Sadi Somuncuoğlu ile mülakat Ağustos 2017

Nurzen Amuran: Sizinle iç ve dış politikadaki gelişmeleri konuşacağız. Ancak biraz geçmişe gitmek istiyorum:

Gölcük Adapazarı depremlerinde yerinde röportajlar yapıp Ankara’ya dönünce, konuyla ilgili Devlet Bakanı olarak  sizinle TRT  de bir söyleşi yapmıştık. Yaşadıklarımızla, kafamızda kurguladığımız çözümlerle örtüşen açıklamalarınız bizi hayrete düşürmüştü. Çünkü dönemin hükümetinde farklı düşünen bakanlar vardı. Ertesi günü yayınla ilgili tartışmaların Bakanlar kurulunda yapıldığını duymuştuk. Her şeye rağmen Bakanlık yaptığınız o koalisyon hükümetinde çözümlerde farklı düşüncelerin olması çözümlere yeni ufuklar açılmasını sağlıyordu değil mi?

Sadi Somuncuoğlu: Çok zor günlerdi. Her şey yerle bir olmuştu. Her tarafta cesetler, feryatlar, enkazlar, amaçsız koşuşturmalar, yalnızlık, tükenmişlik ve çaresizlik vardı. Hastaneler perişan, ana yollar köprüler çökmüş, sokaklar geçit vermiyor, iletişim kesilmiş vaziyette; bölgeye Ankara bile ulaşamıyor. Barınacak bir yer, içecek su dahi yok.

Yurt içinde ve dışında, Türk Milleti gerçekten tek yürek olmuştu; sanki kıyamet kopmuş da mahşer kurulmuştu; herkes ayaktaydı. Yardım araçları yollara düşmüş, ulaşım bir türlü sağlanamıyordu. Hele yurt dışından gelen yağmur gibi telefonlar anlatılır gibi değil. Sadece şahsıma gelen telefonlarda, hıçkıra hıçkıra ağlayanlar, çeneleri kilitlenip konuşamayanlar, “Benim o bölgede yazlık evim var. Her şeyi tamam, lütfen anahtarı göndereceğim bir adres verin” diyerek inleyenler o kadar çoktu ki…  

Bu ağır tablo karşısında Bakanlar Kurulu bir dizi toplantı yaptı; nelerin yapılabileceğini görüştü, kararlar aldı. Ahali sokaklardaydı, acil işlerin başında 52 bin konut yapılması geliyordu. Hazine bomboştu.

Kalıcı konut için Bakanlar Kuruluna üç teklif geldi.

Birincisi;  Bayındırlık Bakanlığının görüşü. Kısaca: “Önce geçici olarak prefabrik konut yapalım. Sonra da, 52 bin kalıcı konutu hazırlayalım.” Prefabriklerin m. karesi 100 dolar, altyapısı 20 dolar. Yer olarak, halkın geçimini sağladığı  bahçe ve bağlar kullanılacak, sahiplerine kira ödenecek.

İkincisi; Devlet Bakanlığının (TOKİ) önerisi: Deprem bölgesindeki kooperatiflerin 50 bin dairesi var. Çoğu TOKİ’den kredili. Kooperatiflerle görüşüldü her şeye hazırlar. Bu inşatların yapımı üstlenilirse m. karesi 87 dolardan 6 ayda, 50 bin konutun yapımı tamamlanabiliyor. Üçüncüsü: Yine Devlet Bakanlığının önerisi: Türkiye Müteahhitler Birliği ile görüşüldü. Teklifleri şöyle: “Büyük şehirlerin etrafındaki mücavir alanları arsaya dönüştürüp (İmar planı içine alıp) kat karşılığı üzerinden ihale yoluyla kazananlara verin.  6 ayda 52 bin konutu hem deprem bölgesinde, hem de arsaların bulunduğu bölgede inşa edelim. Böylece  ekonomik bakımdan ölü olan boş araziler, ekonomiye yüksek değerlerle iki defa girecek. Hazineden de bir kuruş çıkmamış olacak.”

Bu öneriler Bakanlar Kuruluna ayrıntılı olarak izah edilince, ANAP ve DSP kanadı itirazsız kabul etti. Ama MHP, “yasaya göre yetki Bayındırlık Bakanlığındadır. İnşaatları Bayındırlık yapmalıdır” diyerek karşı çıktı. 

Sonuçta, Başbakan Ecevit’in desteğiyle 7 bin konutu TOKİ, diğerlerini Bayındırlık Bakanlığı yaptı. Bayındırlık kaynağı Avrupa Kalkınma Bankasından, yüksek faizle karşıladı. Çünkü Dünya Bankası önceden ve açıkça, Bayındırlık Bakanlığına “güvenimiz yok” kredi veremeyiz demişti. TOKİ Dünya Bankası şartnamesine uygun olarak bütün projeleri hazırladı ve ihaleyi yaptı; metre karesi 160 dolara mal olan konutların inşası zamanında tamamlandı. Bayındırlık, zaman kazanmak gerekçesiyle, sadece betonarme projeleriyle ihaleyi yaptı. Konutların maliyeti, hatırladığımıza göre metre karesi 230 dolar olarak gerçekleşti. Buna prefabriklerin 120 doları ve sökülme maliyetleri de ilave edilmelidir.

Ayrıca, hak sahipleri kalıcı konutlara taşınırken prefabrikler çevrede evsiz, işsiz-güçsüz dolaşanların işgaline uğradı. Bunların çıkarılmaları büyük sorun oldu. Bildiğimiz kadarıyla yakın zamana kadar da hala boşalmayanlar olmuş. Bakanlar kurulunda kalıcı konutlarla ilgili öneriler tartışılırken, daha önceki depremlerde prefabriklerin durumunu incelediğimiz ve o sırada görevde bulunan vali ve belediye başkanlarını dinlediğimiz için bu sakıncaları bir bir anlatmıştık.  

DEMOKRATİK REJİMLER PARTİLER SİSTEMİNE DAYANIR

O acı olayları dilerim artık yaşamayız. Sizin en önemli özelliklerinizden biri demokrasinin erdemine inananlardan olmanız. O dönemde Cumhurbaşkanlığı seçimlerinde aday olma hakkınızı kullanmanız partinizde büyük tepkilere yol açmıştı. Demokrasiler siyasi parti içinde başlar değil mi?

Aynen öyle. Demokrasilerde partiler çok önemlidir. Çünkü demokratik rejimler partiler sistemine dayanır; partiler rejimin taşıyıcı kolonlarıdır. Adil seçme ve seçilme hakkı ile bağımsız ve tarafsız yargıya bu sayede ulaşılabilir. Sonra; hür basın, sendika ve dernek kurma, toplantı ve gösteri yürüyüşleri yapma, düşünce ve ifade ile inanç ve ibadet hürriyeti, kişi ve konut dokunulmazlığı gibi temel haklar vazgeçilmezlerdir. Yönetebilir bir demokrasinin olmazsa olmazları bunlardır.

Partilerde demokrasi, kurum ve kurallarıyla ne kadar varsa, ülkede de o kadar vardır. Parti için demokrasi, TBMM’den başlayarak ülkenin bütün kurumlarına da yayılır. Demokratikleşme dediğimiz bu olgu önlenemez; dernek, vakıf, baro, kooperatif, sendika, meslek kuruluşları ve köy seçimlerine kadar gider.

