--------
--------The Turkish Republic, quite possibly the only country in the Greater Middle East to have officially adopted a strict ruling on separation of church and state (or in this case, mosque and state), appears to be making two fundamental deviations from this basic tenet which was encrusted in the very foundations of post-Ottoman modern day Turkey, in response to a growing popular demand to be in tune with the culture and heritage, including their religious beliefs, while the whole world tends to see a resurgence of religious tendencies, i don't see why Turkey should be chastised as "deviating " from its past, which was dictated by one dead individual personality, in a different age..
.. Mustapha Kemal (Ataturk), the architect of the new republic, had "his" vision.... He knew where "he" wanted to take the nation after the loss of the Ottoman Empire to the debacle of World War I. Ataturk, shifted Turkey's horizons from looking eastward, where it had traditionally tended to lean, having more in common with the peoples of the Levant and of the Arabian Peninsula, than with the Europeans..
...
Ataturk succeeded partially in mentally detaching the greater portion of Turkey's past (and intended future) from its Levantine roots and grafting it to Europe. He and his successors have been trying ever since to anchor Turkey solidly in Europe unsuccessfully, because Turkey belongs in the Levant and central ASIA, that's a given, and Turkey is absolutely right in pursuing that avenue, and it is a shame that Turkey looked westwards in the post-ottoman era, because the Levant lost greatly from that forced "separation", politically and economically....
That is until now....
.
Predictions made in the past that if the European Union, which Turkey has been trying desperately to join for the better part of several decades now, continued to prevent Ankara from adhering to the Brussels club, the day would come when Turkey would begin turning toward the Middle East and Central Asia. But Europe has continued to block Ankara from full admission to the EU....
Now that day has come.------
Geopolitical Diary: Turkey Tries to Tame its Kurdish Southeast...
The Seeds of Superb Turkish Resilience..._edited.jpg)
----
The Turks are beginning to start looking eastwards for the first time since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The mixed blessing is that Turkey, possibly more so than any other nation in Eurasia, will know how to handle itself in the Middle East.....
"The larger problem that many either don't see, or want to ignore, is the fact that Turkey's identity is going through a speedy transformation,"
Indeed, this transformation comes in the form of changes within and changes without: changes in Turkey's domestic policy as well as changes in its foreign policy....
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the current prime minister, some observers feel, is gradually eroding what Ataturk had erected, and some are less than pleased that the Turkish prime minister is cuddling up to Islamist groups such as Hamas and taking Turkey headfirst into the Middle East quagmire.
"My reaction is positive. Erdogan has no strong emotional attachment to Hamas," , "but Erdogan is much smarter than Ataturk and is simply doing best than most in the Levant, I.E. working for Turkey's National interest first and foremost... and Turkey is not "competing" with other leading countries in the region. It is [working] in good cooperation with them...."
Turkey's flirtation with the Middle East may come as a mixed blessing to the West...
.
On the one hand, a rapprochement between Ankara and the Arab world, particularly with the Islamist organizations, such as Hamas, will help bring about a settlement to the long-standing conflict....because the WEST has never tried seriously to solve the crisis at any point in time, the WEST wanted the process for the sake of processes, because they know full well that Israel does not want any Palestinians left within ISRAEL, ever, on the long run....
------------
Additionally, once the fighting abates, which it eventually will, and as the "process" picks up once again, one of the needs will be for the parties involved in the conflict to agree upon a multinational deterrence force to police the Gaza-Israel border.
Deploying Western troops, be they European or U.S. would be completely out of the question for quite obvious reasons. They would make too tempting a target for Islamist gunmen in the region. Arab armies would be unacceptable to Israel, as would probably Russians and members of the former Soviet Union.
That leaves the Turks. Turkey has the largest, toughest military in the Greater Middle East, more likely than not, on a par with Israel's. Some of their units have seen action in the mountains of Kurdistan, where Turkey has been fighting a guerrilla war against the PKK – the Turkish Workers Party – for several decades now..
..
The good side for Turkey's national interest to this turn of events, is that Turkey's newly found friendship with the Arab world and its continued exclusion from Europe will result in further "Islamizing" it. The end result could be that instead of having Turkey act as a buffer between Europe and the Arab/Muslim world - a role Turkey played with great success during the Cold War as NATO' front line with the Iron Curtain - Europe may now find Turkey joining the Arab/Muslim world and militant Islam that much closer to the heart of Europe.....[this is a non argument! ]
Hamas and Hezbollah did not exist before around 1982. Their birth and strength must be understood largely as a response to Israel's occupation and colonization policies in Palestine and Lebanon, alongside other secondary reasons.
