From Egypt, with love

[Neptune]

“Luckily, the first 18 tumultuous
months of the Arab Spring have
passed. Once we deal with the
next 180 tumultuous months,
then the final 1,800 tumultuous
months will be very easy to
tackle,” (“Enjoy your Arab
Spring,” this column, June 20,
2012).
Nine months earlier, in
September 2011, when I
“proposed to lend our prime
minister to our Arab brothers,” I
warned the Egyptians: “Dear
Egyptian brothers! I know you
feel nervous because our prime
minister, visiting your capital,
pledged to launch a high-level
strategic cooperation council
between our two brotherly
countries, like he had done a few
years earlier with our Syrian
brothers...
“He has also vowed to increase
bilateral trade by more than
three-fold, like he had done with
our Syrian brothers. I know past
experiences show that these are
not good signs, but they should
in no way scare you. Remember
one day we’ll all together pray at
the al-Aqsa mosque in the
Palestinian capital al-Quds.”
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan is right when he says
that what happened in Egypt
was a coup d’état. And Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu is right
when he says that this is
“unacceptable.” I am curious,
though, about what the dynamic
duo will do to “unaccept” the
coup in Cairo. Something like
what they have done in Syria?
Like how they “unaccept”
President Bashar al-Assad’s
regime?
But do, really, Mssrs. Erdoğan and
Davutoğlu believe that they can
undo the coup by making a few
phone calls to the world’s
political celebrities like U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon or
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry?
Can they be so naive as to think
that just because they rang
Washington, New York and a few
European capitals, a coalition of
coup-makers and political
opportunists will surrender
power and reinstate the Turks’
much beloved Egyptian Muslim
brother Mohamed Morsi as
president with full powers? The
answer is, surprisingly, yes; they
do believe that. Evidence? Did
Mssrs. Erdoğan and Davutoğlu
not wholeheartedly believe that
once they had spoken with
Iranian, Russian and Chinese
leaders, al-Assad’s days would be
numbered?
How heartbroken and
disappointed they must be
feeling now that their Arab
brothers-in-arms in a Sunni
campaign against the Shiite bloc
were the frontrunners in
congratulating the Egyptian
general who toppled Mr. Morsi’s
elected government. Will you
gentlemen now “unaccept” the
unacceptable praise for the coup
from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the
United Arab Emirates?
And do the very important men
in Ankara really believe, as
reported in a story in this
newspaper, that “...they [Saudi
Arabia, Qatar and the UAE] will
revise their position and adopt a
similar line with ours?” But why
not? Are they not the same very
important men who believed that
“Iran, Russian and China will
revise their position and adopt a
similar line to ours” and who
believe that intense phone
diplomacy with Western capitals
will undo the Egyptian coup and
reinstate their Islamist friend?
Would the Sunni Islamists in
Ankara really care so much if a
Sunni-controlled military had
ousted, say, the Shiite-friendly
government of Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq? Did the
Sunni Islamists in Ankara really
believe that their otherwise good
friends in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and
the UAE are in fact the Muslim
champions of democracy that
their rush to praise Egypt’s coup
leaders was uh-ah-so-very-
shocking?
More importantly, do the Sunni
Islamists in Ankara really believe
that they run the show in the
Middle East – when they rush to
the phone to ring Western
capitals each time their plans hit
an invisible wall of Oriental
reality? Perhaps Mr. Erdoğan
should personally ring the
Egyptian general, who staged a
coup and allegedly ordered the
killing of innocent civilians on a
new Egyptian Black Monday, and
tell him what he did was
unacceptable and that he should
immediately reinstate the unlucky
Mr. Morsi? Was it not the pillar of
Mr. Davutoğlu’s doctrine that we
in the Muslim world “should
ward off the Western powers
from our backyard and run our
own affairs?”
Luckily, the first 30 tumultuous
months of the Arab Spring have
passed...

July/10/2013

BURAK BEKD

 

[Etiene]

It was a funny piece. Turkish government should launch strategic cooperations with their enemies and then watch them magically crumble.

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

Unexpectedly, things had gone out of control.