Cumhurbaşkanlığı adaylığına gelince; bu konuda hep konuşmamayı tercih ettim. Ama olay soğuduğu için, herhalde özetle anlatılmasında sakınca yoktur. Adaylık, bilindiği gibi şartları haiz herkesin şahsına bağlı bir haktır. Bu hakkın kullanılması için teessüs etmiş bir gelenek vardır. Buna göre yakın çevreyle; özellikle parti genel başkanı ve yetkililerle istişare etmek önemlidir. Bütün bunlar, tarafımdan yerine getirilmiştir. Ancak, adaylık başvurusu için Meclise gittiğimizde, önceden hazırlanan bazı parti yöneticileri ve tanımadığımız kişilerin yığınak yaptıklarını gördük. Bunlar aday olamayacağımızı, aksi halde bakanlıktan ve partiden istifa etmemiz gerektiğini tebliğ ediyorlardı. Medyanın ışıkları altında, canlı olarak yayınlanan bu çirkin ve anti-demokratik tehdit, üzülerek ifade etmek isteriz ki; ülkemizin demokrasi tarihinde ve kaderinde silinmez izler bıraktı.

Bu talihsiz olayın sonunda, Başbakan Ecevit, telefonla arayarak, “Bahçeli Bakanlıktan azlinizi istiyor. Buna meydan vermemek için istifa etmeyi düşünür müsünüz” dedi. Kendilerine; “Lütfen gereğini yapınız ki, ülkemiz nasıl yönetiliyor; hak, hukuk ve demokrasi nasıl çiğneniyor ortaya çıksın. İstifa ile bu gerçeğin üstünü örtmeyelim. Madem demokrasi diyoruz, Türk Milleti her şeyi bilsin, kararlarını doğrular üzerinden versin; tarih doğru yazılsın” cevabını verdik. Bakanlıktan azlimiz böylece gerçekleşti. Cumhuriyet tarihinin üçüncü azli olduğu yazıldı. 

Bir defa daha görüldü ki, demokrasi demekle, demokrasi; hak hukuk demekle, hak hukuk olmuyormuş. Onun ilkelerini ve ahlakını, bilhassa yöneticilerin içine sindirmesi gerekiyormuş!  

ERKEN SEÇİM TALEBİ BİR ÖNGÖRÜ HATASI MIYDI YOKSA BİR PROJE MİYDİ

Geçmişte hala yanıtını bulmadığım bir soruyu yinelemek istiyorum. Sizin de Devlet Bakanı olduğunuz Ecevit koalisyon hükümetinde, hükümet devam ederken uygulamalarda hiçbir sorun yokken hangi nedenlerle Sayın Bahçeli erken seçim istemişti, sizce perde arkasında ne vardı? Bugün ne düşünüyorsunuz?

Perdenin arkasını değil de, önünü biliyoruz.  Zira, arkasıyla ilgili anlatılan çok şey var. Evet, o tarihte dayatmayla yapılan erken seçim sonucunda, maalesef Türkiye bugünlere geldi. 57. Hükümet Mayıs 1999’da iktidar olduğunda hatırlayalım, ekonomi durma noktasındaydı. 17 Ağustos 1999’da tarihimizin en büyük depremi, Marmara - Gölcük bölgesinde yaşandı. Aynı yıl 12 Kasım’da Düzce depremi oldu.  Ülkelerin, AB’ye üye olduktan sonra Gümrük Birliği(GB)’ne girmeleri bir kuraldı. Yeni gümrük rejimine uyum sağlayıncaya kadar ülkelerin uğrayacakları zararları AB bütçesinden karşılamak gerekiyordu. Ama Türkiye, ilk defa, daha aday ülke bile değilken 1996’da Gümrük Birliğine girdi. Bunun üzerine dış ticaretimiz 2000 yılında 27 milyar dolar açık verdi; ekonominin makro dengeleri bozuldu. 1998’de Rusya’da kriz yaşanmıştı. Bütün bunlar üst üste gelince 2001’de büyük kriz patladı. Halk ayağa kalktı.

Yangından çıkmak için Mayıs 2001'de "Güçlü Ekonomiye Geçiş Programı" hazırlandı. Tasarrufa, korumacılığa, disipline önem veren program kısa zamanda sonuç vermeye başladı. Ecevit, ekonomideki düzelmeye işaret ederek, erken seçim ısrarından vazgeçilmesini istedi.  Buna karşılık MHP erken seçimde direndi. Bahçeli, “… bir Hükümet krizi yaratarak, MHP'yi dışarıda bırakacak yeni bir Hükümetle seçimlerin ertelenmesi olduğu anlaşılmıştır.” diyerek “oyunu bozduklarını” iddia etti. Ama görüldü ki, seçimlerle Meclisteki 6 partiden, MHP’nin de içinde bulunduğu 5 parti barajda takıldı. Kendisi, partisi ve ülke tam manasıyla oyuna gelmişti. Acaba57.Hükümet dönemindeki  bu erken seçim talebi bir öngörü hatası mıydı, yoksa bir proje miydi? Soru bu olmalı. Cevabı kolay; 2002’den beri yaşananlara ve gelinen noktaya bakarak verilebilir.

Günümüze dönelim. Başkanlık sistemine karşı en sert söylemlerle mesafe koyduktan sonra Sayın Bahçeli, 15 Temmuzla başlayan süreçte bir anda ne oldu da başkanlık sisteminde AKP’ye öncü oldu. Ne değişti aralarında nasıl bir işbirliği gelişti?

Belli değil mi? Kendileri; “Beka meselesi var. Her şeyi bir tarafa bırakıp, AKP’yi destekleyeceğiz” diyorlar. 57. Hükümette Ecevit’in üç yıl boyunca bir dediğini iki etmeyen Bahçeli değil miydi? Bir gün ne olduysa oldu, hiçbir parti organı ve yetkilisinin de bilgisi olmadan, birden bire “erken seçim” dedi ve bundan vazgeçmedi. Neden böyle oldu bilemeyiz, ama ne olduğunu biliyoruz. Olan şu; bu ısrarın sonunda Türkiye “Beka meselesine” kadar geldi. Şimdi de, buna benzer bir durum var. Değişen bir şeyler oldu. Neden değişti bilemeyiz, ama olan şu; MHP siyaseti 180 derece geriye döndü, bu açık. Parti programına ve yıllardan beri şiddetli ve öfkeli bir şekilde “Başkanlık sistemi Türkiye’yi böler” siyasetine rağmen, tam geriye dönüldü. Yine aniden ve iddiaya göre kimsenin bilgisi olmadan, inatçı bir direnişle Başkan(lık) sistemi, “bekamızı” sağlar, “Türk Milletini kurtarır” söylemine; Erdoğan’ın Türkiye’yi teslim alma siyasetine rampa edildi.

Bekleyeceğiz, sonumuz inşallah, önceki gibi olmaz. 

Bu soruyu devam ettirmek istiyorum: Sayın Bahçeli ve MHP ayrıca “her konuda” hükümeti destekler gibi bir tavır içinde. Neden, ben çözemedim siz çözebildiniz mi?

Akla pek uygun değil, ama belki de herkesi hayretler içinde bırakacak, şaşırtacak sürprizlere bayılıyor, olabilir. Aklına gelince, dayanamıyor olamaz mı? Latife gibi bir şey değil mi?

Referanduma da değinelim: 298 sayılı Seçimlerin Temel Hükümleri ve Seçmen Kütükleri Hakkında Kanunun 101'inci maddesinde 'Arkasında sandık kurulu mührü bulunmayan, oy pusulaları geçerli değildir' hükmü açık ve kesin bir hükümdür.. Mühürsüz oyları geçerli kılmakla YSK Kanuna karşı içtihat oluşturmuş olmuyor mu? Olmayan bir yetkiyi kullanmak evrensel hukuk ilkelerine de aykırı değil mi? YSK’nın nasıl bir anayasal kurum olması gerekir?

