Turkey and the major options

Written by Nasser Kandil,

“The one who puts poison in the food will Surely taste it sooner or later” is an Arab proverb that is applied on the Turkish leadership which without it and without what it has of capabilities and what it occupies of geography, along with its dreams and illusions, the war would not take place around which all the wars of the region revolve. It is the war which was launched to overthrow Syria. The regime of Ankara was the reason of turning the idea from a plan into a reality. This track which its beginning was by exposing the stability of Syria, its unity, and its cohesion to threat seems ending by the exposition of the stability of Turkey, its unity, and its cohesion to threat.

The Turkish leadership led by the Turkish President Recep Erdogan did not take into consideration that the failure will be the fate of the war on Syria, and did not think that Iran and Russia will surround him till retreat and failure, or that when Washington fails, it will move to an alternative plan entitled Kurdish privacy at the expense of Turkey, or that the war on ISIS and Al Nusra will impose on him the partnership against both of them after he participated in their sponsoring, taking care, and protecting. But the danger which Erdogan and his political and security leadership did not pay attention to was that the one that grew up stealing the money of the Iraqi oil and despoiling it in cooperation with the ruling mafias in Turkey will decide to secede paving the way for the disintegration of Turkey under US- Israeli support, betting on that the financial bribes received by those who are close to the despoiled oil revenues will protect the decision of the secession. All of that happened and now Turkey is reaping the outcome of its tampering with the future of Syria, its unity, and its stability.

During the past years, Ankara has acted on the basis that Erbil is closer to it than Baghdad, and that Erbil is a reliable ally, while Tehran is an opponent. Now it discovers that these rules are falling at once. Ankara has participated in agitating the sectarian strife with Saudi Arabia and Qatar hoping that it will lead the Muslim world on that basis, now it finds itself a partner in making the Iraqi and the regional background in which the Sunnis and the Shiites unite. On one hand, the Arabs of Iraq are on one bank above the sectarian and political divisions; all the attempts to divide them are falling because of the new game and the feeling of danger. One the other hand, regionally the Turks and the Iranians who represent two extreme sectarian poles seem together, and the unification of the Arab popular background and the Islamic popular background would not take place without this adventure through which the Americans and the Israelis have entrusted Masoud Al-Barazani and his leadership to take it by the illusion of gains and seizing the opportunity. This indicates to the magnitude of the US dilemma, where every step which seems a momentum forward, its cost seems to be higher than its expected revenues.

In fact, Iran, Syria, and the resistance are away from the need to penetrate deeply and directly into the issue of the secession of the Iraqi Kurdistan. The decision of preventing every federal formula for the Kurds of Syria was prior to any step by Al-Barazani. This step led to grant an additional legitimacy to every attempt of deterring the weak projects of the Kurdish secession which may be witnessed by Syria. What Turkey will witness along with the Iraqi government will be enough, since both of them are allies to Washington, as Al-Barazani. If the two governments were in relation with the axis of resistance, then the actual battle would remain hard for Washington to choose the clear and the announced option where the losses and the gains are bigger than the expected gains, while it is easy for the axis of the resistance to boast of its options on one hand and to calm down its fronts on the other hand, because there will be who will be forced by the necessity to handle it. Israel will not feel reassured if it drives the sources of power to another front away from it, since it is already terrified from tomorrow.

The context of the accumulated developments since the battle of Aleppo is as the context of the superficial hasty US behavior, they show that Turkey is finding itself gradually with Russia and Iran, so it has to position clearly within this bilateral. The first crucial step is through Ankara’s dispute toward Erbil, and the cooperation with Baghdad contrary to what it used to be throughout the years, the second step is about Syria, it is through the retreat which has been avoided by Erdogan for long time, and the recognition  that the national Turkish security starts by the recognition that the there is no legitimacy for a role in Syria without the consent of the Syrian government,  the Syrian President, and the Syrian army, and that Turkey’s reassurance of its southern borders will not be achieved by the Turkish tampering with the Syrian geography, but with the work on the project of the Syrian country, which its beginning is the recognition of the military withdrawal from the Syrian territories in favor of the Syrian army, it is the first signs of the cooperation in ensuring the mutual security across the borders, and that the legitimacy of the role is granted by the legitimacy of the opposite concerned country and the legitimacy of its president, so any other words are nonsense.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,