Hamas and Hezbollah are the ideological stepchildren of the Likud Party and especially Ariel Sharon, whose embrace of violence, racism and colonization as the primary means of dealing with occupied Arab populations ultimately generated a will to resist. The trio currently carrying on Sharon's legacy of brutality - Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni - seem genetically blind to the fact that the more force and brutality Israel uses against Arabs, the greater is the response in the form of more effective resistance movements that have wider public support.
The second analogy is about technical proficiency. Hezbollah and Hamas have both consistently increased their determination and ability to use assorted rockets and missiles to harass and attack Israel. More importantly, they are better able to protect their rocket launchers from preemptive Israeli attacks...
..
The number of Israeli dead in recent years is in the low hundreds, compared to the thousands of Palestinians that Israel has killed. But destruction and dead body counts are not the most useful criteria to use in this analysis. The real measures of what matters politically are the nagging Israeli sense of vulnerability, and the Palestinian sense of empowerment, defiance, and capacity to fight back.
It is a gruesome but tangible victory for Hamas simply to be able to keep firing 30 or 40 rockets a day at southern Israel, while Israel systematically destroys much of the security and civilian infrastructure in Gaza. The David and Goliath story is being reversed - in exactly the same region in southern Palestine/Israel where the story took place in the Bible..
...
The kind of frustration and impotence in Israel is reflected in its bombing attacks on the Islamic University and the Palestinian parliament building in Gaza - symbols of the sort of modernity and democracy that Israel and the United States claim they seek to promote in the Arab world, but which, in practice, they find much easier to bomb. Palestinians and Lebanese pay a very high price for their steadfastness, resistance and "victories" - but until someone offers a more cost-effective way of dealing with Israel's violence in this conflict, we are likely to see this cycle of warfare continue for some time...
..
The television images of dead children and other innocent civilians in Gaza generate a tremendous will to fight among Palestinians and supporters throughout the Arab world and beyond. Israelis remain blind to the fact that Arabs respond to brutality the same way the Israelis do. A majority of Israelis polled this week supports the continuation of attacks against Gaza, despite the high civilian death toll. Israelis seem to feel that they have the right to respond to attacks against them by using indiscriminate violence against Palestinian civilians - but Palestinians do not have the same right to respond when they are attacked by Israel. Why the double standard? One consequence of this racist, barbaric attitude by many Israelis, especially those in government, has been the birth, development and strength of Hamas and Hezbollah, and their ability to fight back with enough proficiency to force Israel to accept a ceasefire...
..
The third analogy is about the convergence between religion, nationalism, governance and politics. In both Palestine and Lebanon, the prevailing secular political systems proved dysfunctional, corrupt and unable to protect the society against Israeli aggression or domestic strife and criminality. Movements like Hamas and Hezbollah developed in large part to fill the vacuum in efficient governance, security against Israeli attacks, and domestic order. They have achieved mixed results, with success in some areas but also an intensification of warfare and destruction in others.
Trying to discredit these movements by accusing them of one primary transgression - i.e., they use terrorism, attack civilians, carry arms, cozy up to Syria and Iran, espouse an Islamist agenda - will not discredit or destroy them. This is because of the structural manner in which they fulfill multiple roles that respond to the real needs of their citizens and constituents in the realms of governance, local security, national defense, and basic service delivery - responsibilities that their secular national governments failed to fulfill...
..
The combination of these attributes makes it very hard for Israel to "defeat" Hezbollah and Hamas in their current configuration, regardless of how much death and destruction Israel rains on their societies. These two Islamist-nationalist movements reflect a long list of mostly legitimate grievances that must be addressed if peace and security are ever to reign in this region.
**************
* Geopolitical Diary: The Deteriorating U.S.-Turkish Relationship...
The USA considers TURKEY a full fledged ENEMY. Turks should Know that fact unambiguously.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly has canceled a planned trip to Turkey. The move comes as Washington is growing more vocal in its calls for Turkey to quickly wrap up its operations in northern Iraq against Kurdish militants — something Ankara says it will do when it is ready..., and it did, when Turkey's interests tell it to. The bickering is raising concerns about the status of the U.S.-Turkish relationship, which once was a pillar of regional security alliances.... But NOW, the USA considers TURKEY a full fledged ENEMY. Turks should Know that fact unambiguously, and the reason being, Turkey's growing interdependent relationship with RUSSIA, in all aspects of trade, commerce and more...