Evet  YSK, yasanın kesin hükmünü rağmen içtihat/yorum yaptı. Bir de, Anayasa’nın 125. Maddesindeki hakimlerin hiçbir surette yerindelik denetimi yapamaz emrini yok saydı. Yerindelik, malum hakimin; ülkenin yararına olup olmadığına göre değil, yasaya göre karar vermesidir. Birinci sınıf hakimlerden oluşan YSK, maalesef böyle bir iş yaptı. Neden? Yine, bilediğimiz bir şeyler var. Buna tuzun kokması mı diyeceğiz? İyi de tuz durduğu yerde kokar mı? O halde, tuzu kokutan bir şeyler var! Bu YSK, nasıl değişir bilemem, ama yenilenmelidir. Bu da, belki iktidar değişikliği ile mümkündür.

PARTİ SEÇİMLERİNİ BIRAKIP GERÇEKTEN MİLLETVEKİLİ SEÇİMİNE GEÇİLMELİDİR

Bir zamanlar siyasette zeka oyunları öne çıkardı. Söz ustalığında, siyaset kültürüne dayanan geleneksel saygının öngördüğü çerçevede partiler birbirlerini eleştirir ve bir cümlelik yanıtlar siyasetin yönünü de değiştirebilirdi. Bugün siyasetin içinde öfke ve kin var. Bugün siyasi aktörler için siyaset nedir?

Siyasetin kalitesi ve yönetenlerin zihniyetiyle ilgili bir konu. Bir ülkeyi kaçıcı sınıf kadrolar yönetiyor, buna bakmak lazım. Birinci sınıf mı, ikinci sınıf mı, üçüncü sınıf mı, yoksa sınıflamaya giremeyenler mi? Eğer yönetim sondakilerin elindeyse, siyasetin s’sini bile ummak beyhudedir. Aynen iktisattaki kötü para iyi parayı kovar kanunu burada da hükümran olmuş demektir. Bundan kurtuluşun yolu, yönetime ehliyet ve liyakat sahiplerinin gelmesiyle bulunabilir. Uzun bir konu ama kısaca söyleyelim; milletvekili seçimleri adı altında yapılan parti seçimlerini bırakıp, gerçekten milletvekili seçimine geçilmelidir. Seçmen sadece bir partinin değil, müşterek oy pusulasındaki partilerin adaylarından istediklerini işaretleyerek oyunu kullanmalıdır. İlaveten seçim çevreleri 5 milletvekiline göre düzenlenmelidir. Böylece halkın kendi kendini yönetmesi şeklinde tarif edilen demokrasinin gereği yapılmış olur. Partilerdeki dukalıklar, yerini demokratik yönetimlere bırakır. Meclisin kalitesi yükselir.

Zihniyet meselesine gelince kastımız, Türkiye Cumhuriyetinin kuruluş esaslarını kabul etmeyip, kendi ideolojisine göre başka bir devlet kurmak peşinde koşulmasıdır. Türk Milleti yedi düvele karşı Milli Mücadele yaparak, kanla irfanla kurduğu devletinden asla vazgeçmez. Bu belli. Peki bu devlet nasıl yıkılacaktır.  Herhalde, şu veya bu yolla  gücü ele geçirdikten sonra, rakiplerini korkutmak ve sindirmek stratejisi kullanılacaktır. Bu ortamda, halkı ikiye, üçe ayrıştırmak, kin ve nefreti körüklemek, etnisitelere ve siyasi ümmetçiliğe egemenlik vadetmek gibi tekniklerle  iç dinamikleri çatıştırmak suretiyle yapılmak istenecektir. Bu tuzağa düşen ülkelerin durumu çok zora girmiştir. Türkiye’de de benzer halleri yaşamaktayız.

BEN KAZANMALIYIM YERİNE ADALET KAZANSIN DİYEBİLMELİYİZ

15 Temmuz sürecinden sonra başlayan davalarda FETÖ terör örgütünün planlı organize olmuş bir savunma mekanizmasını geliştirdiğini görüyoruz. Dava sürecinde yorum yapmayı yargıyı etkilemek anlamında hukuken yanlış bulanlardanım. Ancak siyasetin daha dikkatli olması gerekmez mi? Sözgelimi tek tip elbise uygulamasını gündeme sokmak asıl önemli olan yargılama safhasını arka gündeme düşürmez mi, önemli olan yargılama süreci değil midir?

Ayni görüşleri paylaşıyorum. Sorumluların bütün bunları dikkate almalarını temenni ediyorum. Artık şüphe kalmadı ki; FETÖ, önceleri sızdığı kurumlardan tasfiye edilmelerine rağmen, devlete sistemli olarak sızmaktan vazgeçmemiş. Ancak iktidarın ortağı yapıldığı tarihten itibaren yetki sahibi olduğundan önü açılmış, neredeyse bütün kurumları, korkusuzca ele geçirmiştir. 15 Temmuz 2106’da darbe girişimine kalkışınca, devleti ordusu, polisi, bütün kurumları ve kamuoyunu karşısında bulmuş ve suçüstü yakalanmıştır. Örgüt üyelerinin tasfiyesi sürdürülürken, mağduriyetlere yol açılmamalıdır.

Şimdi yargılamalar başlamış ve devam etmektedir. Yargılananların planlı ve organize bir şekilde hareket etmeleri normaldir. Asıl olan adaletin tecellidir. Burada yargının bağımsızlığı ve tarafsızlığı esas olduğuna göre siyasetin, görülmekte olan davalardan uzak durması çok önemlidir. Özellikle ülkemizde, taşların yerinden oynadığı, kurumların ve kuralların kimliğini kaybettiği, otoritenin belli kişilerin elinde toplandığı bir ortamda, siyasetin belirleyici rolü daha da artmıştır. Ben kazanmalıyım yerine, adalet kazansın diyebilmeliyiz. Yöneticiler, bilhassa üst yöneticiler, öfke ve kin duygularından arınmış olarak konuşmalı, yargının ve kurumların görevlerini yapmaya kalkışmamalıdır.   

Biraz da dış politikaya dönelim. Rahmetli Rauf Denktaş’la olan duygusal bağlarınızı biliyoruz. Kendileriyle yaptığım söyleşilerden çok ders aldığımı da söylemeliyim. Sözgelimi dış politika için şunu derdi: “Dış politikanın temel taşları günü birlik oluşturulamaz, 20-30 yılda oluşturulur.” Bugün Suriye politikasında olduğu gibi değişen koşullara göre verilen kararlar Ortadoğu’da bize neleri kaybettirdi?

Kurucu Cumhurbaşkanı, yenilmez dava adamı, yetişen nesillerin eşsiz örneği olan Rauf Denktaş’ı rahmetle anıyorum. Çok doğru söylemiş. Türkiye gibi köklü ve zengin tarihe sahip ülkelerin çözüm bekleyen meseleleri asırlar geriye gider. En yakın tarihte yaşadığımız Sevr’i hatırlayalım. Sevr’e de iki asırda geldiğimizi hesap edersek, bugünleri doğru tahlil edebilmek ve anlayabilmek için 300 sene öncesinden başlamak durumundayız. Osmanlı Türk Devleti ömrünü tamamladı. İyi de, meselelerimiz bitti mi? Keşke o kadar kolay olsaydı. Şöyle bir bakalım; sınırlarımızın dışında kalan haklarımız, insanlarımız, medeni ve kültürel varlıklarımız ne olacak? Bunlara karşı sorumluluğumuz yok diyerek işin içinden çıkamayız. Biz böyle düşünsek de, o meseleler gelir, arar bizi bulur. Uluslararası hukukla, bilimle, bilgiyle hazırlanmak ve çok çalışmak zorundayız. İşte Kıbrıs, Batı Trakya, Bulgaristan, Irak ve Suriye Türkleri; Balkanlardaki kardeşlerimiz, kardeş Azerbaycan, Türk dünyası. Buralarla bütün dünya ilgilenirken, biz seyirci kalırsak, Türkiye’mizi de koruyamayız. Maceradan, gerçeklerden kopmuş heveslerden ve hamasi nutuklardan bahsetmiyoruz; dünyamızın geçerli kanunlarından söz ediyoruz. Yoksa bugünlerde olduğu gibi; gelirler, kuşatırlar, çatıştırırlar, yurdunuzda bile hayatı zehir ederler.

