Unless the breeze of destruction currently blowing in Syria and continuing with the division of Yemen and Libya is reversed, it will soon turn toward other countries. It is going to collapse Saudi Arabia, divide Iran, drag North African countries to ambiguity, shake Pakistan and South Asia and bring Turkey face-to-face with a global war.

This outside intervention that is masked under ethnic clashes and sectarian fights, that breeds on the weaknesses of the countries in this region, is approaching Turkey, step-by-step. The biggest U.S. and European project targeting the Muslim world is to change the maps. No country is or will be exempt from this storm. They are trying to turn the entire region, the Muslim land into little city states, garrison statelets.

They are founding terrorist organizations and applying an internal invasion plan through these organizations. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Fetullahist Terror Organization (FETÖ) are some of these organizations. They have established and prepared organizations for almost every country. When the time comes for every country, these organizations are going to be activated and the attacks on those countries are going to start. Immediately after, the invasion and division process is going to be launched.

The U.S., Europe and Israel are using the disputes, rivalries, enmities, ambitions and the lack of foresight that the countries in the region have among themselves. They are dividing the region through outside interventions, invasions, locally founded terrorist organizations and these disputes.

If it continues this way, if nobody says stop to this chaos, if the countries and communities in the region do not come together and form common defense forces and fronts, a few countries will be dragged into disaster like Iraq, Syria and Libya in no more than a decade.
It is obvious and clear that the Muslim geography is face-to-face with a picture as critical as World War I. It is also obvious and clear that this is a Crusades attack. It is directly targeting Muslims and Islam. Unless Muslim countries and leaders come to their senses, that which is happening in Jerusalem today will happen to us in the future in Mecca and Medina and in many Muslims cities. The Baghdad, Damascus and Aleppo examples will be witnessed in many cities. Every country dragged to invasion and division is going to be an invasion front for the next target.

We have to develop a common awareness, a common discourse, a common stance at the regional level, in the entire Muslim geography, against the 21st century’s global occupation plans, their invasions, civil wars, attacks targeting Islam and Muslims. We have to join in solidarity, shoulder-to-shoulder, determine areas of struggle beyond our ethnic and sectarian identities. We have to apply pressure through Muslim country leaders and administrations, call on them to leave aside the fights among themselves; we need to prepare against greater dangers.

We have to encourage regional solutions to the Gulf crisis targeting Qatar, the Shiite-Sunni polarization. We need to immediately find a solution in Syria, protect Iraq’s territorial integrity, prevent the Persian Gulf from turning into a war zone and stop those wanting to open the Turkey front from the north of Syria.
Every ongoing crisis, every conflict, every invasion, every civil war is going to extend to the invasion of one or a few more countries. Muslim countries need to come to their senses and stop shooting themselves in the leg. They need to start understanding that many issues which they think are their own fights are actually others’ fights. Turkey, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and strong Muslim countries need to come together and form an opinion, become involved in regional crises from within the region and hence, block outside intervention.

With these concerns, as Yeni Şafak writers, we are trying to form an initiative that supports and encourages the rapport and cooperation between Muslim countries, that shows what we will otherwise face. This is an issue that concerns us all and we all see the same danger.

Time is running out and something urgently needs to be done. Everything is developing right before our very eyes. We need to escape the blind debates and fights and start taking action. Don’t forget, the things happening at Masjid al-Aqsa today may soon happen in Mecca and Medina. The big goal is not only the division of our countries but the destruction of Islam’s sacred values.

There is a great responsibility on the shoulders of our politicians, writers, opinion leaders, media, poets, nongovernmental organizations. Please, let us not wait for the next year. Because new fronts will be opened, new victims will be chosen within the next couple of years.

Everyone needs to see, we all need to see a step beyond what is happening today and take action. We need to do it for our countries, our nation, our cities, our faith and for our future.

*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 July 23, 2017)