English
By Konstantinos Margaritou, Founding Partner & Member of the BoD of KEDISA
After the terrorist attacks in Paris on 13th November 2015 the overall public opinion in western societies felt shocked about this blast into the heart of Europe. In tandem with European leaders the people of EU expressed their condolences to the families of the victims and their solidarity to the French people in using posts with the French flag as a background of profile pictures in Social Media, underlining to any direction their appalling to these terrorist practices. Additionally, the EU leaders along with Barack Obama declared – for one more time – that they will fight Islamic state-led terrorism and the French bombers started massive strikes over north Syria in the territories of ‘Daesh’. The same sense prevailed in the aftermath of the terrorist attack at the Charlie Hebdo offices, when most of the western leaders made an impressive march together with the people of Paris, asserting the supremacy of western values against the dark concept of Islamist terrorism. In fact, all these countermeasures – except from the spontaneous reaction of EU citizens – are nothing more than a well-organized hypocrisy.
The starting point of this hypocrisy is detected at the beginning of President’s Obama first term, when he visited Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, in order to enunciate his new doctrine for the Arab world, focusing on the relations between US and Islam. In the National Assembly of Turkey Obama underlined that Turkey is a great nation and it will be a pillar for the stability in the region. At Cairo’s University he declared that it was a great need for a new Era in US-Islam interaction, whereabouts Muslims of the Arab States would assimilate western values like Democracy, human and civil rights, women’s freedom etc. The G. W. Bush policy indicated as a closed chapter sentenced to failure and Obama’s new strategy would restore the negative consequences of his predecessor’s policy. A few months later the phenomenon of the ‘Arab Spring’ started with tremendous results for the interregional security.
The EU leaders had supported the President of the US to his endeavor. More specifically, N. Sarkozy and S. Berlusconi were eagerly ready to beat their former friend Qaddafi and they made serious efforts in undertaking diplomatic initiatives under the leadership of H. Clinton, in alignment with other Europeans like Cameron and Merkel to overthrow Mubarak and Assad from power. Simultaneously, there have been made critical efforts from the side of Muslim Brotherhood and other Muslim “democratic” movements in order to adapt a bulk of democratic values in the Arabic society but the period of the overall absorption has been very short and sharp for the embedment of a new societal and political framework to populations that have learned to live under permanent dictatorship with poor resources and a serious lack of education. The total effect and the outcomes of these developments was the breakout of an outrageous violence.
The democratization venture of autocratic regimes was an amateur – planning justification on the promotion of crucial and complex interests. The first one has been the stabilization of NATO and EU in the interregion of North Africa, Southeastern Mediterranean Sea and Middle East in favor of geoeconomics and geopolitical interests that have been revealed through the centuries and intensified in the period of colonialism two centuries ago. Historically, the particular interregion has been significant for the expansion of western powers’ influence at their neighborhood so as to ensure control over vast amounts of natural resources, cheap labor force and strategical positions concerning the military competition among them. In the last 20 years NATO and EU made serious efforts in order to be permanently connected with these regions via institutional structures like the Mediterranean Dialogue (1994) and the Istanbul Initiative (2004) as well as the Union for the Mediterranean (2008).
The second interest has been security. After 9/11 President Bush had started a dual approaching campaign which composed by the war against terrorists in Afghanistan accompanied by the democratization of Middle East, at first in the weakened Iraq as an experiment. The collapse of Iraqi state and the continuous war between Sunni and Shia Iraqis plus the impact of US with Islamist radical organizations inspired Barrack Obama for a tactical inversion which considered Muslims, who would embrace western values, as his potential allies to the securing of Western powers’ predominance across the particular interregion. Obama has chosen as the guardian of his new plan the Sunni regime of Erdogan, which had been bolstered by the regional – dominance aspirations of Davutoglu for a Turkish Neo-Ottomanization.