Üstat Yahya Kemal’in söylediği gibi, "Kökü mazide bir âtiyim"  şuurla hareket etmeliyiz.

KIBRIS 4 ASRA YAKIN BİZİM VATANIMIZ OLMUŞTUR

Ortadoğu’daki gelişmeler çerçevesinde Kıbrıs’ın önemi arttı. Doğu Akdeniz’de doğal gaz ve petrol kaynakları  Kıbrıs’ı daha büyük cazibe merkezi haline getirdi. Hepimiz Ortadoğu’daki gelişmelere odaklanırken Kıbrıs için ne gibi planlar oluşturulmaya çalışılıyor?

Kıbrıs milli davamız; “Yavru vatanımız” konusunda herkes her şeyi biliyor. Ama gereğini  yapmıyor. Kısaca ve açıkça ifade edelim ki, arkasında Haçlı batının olduğu Yunanistan, Kıbrıs’ın bütününü alıp, Helen adası olarak Yunanistan’a katmak istiyor. Tarihte bir gün olsun Rumlara ait olmayan Kıbrıs, 4 asra yakın bizim vatanımız olmuştur. Kıbrıs, Türkiye'ye 71, Suriye'ye 98, Mısır'a 384, Yunanistan'a 900 km. mesafededir. Adanın üçte ikisi Rumların, üçte biri Türklerin elinde. Kıbrıs meselesi denilen ise bu üçte birin Türklerden nasıl alınacağıdır. Aynen Girit’in Osmanlıdan alındığı gibi. Şu anda adanın yüzde doksanını Rumlara verdik desek, mesele bitmez, çünkü tamamı isteniyor.

Bu durumda Türkiye, acı gerçekler yaşandıktan sonra, insani çözümü bulunmuştur. Bu da, iki devletli Kıbrıs’tır. Nitekim 1974’den beri, hiçbir çatışma yaşanmadan iki toplum huzur içindedir; gelişmiş bir demokrasi ile yönetilmektedir. Bir ve bütün olan Türkiye’yi bölmeye çalışan Haçlılar, Kıbrıs’ta iki milleti; iki dili ve iki medeniyeti birleştirmek için 50 yıldır dayatma içindeler. Amaçları adayı bütünüyle Rumlara vermektir. Bu kesin bir gerçektir. Bana karşılık Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, Türk Milletini de arkasına alarak “Adada çözüm bulunmuştur. Dolayısıyla görüşecek bir şey yoktur” demelidir.

Yunanistan’ın Egedeki 17 adaya onlarca kayalıklara el koymasıyla hele kara sularını 6 milden 12 mile çıkarma kararı da alınırsa adeta ayaklarımızı artık Ege denizine sokma şansımız bile kalmayacaktır. Neden sessiz kalınmıştır?

Aynen söylediğiniz gibi, inanılmaz bir sessizlikle karşı karşıyayız. Eğer sorunuzdaki gibi bir durum gerçekleşirse, Ege, Yunan/Elen denizi olacak ve Yunanistan’ın egemenlik alanı sınırlarımıza dayanacaktır. Bu belli de, suskunluk neden, bu belli değil. Aslında basında yer alan bazı bilgilere göre, Yunanistan’la anlaşma yapılmış, sessizlik bundanmış!

Hiçbir hükümetin vatan topraklarımızı başka bir devlete verme hakkı ve yetkisi yoktur. Bu haberler, suskunluğa rağmen asılsızdır diyeceğiz, ama adalarımızın açıktan işgal edildiğini; üzerine kilise binaları yapıldığını, askeri garnizonların kurulduğunu ve gümrük kapısı açılıp giriş çıkışta pasaport kontrolü uygulandığını görünce, endişelerimiz artıyor. Acaba, adalarımız Yunanistan’a verildi de, Türk Milletinden mi saklanıyor diye düşünmeye başlıyoruz.   

HALKTA KARŞILIĞI OLAN BİR MERKEZ PARTİSİNE ŞİDDETLE İHTİYAÇ VARDIR

Son sorum şu olacak: Yeni bir partinin sinyalleri veriliyor. Ülkemizin demokrasimizin geleceği açısından eksik olan “merkez de bir siyasi partinin” olmadığı yorumu ağırlık kazanıyor. Böyle bir oluşuma siz nasıl bakıyorsunuz, Demokrasinin geldiği noktada dinamik bir güç oluşturabilir mi?

Evet, demokrasimizin dengeye kavuşması için, halkta karşılığı olan bir merkez partisine şiddet ihtiyaç vardır. Öncülerinin bu vasıfları taşıdığı görülüyor. Böyle bir partinin kurulmasıyla, Türk demokrasisine ve siyasetine denge ve dinamizm gelebilir. Türkiye çok sıkışmıştır, vatandaş çıkış noktası bekliyor. Parti kurucularının ve programının bu milli ihtiyaçları karşılayacak yapıda olması önemlidir. Tabii teşkilatlanma da buna göre hızla tamamlanacaktır. Hassas bir dönemden geçtiğimiz göz önünde tutularak, fırsatçılara, iç ve dış bazı mihraklardan gelebilecek provokasyonlara dikkat dikkat etmek gerekmektedir.

Bu güzel söyleşi için teşekkür ediyoruz.

Ben teşekkür ederim

Nurzen Amuran

Odatv.com

Eâst Asia and Pacific by Chas Freeman

East Asia and the Pacific in the New World Disorder

lobelog.com/east-asia-and-the-pacific-in-the-new-world-disorder/

‎19‎.‎08‎.‎2017

by Chas Freeman

I attended my first PPI gathering in 1997 at Larry Hull’s place in Agate Beach, Oregon.  I remember Bob Maynard politely but pointedly questioning my prediction that Pacific Asia was about to make a comeback as the global center of economic gravity.  He made some good, cautionary points.  A week later, much of Asia was laid low by financial crisis.  Straight-lining the present into the future is usually a mistake.
But the central role of the region in the global geoeconomic balance is now not just a reality but a bit of a cliché.  It can also be a distraction that impedes consideration of other changes in the world order, how they relate to each other, and what is happening in other parts of the Eurasian landmass.
Geopolitics frames political risk and determines patterns of trade and investment.  The geopolitical order in the Asia-Pacific is in the midst of significant evolution.  I want very briefly to review the global context in which this change is taking place.
For four and a half centuries – beginning with Columbus’s touchdown in the Americas and Vasco da Gama’s opening of sea routes to India – European nations and their empires held sway throughout the world, including in East Asia and the Pacific.  But as the twentieth century unfolded, war hollowed out European imperialism.  In the Asia-Pacific, Japan moved to dominate the region, America counterattacked and displaced its dominance, European and American colonies became independent nations, and China was reborn.  During the Cold War, the Asia-Pacific was  an exclusive American sphere of political, economic, and military influence. American dominance was seen by most as key to stability.  At the turn of this century, it began to crumble.
Under the Trump administration, the United States has now turned decisively against the multilateral institutions, alliances, partnerships, and policies that constituted the Pax Americana and the Washington consensus.  For almost three-quarters of a century these served to limit warfare, promote economic growth at home and abroad, and foster cooperative problem-solving under American leadership.  Peace, continued rapid rates of economic growth, and the world’s capacity to halt and reverse the degradation of the global commons are all now in doubt.  Everyone is hedging against the rising uncertainty.  The global arms market is livelier and more profitable than ever.
It matters that the world and its regions are no longer partitioned between two superpowers.  In the new world disorder that has followed the Cold War, the “world island” – the Eurasian landmass – has five distinct parts:

• Two ocean-bounded subcontinents – Europe and South Asia,
• The sprawling northern expanse of the Russian Federation,
• The Islamic realms of West and Central Asia and North Africa, and, finally,
• The mainland of East Asia and islands of the Pacific.

