the West, but actually they are shackled to US and British interests.

Tasked with pushing the moderate Islami project to the Middle East, the AKP in its first and second terms deftly played the Kurdish people through the Imrali talks. During this time and with the support of the United States and Europe they significantly purged their opponents. Meanwhile, in their third term they applied the full weight of the state and became a largely unopposed power thanks to the strategic policy that was planned for the region.

In this region, the task of being the striking force in changing the governments in Iran and Syria, and of exporting political Islam to the Arab Spring countries was given to the Fethullah Gulen-Tayyip Erdogan duo.

How else can we explain the praise they are receiving today, the warm embraces and Gulen being put up on a ranch in the United States?

The United States currently has no Kurdish policy. If it had, it is hidden on a shelf somewhere. What is important for the United States right now is the security of southern Kurdistan and the project to have the southern Kurds and the Turks get along. As for the northern Kurds; the AKP`s project of destruction and purge is either being ignored or approved through silence.

However, when the topic is a change of government in Iran and Syria; there is no way this can be done without the support of the Kurdish people. It is also true that the majority of the Kurds in both Iran and Syria are organized around the PKK-KCK.

That being so, the Kurdish political movement is not at a level high enough to obstruct the political map that others want to draw in the Middle East. However, we would not be wrong in saying that it is high enough to influence policies in the Middle East - provided no huge mistakes are made at the political table.

As the AKP (Justice and Development Party) Sunni Islam brotherhood sees the PKK as the only obstacle preventing them from influencing the Kurds and becoming a regional power, they have developed the recent political (more than 2,000 KCK (Assembly of Communities of Kurdistan) arrests) and bloody military operations. Understanding that it is going to have problems in being the pioneering force in the transformation in Syria, Turkey is even now hinting that it is planning to draw the PKK into a ceasefire or period of non-engagement.

There is much curiosity now as to how this ceasefire or period of non-engagement might take shape; also the manner and style of its announcement.

Is the projected ceasefire going to be a medium by which the AKP can get a new constitution passed by Parliament, or as some Kurdish intellectuals are saying, will the new constitution pave the way to fixing the Kurd problem. These look like being the fundamental questions in the period ahead.