Since 2009 Erdogan has deployed this strategy on behalf of his country’s imperialistic visions, when he outraged against Israel and its President S. Peres at the World Economic Forum in Davos. In 2011, in the middle of Arab Spring – crisis, Erdogan visited Egypt, Algeria and Libya and presented Turkey as the model for the democratization of Muslims. One year later the architect of Turkey’s grand strategy A. Davutoglu stated in an interview to the American Press that an Ottoman Commonwealth could be established in the future, in respect of cultural and traditional bonds between the states of the broader region. So, a new homogenous interregional entity under the Turkish leadership became a potentiality for Ankara in the knowledge of US and EU leaders. In addition, during these years Turkey’s strategic partnership with EU became a top priority for several European Defence and Strategic analysts in Brussels concerning the likelihood for Turkey to undertake the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) military action abroad into the framework of collective peacekeeping operations. In essence, Turkey became an eventual pillar for the European security at the southeastern borders of EU – inter alia – according to the recent developments in the last European Summit relating to the massive influx of refugees, where Turkey earned many benefits and an upgraded role in the external security of Europe.
On the other side, the confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran transmuted Syria in a tragic ground of conflict due to the Saudis support of Sunni rebels and the relevant backing of Shia Iran and Hezbollah to Assad’s regime. All the conditions became favorable for the rise of the Islamic State which is the outcome of US failure in Iraq in tandem with Al Qaeda’s decline. The former Sunni military officers of Sadam’s regime have taken up the organization of ISIS army in order to take revenge. In this revisionist agenda ISIS found new associates as Saudi Arabia, Erdogan’s Sunni regime and the western allies cause to the Russian and Chinese involvement in the side of Assad. Consequently, ‘Daesh’ became another entity supplementary to Davutoglu’s dormant Commonwealth, which both serve the interests of NATO and EU in a significant way; they impede Russia’s expansion to the South.
The third interest of Obama’s strategy has been the containment of Russia. In the last years Russian Federation has made serious attempts in order to restore its power in the interregion of Eurasia. The Eurasian Union, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization denote Kremlin’s imperial vision under a new narrative via the liberal institutionalization processes of regional integration crosswords in Eurasia. The support of Assad’s regime by Moscow and the military campaign in Syria trace the awakening of the former superpower and its maximal aspirations concerning a new grid of zones of influence. At this time Russia has a powerful ally which is China and together they can follow a total revisionist policy towards NATO and the EU. Georgia (2008), Ukraine (2014) and Syria (2015) become the tangible signs of Russia’s new doctrine. Barrack Obama and his European allies have foreseen these developments since 2009, while crucial steps towards the Eurasian integration have been accomplished.
In a nutshell, Obama’s doctrine regarding Islam, in accordance with Turkey’s imperial visions and the great need of EU’s stability at its external borders has fostered all the ideal conditions for the erection of ISIS. This is the main indication of the Western powers’ strategic failure. The enforcing of the Muslim people of the Arab world to embed western values in a rapid way has been an unsuccessful experiment, which has been fabricated in order to preserve the interests of US and EU and, in time, became the means in order to contain Russia. The downing of the Russian jet Su – 24 was not only a strike by Turkey but it was a NATO’S action for the containment of Russia’s expansion to Syria. All these years, the unwillingness of the western bloc to undertake a ground attack against ISIS and the manipulation of rebels aside on the support of Jihadist fighters by Turkey denotes that western interests are preserved via this complex geopolitical reality. Be that as it may, the new status of Russia in the interregion will regenerate a new balance of power and dramatic developments may be unfolded in the future. Professor’s Krasner cogitation on modern international order which is perceived as an ‘’organized hypocrisy’’ becomes an opportune theoretical tool for the interpretation of ISIS phenomenon, which is another well-organized hypocrisy led by vested interests. Nevertheless, the most serious upshot of this contemporary tragedy of the Arab people is that great powers must not intervene at their domestic affairs. At last, concerning Muslim democrats, who struggled for their liberty, it must be said that: ‘’Brothers, you have been betrayed!’’