China’s “belt and road initiative” and similar schemes by Japan, Korea, and others propose to link these geopolitical zones in new ways.  But each part of the supercontinent has its own dynamic.  And, with the notable exception of the Asia-Pacific, each has evolved a distinctive state system that seems likely to last for some time.  The Asia-Pacific is in uncertain transition.    No one knows whether it will echo the patterns that now rule the four other parts of Eurasia or take its own course.
Most in the Asia-Pacific would probably prefer a framework for cooperative security and multinational cooperation similar to that in Europe.  But no one believes that the preconditions for such community-building are present in today’s Asia.
And no nation now aspires to create the sort of imperial order represented by the Russian Federation.  Moscow controls one-sixth of the world’s territory.  It rules over a hundred ethnic groups.  This is what Japan sought to impose on the Asia-Pacific 86 years ago.  To put this model in place now, China or India would have to gamble on succeeding where Japan failed.  But none of the region’s current or potential great powers – China, India, Indonesia, or Japan – shows any desire to attempt this.  Militarist fantasies of regional conquest are a China-as-bogeyman budget-builder.  They have traction mainly in the minds of DOD-funded think-wankers in Washington.
In West Asia, unlike the Asia-Pacific, rivalry between local great powers mixes geopolitics with theology.  It has produced a Cold War-style partition sustained by proxy wars and violent clashes between client states and protectorates of Iran and Saudi Arabia.  Like Cold War Americans, Sunni Arabs regard non-alignment as immoral and are willing to go to considerable lengths to punish it.  (Ask the State of Qatar about this!)  This is not a pattern likely to take hold in East Asia.
The pattern of geopolitics in South Asia seems more relevant.  There a single regional superpower is checked by a strong lesser power with external backing.  Pakistan has enough inherent strength and support from interested external parties – especially China – to deny India the free hand in its near abroad that it would otherwise command.  A regional nuclear stand-off is part of this balance.  To the extent that rising Indian power pushes against India’s neighbors, they find ways to resist.  The same dynamic is at play between China and its neighbors.
In theory, Japan might seek American backing for an independent role in balancing and checking China, much as Pakistan uses its relationship with China to balance and check India.   But Japan was emasculated and subordinated to America by its defeat in World War II.  Japanese foreign policy continues to embody risk-aversion born of post-traumatic stress disorder.  Tokyo’s response to the shifting power balances in its region, including the rising power of both Koreas as well as China, and the decline of Russia and, lately, the United States has been halting and slow.  But no one should count Japan out as a great power in its own right.
Seventy-two years after the United States displaced it as the dominant power in the Asia-Pacific, Japan is moving toward becoming what it calls “a normal country.”   By this it means a country that can work with others in the region to pursue security and other policies that leverage American power but are not solely dependent on it.   Notwithstanding Article 9 of its US-dictated constitution, Japan has managed to rebuild formidable military capabilities.  It is becoming an arms exporter and a source of military aid for countries with disputes with China.  Japan is exploring investment in India’s defense industries.  And it is trying to pick up the regional rule-setting role that the United States cast aside when it abandoned TPP.
Regional balance in the Asia-Pacific must be grounded in the policies and capabilities of the nations there.  America has been a great power in the Asia-Pacific since the mid-nineteenth century.  Americans see China as an increasingly potent peer competitor for influence there.  Washington has become fixated on preserving its post-World War II  primacy in the region.  America’s efforts to retard rebalancing by the nations of the Asia-Pacific inadvertently discourage regional initiatives that might substitute self-reliance for dependence on U.S. political, economic, or military protection..  The U.S. insistence on primacy also assures that regional quarrels — even those in which Americans have little or no intrinsic interest — now almost immediately become zero-sum interactions between the United States and China.
Such trans-Pacific rivalries complicate the resolution or management of potential flashpoints in the Western Pacific like Taiwan, the Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands, competing claims by littoral states to land features in the South China Sea, and north Korea’s paranoia about regime change.  These are issues between regional powers that now nonetheless carry with them clear risks of another trans-Pacific war involving the use of nuclear weapons, this time by both sides, not just Americans.  Unthinkable as the consequences of such a war would be, military planners in Beijing, Pyongyang, and Washington are well along in contingency planning for one.
But, whatever happens in the military sphere, the growth and consolidation of an increasingly Sino-centric economic order in the Western Pacific seem likely to continue.  China is still growing much faster than most other countries, though slower than in the recent past.  It is increasingly innovative.  China’s power is waxing as America’s wanes and Japan’s stagnates.  Beijing is irked by India but sees it as falling well short of being a peer competitor.  China doesn’t want a war and judges that time and continued self-strengthening will inevitably gain it the respect and deference it craves.
This judgment has been reinforced by recent developments on this side of the Pacific.  The United States – the only country that poses a comprehensive military challenge to China – has the least competent government in its 241-year history. Washington’s deliberative processes are suspended or gridlocked, its tax revenues frozen, and its budget sequestered.  America’s armed forces are generously funded but busy making enemies and losing wars in strategically insignificant places.  The United States is slashing the capabilities of its civilian foreign affairs departments and agencies.  It is increasingly out of sync with its allies and trading partners and isolated at international gatherings.  It has dropped out of TPP and no longer seeks even to participate in writing the rules for international trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific or anywhere else.
Asians have been trying to figure out American strategy in the Asia-Pacific.  So far they’ve failed.  Washington is looking for threats to deter, not gains to be made through problem solving.  America wants to retain its strategic preeminence in the region, but its means of doing so consists of tactical responses to potentially explosive developments on China’s periphery, beginning with north Korea’s fielding of a nuclear deterrent.
The Kim dynasty has ample reason to see the United States as an existential threat.  The family objective has been to persuade Washington to make a credible commitment not to try to depose it.  But three generations of Kims have elaborated the cruelest and most despised totalitarian society the world has yet seen.  Perhaps, with the right deal between the Kim and Trump families, Americans could be persuaded to accept the Kim regime as an unpleasant reality.  They cannot be made to endorse it or to commit to keeping it in power.
In June 1950, Kim Il-sung tried to seize the entire Korea Peninsula by force.  For two-thirds of a century, the United States has helped south Koreans deter him, his son, and his grandson from trying again.  But deterrence in Korea works two ways.  North Korea long ago made Seoul hostage to massed artillery.  Over the course of nearly five decades – from their capture of the USS Pueblo in 1968 to their sinking of a south Korean naval vessel in 2010 – the Kims have repeatedly shown that, even when they carry out egregious provocations, they can deter south Korea and the United States from using force to punish them.
