«Erdogan leads a panislamist and neo-ottoman project that must be fought urgently» Le Figaro

(Mezri Haddad)

 

We have this translation from the French text courtesy of Phillipe Boileau who lives at Montreal.  pl

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FIGAROVOX/TRIBUNE – The philosopher Mezri Haddad analyses Turkish president Erdogan’s foreign policy. Erdogan aims, in Haddad's  view, to transform Turkey into an anti-Western power on the basis of the conflict of civilisations model of Samuel Huntington.

This essay was published the 3rd of March 2020 at 10:37, and updated the 4th of march 2020 at 01:53 in Le Figaro.

Mezri Haddad is a philosopher and president of the ‘Centre international de géopolitique et de prospective analytique CIGPA’ (International center of geopolitics and analytical prospective)

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Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been scheming against European countries for a long time. For the second time since 2015, he has carried out his blackmail of migratory flooding by opening his land and sea borders with Greece to thousands of Syrian, Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani, Somali refugees. Among them, there are certainly terrorist infiltrators who have shaved their beards or shed their burkas. This migration is his "nuclear" deterrent, a human pipeline intended to subject the European Union to pan-Islamism and expansionist oukases [Arbitrary decision, imperative order].

The message of the Istanbul satrap [bureaucrat in a negative sense] is perfectly clear: "To safeguard the borders of Europe, either the Europeans pay me (Erdogan) even more money by supporting me militarily in my war against Damascus alongside my Islamic-terrorist mercenaries, or I pour on her thousands of Syrian hostages who dream of the European Eldorado." For, as far as Syrians are concerned, they are indeed hostages that the Turkish regime has long prevented from returning to their towns and villages pacified and liberated by the Syrian army from the barbarity of Daesh, Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra...

Idlib province is one of the last terrorist strongholds that the Erdogan regime has supported since the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring. The Arab spring’s impacts are now being measured in the aggregation of political, geopolitical, humanitarian, socio-economic and security aspects not only in Syria but also in Libya, Yemen and Tunisia. Tunisia being the most ‘successful’ in its spring by entrusting the reality of power to the servants of Erdogan that are the Muslim Brotherhood! The liberation of Idlib is at the root of this new and very serious migration crisis. Idlib province is the most advanced post of irregular Turkish troops (jihadists) in Syrian territory. In his defense of these terrorists, the Turkish autocrat invoked security and even "humanitarian" reasons, hundreds of inhabitants of these provinces who had fallen under the yoke of theocratic totalitarianism who could flee the war and take refuge in Turkey, like the 4 million Syrians already exiled to the country. Erdogan's deception is useless because it is himself who prevents Syrian refugees from returning to their villages, and who keeps them as a bargaining chip and leverage over Europe. Before carrying out his threats, Erdogan justified his plan to occupy Syrian territories by making Europeans believe that, rather than being invaded by thousands of Syrian refugees, it would be better for them to entrust Turkey’s neo-Ottoman mission to confine these refugees to Idlib and Aleppo.
But European leaders are no longer fooled. Even if it took them a long time to understand it, they now know that the Turkish regime has forged close links with the major terrorist organizations that were rampant in Iraq and Syria and whose ramifications go as far as Europe. At his joint conference in London with Donald Trump on December 3, 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron had the courage to declare: "When I look at Turkey, it now fights those (Kurds) who fought with us, alongside us against the Islamic state. Sometimes the Turks work with IS intermediaries. It's a problem and it's a strategic problem... The common enemy today are terrorist groups and I am sorry that we do not have the same definition of terrorism."

By opening the floodgates of his migration pipeline, Erdogan is thus breaking the 2016 pact with Brussels, under which the Turkish government pledged, against 6 billion euros, to fight illegal crossings. "Pirate state in the eastern Mediterranean" was the Cypriot Presidency's statement following the sending off Cyprus in January 2020 of Turkish gas drilling vessels. Erdogan's Turkey is now behaving like its barbaric ancestors by monetizing the lives of thousands of refugees. Having suffered the electoral consequences of welcoming more than a million asylum seekers in 2015-16, the German Chancellor was not fooled this time: "It is unacceptable for Ankara to put pressure on Europe on the backs of refugees".

