By: İbrahim Karagül*
They determined deep areas of weakness and made plans to carry out every intervention through these areas of weakness. Now, ethnic clashes are dragging that entire vast geography into a great destruction through sectarian wars; they are implementing disaster and chaos scenarios to spread throughout the entirety of the 21st century.
Nobody should feel they are safe. No country should trust relations. No capital should plan to protect itself by hiding behind this great plan and what’s more, think they are going to make certain gains. We are still in the first stages of these century-old interventions. We are going through disaster after disaster because of the dimwits and traitors in our country, on our territories.
Who is dragging us into the sea of blood?
We are swimming in the sea of blood, one of the causes for the exhaustion of the custom-made regimes that have been prevalent throughout the course of the 20th century and the inaptitude of the appointed political cadres. We are struggling to find life, grow a sapling, discover a breathing space amid the senselessness of those superficial borders, the betrayal of forced statelets and the worn our social ties.
We are the people of a period, an interval in history, an era of unfortunateness in which states have become organized, political morals have almost disappeared, the region is pillaged through terrorist organizations. People who have coexisted for thousands of years are made to kill each other, our ancient cities are turned into ruins and every country that lifts up its head is punished in the heaviest way.
We are also this period’s heroes. We are the heroes of a new rising era, a challenge, a deep change that might start after all this evil, after this state of hitting rock bottom, of which the signs are already apparent.
How are you different from the Crusaders, Mongols?
We are in shock about Aleppo. We are experiencing the shock of how countries failed morally, how the Muslim identity is made invaluable by those countries and organizations that use Islam the most, and how the simplest humanitarian rights and morals are destroyed.
We are witnessing how women and children are being destroyed, how they are not even allowed to leave a city that has been eradicated, turned into ruins, how the countries sanctified with massacres and the organizations affiliated with them show no compassion to the wounded.
How are you different from the Crusaders that invaded Jerusalem and slaughtered all Muslims? How are you different from the Crusaders and Mongols who razed Anatolia to the ground? How are you different from the Mongols who burned down Baghdad and colored the rivers in blood?
How are you different from those who had the slaves in Abu Ghraib shredded to pieces by the dogs and held them subject to the harshest of humiliations only because they were Muslim? How are you different to Israel, which was established over the blood of the people of Palestine and breeds on their blood?
Who are you, what are you, what is your religion?
They were Christians, idolaters, Jews. You always said the same thing, you said they are far from us, they are our enemies, they are strangers, they are invaders; that is what you taught us.
So, who are you, what are you? Where are we going to place you in Aleppo? Under which civilization, which religion, which culture are we going to classify you?
Let us say that this is a war. Let us say that the opposition forces are defeated. Let us say you took Aleppo. So what, are you going to slaughter everyone, shoot them all, totally eliminate them? What do you want? Are you going to leave nobody alive in this city which you have turned into ruins? You are blocking women and children from leaving; you are attacking ambulances, vehicles carrying the wounded.
You tell us; what shall we call you?
You are attempting civilian massacre and mass slaughter. What are you; who are you? What kind of moral and tradition created you? Are you going to rise by killing Muslims, become a state by massacring the innocent, gain respect through gaining the animosity of the region?
Or have you given up all this and should we identify you as a new invasive power, a new occupying power? You tell us, what shall we call you? What shall we think about what you will be doing in the region after seeing how you treated the innocent in Aleppo?
Aleppo: Iran’s Srebrenica
Turkey created a breathing space by ensuring cease-fire with Russia. It opened a passage to safely evacuate those people who were trapped in a tight corner and left under ruins. Iran opposed this with all its elements within the Syrian army and all terrorist organizations it stationed in Syria. It did not work, it failed to stop it.
This time it attacked the convoys carrying civilians, the ambulances carrying the wounded. It slaughtered the civilians fleeing the war and massacres. Perhaps if they had remained there, if they had stayed in Aleppo, we were going to witness a kind of Srebrenica and this was going to be carried out by the terrorist organizations affiliated with Iran.
That ugly sectarian discourse and the Persian empire
While this is the state, should we not say anything to Iran, should we not oppose this ruthless attitude of Tehran, should we not react at all? What kind of a state or regime is this?
Does this state, which turns all its weapons toward Muslims through an ugly sectarian discourse, which uses all its power to annex Muslim territories, which founds terrorist organizations and gets them to attack countries through sectarian fanaticism, have no sacreds at all?
We know, this is no sectarian war. We know, Iran is dreaming of Persian imperialism. We know, it is serving these invasive and expansive plans through sects. We also know that it is playing the head hitman of the sectarian wars which are wanted to be turned into nuclear powers that can destroy the entire geography.
Using its great invasion plans, it is trying to establish a Persian empire from the Red Sea to Afghanistan and is poisoned by power; we are aware of it all.