Kim Jong-un has taken note of what happened to Ukraine after it gave up its nuclear weapons.  He has studied the fate of Col. Qaddhafi and watched U.S. politicians try to undo the Iran nuclear deal.  He is convinced that only a fully functioning nuclear deterrent can protect his country from apparently implacable American hostility.  He will not stand down from building such a deterrent, no matter how tough the sanctions imposed on his country may be.  There is no basis for believing that anyone who might succeed him in power in Pyongyang disagrees with him about this.  North Korea is determined to be able to parry any U.S. attempt at regime change by showing that it can retaliate by devastating the American homeland.
The result of decades of fumbled diplomacy by all parties in Korea is nuclear checkmate.  The denuclearization of Korea is no longer possible.  Neither is a U.S. takedown of the Kim regime.  There will be occasional clashes along the 38^th Parallel as there have been in the past, but there will be no war, no breakthrough, no peace, and – most sadly – no relaxation of tensions.  What there may be is the return of nuclear weapons to south Korea, either deployed by the United States or independently developed by south Koreans to counter their northern compatriots.
For decades, south Korea and Japan have had to live with the disturbing possibility that, if provoked, north Korea might use weapons of mass destruction against them.  The United States is about to be in the same unpleasant position.  Coercive disarmament of north Korea is infeasible, but it should be possible to ensure that Pyongyang does not export its nuclear and missile technology to others.  Focusing on this as soon as possible is in the interest of China, Japan, Russia, south Korea, and the United States as well as the global community.
Japan is the home of U.S. bases and a prime target of north Korean missiles.  This gives it an even stronger interest in the stability of the Korean Peninsula and the containment of north Korean belligerence than China.  Despite slow economic growth and adverse demographic trends, Japan clearly has the potential to exercise a great deal more power in its region than it has done in recent decades.  American bases in Japan remain a reliable platform for U.S. trans-global power projection.  But, as Japan emerges from its post-war eclipse, it is ceasing to exhibit unquestioning allegiance to American policy.  As issues arise, to gain Japanese support, the United States must show that it is factoring in Japanese interests.
Japan will be under increasing pressure to develop an independent nuclear deterrent of its own.  Washington will need to find ways to convince both Japanese and anyone inclined to attack Japan that, to defend Japan, Americans will risk nuclear attack on our homeland.
Washington has made a commitment to back Japan’s continued administration of the uninhabited and strategically insignificant but symbolically important Senkaku / Diaoyu Islands.  The contest between China and Japan over these barren rocks in the East China Sea is less about who actually controls them than it is about whether their disposition should be seen as legally settled.  Japan claims there is no dispute about this.  China is determined to prove that there is, but, for reasons related to Taiwan, wants to defer trying to resolve it.
China and Japan are both militarily highly capable great powers.  Theirs is a dangerous confrontation even without the threatened involvement of the United States.   So far, both sides have been appropriately cautious, avoiding violent clashes.  There is every reason to expect that this caution will continue.  That is a good thing.  Both China and Japan would lose a great deal from any armed conflict between them.  For its part, the United States should do what it can to avoid being dragged into a war with China in defense of Japanese territorial claims that it does not itself espouse.
The South China Sea attracts more headlines and burns more testosterone in the United States than the Sino-Japanese face-off.  It shouldn’t.  China and the United States are each offended by the statements and actions of the other, but neither wants a fight.  China has belatedly joined others in establishing a permanent presence in the formerly uninhabited Spratly Islands.  The United States is not attempting to dislodge it.  The naval games of chicken now taking place there are not about China’s claims to islands and reefs.  They are about whether the U.S. Navy can still make and enforce the rules in China’s near seas.  The stakes are far from trivial but not high enough for either side to go to war with the other.  Barring an accident, they won’t.  In the meantime, the huffing and puffing on both sides is good for their naval budgets, if nothing else.
The main driver of the current arms race and the most likely cause of war between the United States and China remains the one least often mentioned – Taiwan.  The island’s continued separation from the rest of China is the direct result of U.S. intervention in a Chinese civil war.  Beijing’s inability to bring Taiwan to heel is an ongoing reminder of China’s past humiliation by foreigners.  Its patience on this unfinished nationalist business reflects its desire to avoid war with America.  But the deferral of any push to resolve the issue has been aided by the Communist Party’s official view that some form of reunification is just a matter of time.
This makes it ominous that negotiated reunification now seems increasingly implausible.  The election of an anti-reunification, pro-independence government in Taiwan has halted cross-Strait rapprochement.  The mercurial pronouncements of the Trump administration have raised questions about whether China can count on Washington to live up to past understandings about Taiwan.  Beijing now has the capacity to devastate Taiwan militarily regardless of opposition by the U.S. armed forces.  This gives China politico-military options it didn’t have.
Meanwhile, China’s appeal as a society is ebbing as its politics become ever more illiberal and authoritarian.  Beijing has reverted to conflating loyalty to the Communist Party with patriotic devotion to China.  This does not sit well with Chinese not yet ruled by Beijing, whether in Hong Kong or Taiwan.  The “one country, two systems” framework was supposed to guarantee political autonomy and socioeconomic diversity within a reunified China.  Ever fewer believe it can.
The Chinese Communist Party will celebrate its hundredth anniversary in 2021, only four years from now.  Some Chinese see this as a logical target date for ending the division of their country once and for all.   China’s ability to use force continues to improve, even as Taiwanese resistance to the idea of peaceful reunification grows.  China’s sticks are bigger, but its carrots are less sweet.  The only way for Beijing to achieve unification at present would be to squeeze Taiwan and make it an offer it could not refuse.
A military confrontation between Beijing and Taipei would produce a geopolitical earthquake in northeast Asia and enormous tension, perhaps even a war, between China and the United States.  Some in both countries seem unfazed by this.  A crisis is not inevitable, but there is a risk that Xi Jinping’s second term as China’s leader, from 2018 to 2023, could see the Taiwan issue come to a head.
Let me conclude.  I was asked to speak about geopolitics, not economic risks in the region.  Everyone recognizes the perils a financial crisis or sudden slowdown in the Chinese economy would present.  Pardon me if I mention just two other uncertainties before standing down.
The greatest risks at present arise from the sudden economic nationalism and erratic decision-making of the United States, which is every Asia-Pacific nation’s third or fourth largest trading partner. In his inaugural address, President Trump declared that: “protection will lead to prosperity and strength.”  This is a bet that many believe could go very badly wrong.
Meanwhile, Chinese policymakers want continued rapid growth as well as meaningful reform in their economy.  No one believes they can have both.  This fall’s Party Congress promises to give Xi Jinping the authority to choose.  His choice will inspire the economic work conference that will follow the Congress.  Xi’s decision (or his failure to decide) will shape not just China’s future but those of other economies throughout the region and the world.