The United States and Turkey have had a strong security relationship since Turkey joined the Allies at the end of World War II. Ankara was an early contributor to the U.S.-led U.N. operations in Korea (sending one of the largest contingents of soldiers after the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, and taking the largest number of Allied casualties after the United States and United Kingdom). The country became a full NATO member in 1952. Turkey’s location made it a vital U.S. ally for controlling Soviet access to the Mediterranean from the Black Sea, as well as serving as a check on potential Soviet moves through the Caucasus to Iran or the Persian Gulf.... but Turkey was never considered a full fledged Partner and a reliable ally, and Turks know that well...
With the end of the Cold War, the U.S.-Turkish alliance continued largely unchallenged — even though the pressing reason for its existence had faded — and these states saw little need to redefine their security relationship. On the political front, Turkey began eyeing closer integration with Europe. Long a secular state and perceived by Europe as a potential bulwark against the Islamic nations of the Middle East, Turkey set its political sights on joining the European Union while it began a domestic program of economic growth.... focusing more and more on the natural environment and the interdependence of the central Asian republics and the immediate surroundings of Turkey, and a natural outgrowth of Trade and Cultural relations in the area stretching from the Balkans, all the way to Afghanistan and China.
But no matter how much Turkey does to Help NATO and USA in Afghanistan Kosovo, IRAQ, Iran and more... the USA is never pleased with how much Turkey is providing... and has pushed for Turkey's adherence to the European Union on purpose, in order to foment trouble for Europe and for Turkey... in trying to distract the TURKS from looking East and North/South... and pushing them into looking WEST... All these policies are designed in USA to create critical tensions for Europe, Turkey and RUSSIA....with eyes on RUSSIA.... but these "Covert designs" are best left for another day......
The 9/11 attacks in the United States — and, more important, the U.S. response — began to create frictions in the U.S.-Turkish relationship. Ankara balked at U.S. requests to use Turkish territory for the 2003 invasion of Iraq,and Turkey was proven right all along, particularly considering the unpopularity of the invasion within the Arab and Islamic world and Turkish concerns about the domestic repercussions amid the rising popularity of its religious political movement. The United States carried out the Iraq invasion without Turkey’s assistance, but Washington expressed its displeasure with the Turkish decision...
This decline in relations has continued. Turkey looks at its world very differently now than it did 50 years ago. The Soviet Union is not an ever-present threat, though Russia is pushing back into the Caucasus. Europe is not necessarily the shining beacon it once was. (And the European rejection of Turkish membership is reshaping the focus in Ankara.) The balance of power between Iran and Iraq has been shattered, Saudi Arabia has little military might and Egypt is beginning to take a stronger interest in the region. Ankara sees both an opportunity and a need to assert its interests in its neighborhood.
As the Ottoman Empire, Turkey once held sway over the Middle East, and it remains geographically located to reassert that role, if unofficially. In some ways, the U.S. actions in Iraq are running counter to Turkey’s own designs for the region. Washington’s goal in the Middle East is NEVER the establishment of regional peace, though the United States never espouses such ideals; rather, the primary objective is to ensure that no regional hegemon emerges except USA, either from within the region...I.E. ISRAEL, IRAN AXIS.... or from abroad. Now that Europe has snubbed Turkey, it is looking south and east for its future — and it is running into the United States....
In the short term, Turkey wants to assume a permanent security role in northern Iraq in order to deal with its Kurdish problem. Washington is trying to come up with an arrangement with Iran and the factions in Iraq that will create a relatively stable environment and facilitate a permanent stationing of U.S. forces in IRAQ, and KLEIAT Air Force Base in Northern Lebanon, in order to have a replacement one day for Incirlik.... Turkey’s actions complicate the matter, but Ankara cannot afford to be left out of the final settlement. This is to say that Washington and Ankara are about to become enemies.... precisely because of Washington's grandiose Hegemonic designs... in the New Greater Middle East, the Caucuses, RUSSIA, and way beyond...
Stratfor, the world's leading Disinformation for CIA, Texas funded and Texas based, "intelligence" is never provided.... except to AIPAC, and LAKAM etc. For any additional disinformation, please visit @stratfor.
Daily, Global Dis-Information through Faulty and Skewed "Intelligence", Stratfor, February 29, 2008
*****************