You look at your own ethnic map first
But no more than 50 percent of this country is of Persian origin. The population of those of Azerbaijan, Arab, Kurdish, Turkmen and Baloch origin exceeds those of Persian origin. The country’s ethnic fragility is more sensitive than any other country in the region. It is turning everybody of Shiite origin around the world into a weapon and destabilizing the countries in which they are present.
It is targeting Persian Gulf countries, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. It supports and breeds terrorist organizations, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) against Turkey. It is returning the moral support it received from Muslim communities since the revolution in blood.
However, this is the first time Iran has started to target Muslim communities so openly. It carried out horrific sectarian massacres in Iraq. Now, it is doing the same thing in Syria. Its immoral war, hidden behind its sectarian identity, has reached such an extent that it has started to carry out mass executions, to kill the innocent, those fleeing war, women and children.
It is going to attack Mecca as well
Tehran’s issue in Syria is not Syria. It is not to protect the Damascus regime. It took Iraq and it wants to take Syria too to expand its border all the way to the Mediterranean coast. It is to take Yemen as well and expand its border all the way to the Red Sea. And finally to take Mecca and set war in the heart of Islam.
We are not going to use a sectarian language. We are not going to look at our region in that way. We are not going to accuse the people of Iran with that discourse. We are going to turn our arrows toward the Tehran regime against these immoral invasion attempts of Iran. Despite everything, we are going to wait for those living in Iran who have a conscience to speak up. We are going to address their human sensibilities.
They are setting up war in the heart of Islam through Iran
But we are going to put forth our sharpest reactions against these invasive policies and aggressive approach of the Tehran regime, which has set the region on fire. We are going to condemn and blame such a regime, which has turned its entire power against Muslim countries and communities, we are going to try and prevent it from jointly hitting Muslims with the Western wave of invasion.
We are only realizing now that those who said a decade ago that “The war is going to settle in Islam’s heart,” were going to plot this through Iran. Despite all of the provocations of Iran, which has been provoking the fields of instability of all the countries around it, we are not going to be defeated by those “civil war” theories. But this does not mean we are not going to do anything. It has already done far more than enough; it has become isolated and alienated in the region, it has become an outside enemy.
Aleppo has not fallen, remember the Mongols
Aleppo has not fallen. Such wars do not end. Wars like this do not reach an end. Those who leave today will return tomorrow. Those who think they won today will understand they were defeated tomorrow. Those who attempt to wipe out cities, countries and nations can never win.
I feel like reminding the Tehran administration of the Mongols and the Crusaders today. I feel like reminding them what this region’s revenge will be like. I feel like reminding them that a new Persian empire is nothing but a dream.
Time will come and you will be hit in your own home
I feel like saying, if you enter this road at full speed, if you stab all the countries, nations and cities in the region in the back, time will come and you will be hit on the inside, you will collapse in your own home and time will come and you will fight to remain standing.
The sectarian war is a nuclear power discovered by the West to destroy the region. It is as destructive as a nuclear war. Beware. Be careful to avoid being dragged into this disaster. We are not going to fall into this trap. Let them use the sectarian language, we are going to wage war against the military goals and political wars it is hiding, we are going to wage war against its geopolitical plans and fight against it.
Muslim countries should support Turkey
All Muslims on the surface of the earth, from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts, should give support to Turkey. They should contribute to this principle, moral, conscience movement and struggle. They should give a shoulder to the last fort standing. All countries and communities have such responsibilities.
Turkey, a country that is standing tall, that calls out the truths, a country that has such a political mind and cadre, such a leader and social awareness, should stand strong. Turkey should not be left alone against all the disaster scenarios set to destroy it from both within and outside. Everybody should contribute to the resistance and historical responsibility it energizes and the uniting political discourse led by Turkey.
There is no other hope left but Turkey
The region has no other hope left. If this wind is going to be reversed, Turkey is going to be at its center. If Turkey is left alone, more countries will be divided into pieces. Iran’s dreams of Persia, its sectarian fanaticism have come to the fore as a new great threat. Turkey is the only country that can calm down the region against this new threat. Every country from North Africa to Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia are going to have to face this historic responsibility.
This hope, the hope of Turkey, is the hope that is going to save our century, save our region and get it back up on its feet, turn the areas of conflict into areas of welfare and show the path to salvation. Otherwise, we are going to lose both the course of history and the entire region.
But we know that Turkey, even if there is nobody, even if it is left all alone, it is going to resist and continue on with the struggle. Because this is what it has done throughout history.
*Ibrahim Karagül is a Turkish writer and journalist. He is the editor-in-chief of Turkish Yeni Şafak newspaper.
(Published in Yeni Şafak Turkish newspaper on Friday, Dec.16, 2016)