To sum up:  in the global and regional geopolitics of the new world disorder there are more moving parts than ever before and the Asia-Pacific sub-region presents more uncertainties than others.   (And I have not had time to mention, let alone address the current drift toward war between Indian and Chinese forces on the Sikkim-Bhutan-China border.)   The United States no longer calls the shots.  It’s not clear that, if it did, the current administration would know where to aim them.  No other country is in line to succeed America as  manager of the international system or guarantor of stability in the Asia-Pacific.  The 21st is nobody’s century.  Each region is doing its own thing.

It has been said that, if you expect the worst, you’ll never be disappointed..  But, as I see it, in East Asia and the Pacific we should view the future with apprehensive optimism — tempered with vigilant realism.
This speech was delivered July 27, 2017 in Toronto. Republished, with permission, from chasfreeman.net. Copyright Chas Freeman.

Colin Powell acknowledges Israeli nukes (15.09.2016)

Powell Acknowledges Israeli Nukes

lobelog.com/powell-acknowledges-israeli-nukes/

‎15‎.‎09‎.‎2016

by Eli Clifton
According to hacked emails reviewed by LobeLog, Former Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged Israel’s nuclear arsenal, an open secret that U.S. and Israeli politicians typically refuse to acknowledge as part of Israel’s strategy of “nuclear ambiguity.” Powell also rejected assessments that Iran, at the time, was “a year away” from a nuclear weapon.
The emails, released by the hacking group DCLeaks, show Powell discussing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial speech before a joint meeting of Congress with his business partner, Jeffrey Leeds.
Leeds summarizes Netanyahu as having “said all the right things about the president and all the things he has done to help Israel. But basically [he] said this deal sucks, and the implication is that you have to be an idiot not to see it.”
Powell responded that U.S. negotiators can’t get everything they want from a deal. But echoing a point that many Iran hawks have questioned, Powell said that Israel’s nuclear arsenal and rational self-interest make the construction and testing of an Iranian nuclear weapon a highly unlikely policy choice for Iran’s leaders.
Powell wrote:

Negotiators can’t get what he wants. Anyway, Iranians can’t use one if they finally make one. The boys in Tehran know Israel has 200, all targeted on Tehran, and we have thousands. As Akmdinijad (sic) [said], “What would we do with one, polish it?” I have spoken publicly about both nK and Iran. We’ll blow up the only thing they care about—regime survival. Where, how would they even test one?

Israel, which isn’t a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has long maintained ambiguity about the size, and even the existence, of its nuclear weapons program.
Later in the email chain, Powell acknowledged Iran’s right to enrich uranium for nuclear power, said that sanctions alone wouldn’t be enough to “break” Iran, and pointed out that the assessment that Iran could make a dash for the bomb and construct a nuclear weapon within a year was exaggerated.
Powell wrote:

They say, correctly, that they have every right to enrich for energy. Russians helped build a power reactor at Busher. Can’t get enough sanctions to break them. Lots of bs around about their progress. Bibi likes to say “a year away,” as do our intel guys. They say it every years. I ain’t that easy to do.

Powell ultimately supported the nuclear agreement reached by the Obama administration, telling Meet The Press that “It’s a pretty good deal,” on September 6, 2015. In the lead up to his endorsement, Powell had harsh words for foreign policy experts who stayed on the sidelines or opposed the deal.
On August 30, 2015, Powell wrote to Ken Duberstein, President Ronald Reagan’s former chief of staff, who suggested that Powell might refrain from endorsing the deal in a television interview where he would face questions about Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Powell said he could handle the political questions, defended the deal to Duberstein as a “good one for the country,” and blasted Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass and Ret. Gen. David Petraeus for publicly remaining undecided about the agreement. Powell told Duberstein:

The Iran deal is a good one for the country and our alliances. Retired generals and admirals popping off. I have studied it pretty thoroughly…I have done emails before on tv. Have to deal with ISIS. Richard] Haass, Petraeus et all claiming to be undecided. BS, they are just protecting their future options. I don’t have or want any. Baker, Shultz know what’s right, as does Henry. Brent showed some guts.

But even Duberstein, who had urged Powell to avoid a high-profile endorsement of the deal and hasn’t publicly spoken about the deal, couldn’t resist sharing with Powell his assessment of former George W. Bush administration ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton’s fundraising email, which described the nuclear deal as “the single largest global security crisis.”
Duberstein forwarded the email to Powell, adding a succinct message at the top: “Haha! What is he smoking?”

Rouhani and the establishment in Islamic Republic

ROUHANI'S ROAD ALREADY TAKEN
by Mehdi Khalaji PolicyWatch 2845
August 16, 2017
The second-term Iranian president has failed to deliver on campaign promises, and the Supreme Leader is fortifying his hardline backers.
READ THIS ITEM ON OUR WEBSITE

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On August 14, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, appointed Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi as the new head of the regime's Expediency Council. He also named five new members, including Muhammad Baqer Qalibaf, the mayor of Tehran and a main rival of Hassan Rouhani in the recent presidential election; Ebrahim Raisi, the custodian of the Astan-e Qods Razavi foundation and another presidential competitor; and Mohammad Mir-Mohammadi, the accountability and audit deputy in the Supreme Leader's office. The council—which outlines regime policies in the case of disagreement between the Guardian Council and the Majlis—now begins its new five-year term with more hardliners than the previous body, along with greater authority in controlling Iran's three branches of government. Following the death this past January of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, known in the West as Iran's most pragmatic high-ranking official, Khamenei for months had hesitated in naming a replacement.
ROUHANI VS. KHAMENEI
The conflict of interest between the Iranian president and Supreme Leader is built into the country's system of dual sovereignty, as enshrined in the Islamic Republic constitution. But the openness and harshness of the current Rouhani-Khamenei dynamic is unique. Not only did the Supreme Leader refrain from offering congratulations to Rouhani for his election victory or the start of his second presidential term, he also has constantly criticized the president's stances on issues ranging from cultural matters to the nuclear deal to Iran's relations with the international community. Khamenei even went so far as to draw an analogy between Rouhani's position and that of Abholhassan Bani Sadr, who served as the first president of the Islamic Republic but was forced into exile after a one-year tenure, indicating an obvious threat to Rouhani should he fail to follow Khamenei's guidance. Rouhani's democratically elected position, in such a circumstance, would offer no protection.
Despite the genuine power struggle, Khamenei is still using his country's moderate president to guard his interests both at home and abroad. In particular, the Supreme Leader appreciates Rouhani's distinct diplomatic skills and positive image within the international community, which have prevented a consolidation of Western economic and security pressure against the Islamic Republic. Neither Raisi nor any other hardline presidential candidate could have provided such a shield for Iran's repressive domestic policies or its aggressive regional agenda, explaining why Khamenei did not speak out forcefully against Rouhani during the actual campaign.
ROUHANI VS. THE IRGC
Beginning in the first year of his presidency, Rouhani has criticized the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its increasing role in Iran's politics and economy. He intensified this attack during this year's presidential campaign. Yet perhaps unsurprisingly, he immediately toned down the rhetoric after winning, while effectively granting more privileges to the IRGC. On August 13, for example, in response to new sanctions enacted by the U.S. Congress, the Majlis increased the government's military budget by $540 million, half of which will go to boost the IRGC-run missile program, the other half to the elite IRGC Qods Force. Demonstrating Rouhani's full support for the bill—which translates roughly as "confronting America's terrorist and adventurous initiatives"—was its unanimous passage by parliament.
Addressing the Majlis, Abbas Araqchi, a Foreign Ministry deputy and top nuclear negotiator, stated that Rouhani's "government is grateful [to the Majlis] for such a 'decisive, smart' bill and supports it." Separately, when IRGC officials launched missiles into eastern Syria this past June, Rouhani tried to share credit by asserting that the "IRGC's initiative...was not a decision made by a single person or a military section, but such decisions are made by the Supreme National Security Council," which is headed by the president. On June 21, however, just a few hours after Rouhani's remarks, the IRGC issued a statement emphasizing that, in fact, "the missile operation took place in coordination with the armed forces, by the commander-in-chief's order," indicating that Ayatollah Khamenei had the final word in this operation, whereas the president had none.
Further reflecting the gap between his campaign rhetoric and his presidential actions, Rouhani, on July 25—not long after bashing the IRGC as "a government with gun" with which "no one dares compete"—facilitated an agreement with the Khatam al-Anbia Construction Headquarters, an IRGC arm. According to the deal, the IRGC can supersede both private-sector and foreign companies in all government contracts amounting to more than $52.4 million. Indeed, the IRGC now holds a monopoly on all state projects, including those involving oil fields and refineries, as well as construction and trade. The day before the deal, July 24, Gholamreza Tajgardoon, who heads the Majlis Budget and Planning Committee, made clear that "in the last four years, Hassan Rouhani's government has fully cooperated with the IRGC over budgetary allocation."
ROUHANI VS. THE PEOPLE
In electoral authoritarian regimes such as the Islamic Republic—wherein elections are essential to maintaining the political system's legitimacy—the elections themselves are stripped of their actual meaning by a covert set of sophisticated manipulation techniques. These measures are reinforced by various undemocratic institutions and power centers that seek to weaken elected authorities and enlist them as their agents, even if such elected officials were voted in by overwhelming margins. Because the unofficial power centers know they cannot actually abolish the elections, they instead seek to push back hard against any agenda that goes against their interests.
In such a context, the ideal president for Khamenei is one who can be subdued enough to fold under pressure from the Supreme Leader's political-military machine. Notably, Khamenei exerted an unprecedented level of intervention in choosing Rouhani's cabinet list. According to Abdullah Naseri, a member of the Reformists' Advisory Council, Khamenei refused to meet with Rouhani until two weeks after the election, whereupon, as announced by Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, the president consulted with Khamenei in forming the cabinet, which turned out to be no more moderate than the outgoing one. In keeping the appointees politically close to Khamenei and the IRGC, Rouhani simultaneously failed to deliver on campaign promises to seat women and minority ministers, enraging advocates for such blocs and disappointing ordinary voters.
Through his exertion of influence over Rouhani's cabinet picks, Khamenei was seeking not only to maintain control over the executive branch but also to tarnish Rouhani's image as a moderate set on de-ideologizing the major political and economic agendas of the Islamic Republic. Such a move could both dramatically erode Rouhani's base of support and discredit other "reformist" and "moderate" elements who supported him, thus hindering their ability to mobilize support in future contests with hardliners.
A GATEWAY TO FUTURE MILITARISM?
Khamenei's new vision for the Expediency Council would grant it a freer hand, while similarly empowering the Guardian Council, the twelve-member entity that consists of six ayatollahs and six legal authorities. Indeed, only after Rafsanjani's death has Khamenei sought to implement the contents of a letter he sent to the Majlis in 2014 regarding the procedure for Expediency Council review of parliamentary bills. According to this procedure, all bills should first go to the Expediency Council. If the ensuing evaluation finds them to oppose the "general policies of the regime"—a subjective criterion, to be sure—the council should order the Majlis to make necessary modifications, with failure to do so leading to certain rejection by the Guardian Council.
Alongside its role in reviewing legislation, the Expediency Council could expand its portfolio in the post-Khamenei era by increasing the authority of the Provisional Leadership Council—an entity that assumes power if a new Supreme Leader is not immediately named—particularly its military authority. According to the constitution, the provisional council does not share the full authorities of the Supreme Leader himself. Unlike the Supreme Leader, for example, the provisional council cannot replace the six ayatollah members on the Guardian Council or any military member, including the IRGC commander. Nor can the provisional council declare war or peace. Only the Expediency Council can effect such an outcome, with a three-quarters vote.
All the recent shifts brought about by the Supreme Leader are aimed at insulating the regime's hard core from moderating forces—and safeguarding its revolutionary character. Rouhani, for his part, is taking a road already traversed by his moderate predecessors, and true reforms will be elusive at best. The further empowerment of hardliners, meanwhile, could pave the way for the IRGC, Ministry of Intelligence, Ministry of Justice, and other powerful unelected entities to take over the government as soon as Khamenei leaves the scene, without serious concern about reformist insiders, civil society, or even the clerical establishment.
Mehdi Khalaji is the Libitzky Family Fellow at The Washington Institute.