As serious as it is for security and civil peace in Europe, especially in Greece and Bulgaria, the opening of the Turkish-Greek borders is far less perilous than Erdogan's barely concealed objective: to drag Europe into an armed conflict directly with the Russian-Syrian axis. For this is ultimately Erdogan's tactical but also strategic plan. This is despite Turkish new closeness with Russia, notably by buying S-400 anti-aircraft missiles in 2019, much to the chagrin of its historic American ally as well as NATO, of which Turkey has been a member since 1952. In so doing, Erdogan has crossed the Rubicon: Turkey was excluded from the acquisition program and manufacture of F-35 stealth aircraft and the US Congres and Senate passed a resolution calling the massacre of Armenians in Turkey in 1915 a genocide. In response, Erdogan threatened to close The Americans' access to NATO bases located in Incirlink and Korecik, prompting the United States to explore their transfer to Greece or even Saudi Arabia.

Playing with the duplicity dear to the Muslim Brotherhood to which he belongs, Erdogan is not at his first contradiction. On one hand, he grants himself missiles that pose a potential threat to the European Union members of NATO and, on the other hand, he sends to European countries the injunction to support him against Syria and its Russian ally in the name of the alliance which obliges signatory states to provide assistance to any other Member State that has been attacked or threatened. The problem is that Turkey is not an attacked state but an aggressor state, both vis-à-vis Syria - where it seeks to preserve its irregular army consisting of Daesh, Al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda - and Greece on which it has just dumped its bomb migration, which in itself is a declaration of war.

Bellicose provocations against Greece are not new. Already in October 2016 in his speech in Rize, Erdogan was referring to the "borders of the heart" and the "historically Turkish" territories, notably Thessaloniki in Greece. And, in May 2018, he publicly threatened the European country with an imminent invasion of the Aegean Islands (Greek), more than ever claimed by Ankara because of the gas deposits that have been discovered there. He also raised the possibility of revising the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, in which Turkey felt aggrieved, pretending to ignore the fact that it had instead expanded its territory in relation to the Treaty of Sevres of 1920, at the expense of Greece and Armenia.

With the opening of the Turkish-Greek borders, the sword of Damocles has just fallen on the land of Pericles, the wise and Athenian strategist who gave his name to the century of the greatness of Athens, and whose political genius Thucydides and Aristotle have praised. The same Pericles who, because of the Peloponnesian wars, told his detractors: "We fight for the other cities, and we distance the barbarians from their borders." Today Greece must face this invasion for its own integrity and for all European countries. A major challenge that President Emmanuel Macron understood perfectly in tweeting last Sunday: "Full solidarity with Greece and Bulgaria, France is ready to contribute to European efforts to provide them with rapid assistance and protect borders."

Erdogan provokes a new migration crisis, threatens Cyprus with invasion, galvanizes the Turkish diaspora against the European countries hosting them, extends its ideological influence on the Balkans, and finally, moves thousands of jihadists to Libya. Beyond Erdogan's punctual and immediate motivations there is a formidable and underlying pan-Islamic and neo-Ottoman project that should be detected and combated.

Frustrated with Europe, which refused him membership, Erdogan is positioning himself as the leader of an anti-Western alternative, that of the East against the West, of Islam against Christianity, of the colonized against the colonizers, of the "damned of the earth" against the dominators. He thus plays on the geopolitical efficiency of atavisms [former traits that had disappeared] and cultural antagonisms, on the clash of civilizations so aptly revealed by Huntington in 1993. If, however, these shocks were to occur, it would not take place between the West and the Muslim world, but between a despot at the end of his reign and an Arab-Western alliance ready to take up the challenge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezri_Haddad

 

 

Comments

[Keith Harbaugh]

What bothers and surprises me is the acceptance that somehow a necessary condition for preventing the invasion of Europe and the destruction/elimination of its historic culture is some action by the Turks.
If Greece is unwilling or unable to police its borders, then responsibility falls upon the final destination nations of north and central Europe.
What we have now is a vast overreaction to what the Nazis did.
To bad the Germans no longer subscribe to the sentiment expressed in the first minute here:
https://youtu.be/ZqQTMEtQTOA

[Keith Harbaugb]

I should have added that the text is item 5 here:
https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/BWV71-Eng3.htm

[Willy B]

I seem to recall that post-Arab Spring Tunisia was one of the larger sources of foreign terrorists that went to Syria to join ISIS. A colleague of mine, in a visit to Tunis, was astonished at the hate and vitriol he heard being preached in some of the mosques there.

[Chiron]

Its just my opinion but I think that Turkey (with or without Erdogan) is the natural hegemon of the Muslim Middle-East together with Iran thanks to the Arab nations incompetence, all the Sunni Arab Gulf states are dependent of America and foreign workers to keep their countries protected and running. If this situation changes is game over for them.

[Sleepybear51902]

A few time ago, an italian website published an actual beheading video from Tunisia. I saw a Christian boy being literally beheaded and martired for his Faith in Christ, he didn't even cry, he died ecstatically, his head was cut off but his face was shining: I cried.

[Andrei Martyanov]

"Full solidarity with Greece and Bulgaria, France is ready to contribute to European efforts to provide them with rapid assistance and protect borders."

Coming from French it is down right risible. France better look back at herself and her midget with Napoleonic complex Sarkozy who initiated a murderous campaign in Libya. It is really funny how France still thinks that she matters. Folie de Grandeur is a hard illness to treat.

[Fred]

Anrdrei,

France still has a permanent seat on the UN security council, an independent nuclear deterent force and its own space launch/satelite surveilance capability as well as an actually deployable military force (small though it might be). The later two being something the UK lacks. It is interesting that Macron's comments aren't making it into the news here.

[Eric Newhill]

I just read that the Turks are attacking Greek border guards with tear gas dropped from drones while hordes of Muslims - some of which are criminals released from Turkish prisons - cut through the border fence and invade.

IMO, The Greeks should open fire with live ammo on these people.

IMO, it's past time to kick Turkey out of NATO. Actually, it's past time to dissolve NATO and develop better relations with Russia, ties that bind. Then the US and Russia should do something about Turkey. Probably the Russians, as good Christians, should re-establish Constantinople and the Americans can have other sections. Return Western Turkey to the Armenians and...what the heck, give the Kurds a little of Southern Turkey....like it or not, it's going to come to that one of these days.

[different clue]

Greece is very willing to defend its own frontier against Erdogan's neo-Ottomaniac refugee-dumping. But Greece does not have the brute force power to do that all by itself. The big rich Luxury Lifestyle countries of "an Older Europe" ( in the deathless words of Ronald Dumsfeld) have a short time to decide whether to move enough qualified war-fighters and worthy weapons and supply systems to the Greek border to seal it off for real. If the Luxury Lifestyle countries of EUrope make it clear that they will never do so quickly enough to matter, then the Greek Government may well begin secret talks with all the other Balkan and near-Balkan governments to set up systems to speed all the unstoppable refugee floods all-the-way-through Balkan Europe and right straight into the heart of a Luxury Lifestyle EUrope which has refused and is still refusing to help Greece protect either itself or the Europe at whose frontier Greece is.

[elaine]

james, I've seen video posted online of the Turkish military forcing
refugees off buses & toward the Greek border, ditto Turks sending
drones dropping tear gas @ the border.

I agree the west has been extremely imprudent going back to W's invasion of Iraq, however the past may not be undone. The Turk's
behavior going forward since the destruction of Kobani has been
inexcusable & this madness has to stop @ some point, why not now?
What's the big fear, Turkey will get enveloped by Russia? Certainly not an ideal alternative for sure, however IMO opinion Russia may pose a lesser threat than a global jihad.

[Andrei Martyanov]

Fred, I am keenly aware of Frances actual military and economic strength. They are not that great, to put it mildly. Even in Sahel France is totally dependent on US ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Recon)complex. That tells you everything you need to know about REAL resources of the country. Nuclear deterrent doesn't factor in all that. I write about it here:

https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-depth.html

France tries to position herself as intermediary between the combined West and Russia, but even for this role she is not big enough.

[elaine]

Andrei Martyanov, Do you think Russia & the U.S have any common interests?

[Andrei Martyanov]

@Elaine.

Do you think Russia & the U.S have any common interests?

Many, but they will not be allowed to be taken from declarations to actual policies in the United States. In fact, relations have been destroyed probably beyond repair for generations and US political class bears most of responsibility for this.

[Keith Harbaugh]

Andrei:
I have lived in the U.S. since the 1940s and have been following developments here since the 1950s.
What has driven policies and policy change here is Big Media, which in effect serves as George Orwell's "Ministry of Truth"
(witness their claims that the allegations, coming from John Solomon and Rudy Giuliani, concerning Joe Biden and Ukraine have been "debunked").

Examples of how Big Media, together with the foreign policy establishment, have influenced foreign policy are well-known.
Examples in social policy are equally numerous,
from the rise of feminism, to the current mainstreaming of gender Insanity, to the diminishment of such once dominant or important groups as whites, Christians, and the Boy Scouts.
It is Big.Media that has, IMO, been the principal driver of both our misguided foreign policies and these social changes.

[Andrei Martyanov]

Keith, I agree. US "main-stream" media are now also a clear and present danger to what remains of Republic. They ARE a real national security threat.