Eisenhower objected to the use of A-Bombs on Japan

Did Eisenhower object to the use of the A-bombs on Japan? Prof. Bernstein’s article, “Ike and Hiroshima: Did He Oppose It?”, in the September 1987 issue of The Journal of Strategic Studies summarizes the evidence better than any notes I could create. Please read that article, which I will get to you separately from this handout. It is a masterpiece of critical thinking.
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http://www.doug-long.com/summaryc.htm

Summary: Section C - doug-long.com www.doug-long.com WARTIME PERCEPTIONS AND "PRESENTISM" 9/26: Bonnett asked, "As the various statements of Truman's intentions are surveyed, it is worth asking whose perceptions are at ...

*Admiral William Leahy, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1945 and a close personal friend of Truman, wrote in his 1950 memoir "It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender." (p.3, _The Decision_) Leahy had urged Truman on June 18 to clarify the terms of unconditional surrender so as to provide an Emperor guarantee, and on July 16 had urged the British Chiefs of Staff to get the prime minister to push the issue with Truman.

*Writing in the third person, U.S. Fleet commander in chief Ernest J. King stated in his 1952 memoir the belief that regarding the choice of the bomb or invasion, "the dilemma was an unnecessary one, for had we been willing to wait, the effective naval blockade would, in the course of time, have starved the Japanese into submission through lack of oil, rice, medicines, and other essential materials." (p.327)

*Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz in September 1945, according to The New York Times, "took the opportunity of adding his voice to those insisting that Japan had been defeated before the atomic bombings and Russia's entry into the war." In October, Nimitz stated, "The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into war." Nimitz's widow later recalled that he "always felt badly over the dropping of that bomb because he said we had Japan beaten already." She recalled direct statement by Nimitz that "I felt that that was an unnecessary loss of civilian life...We had them beaten. They hadn't enough food, they couldn't do anything." (pp.329-330)

*In 1946, Third Fleet commander Admiral William Halsey also came forward, stating "The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment... It was a mistake to ever drop it. Why reveal a weapon like that to the world when it wasn't necessary?...It killed a lot of Japs, but the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before." (p.331)

*The commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Hap Arnold, stated in his 1949 memoir that "it always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse." Arnold's deputy, Lt. General Ira Eaker, later stated that "Arnold's view was that it was unnecessary. He said that he knew the Japanese wanted peace. There were political implications in the decision and Arnold did not feel it was the military's job to question it." Eaker added that Arnold had told him that while the Air Force under his command would not oppose the bomb's use, "it is not necessary to use it in order to conquer the Japanese without the necessity of a land invasion." (p.335)

*General Carl Spaatz also recalled in interviews given in the 1960s his unease with the use of the bomb in 1945, stating "That was purely a political decision, wasn't a military decision. The military man carries out the orders of his political bosses." Spaatz recalled his view that a demonstration of the bomb over Tokyo Bay would have been appropriate as opposed to dropping the bombs directly on a city (as well as the view that even the continued threat of conventional bombing might well have been enough to induce surrender). Spaatz's 1945 recommendation of a demonstration drop is corroborated by an interview with associate Glen Martin. (pp.343-345)

*Brigadier General Carter W. Clarke, the army officer in charge of preparing the MAGIC summaries in 1945, stated in a 1959 interview, that "we brought [the Japanese] down to an abject surrender through the accelerated sinking of their merchant marine and hunger alone, and then when we didn't need to do it, and we knew we didn't need to do it, and they knew we knew we didn't need to do it, we used them as an experiment for two atomic bombs." (p.359)

*Although Air Force General Curtis LeMay later bobbed and weaved quite a bit on his stated opinion of Hiroshima in subsequent years, in September 1945 LeMay publicly declared that the bomb "had nothing to do with the end of the war" and that "The war would have been over without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb." In November 1945, LeMay added that it was "obvious that the atomic bomb did not end the war against Japan. Japan was finished long before either one of the two atomic bombs were dropped..." (p.336)

*On August 15, 1945, Major General Claire Chennault, founder of the Flying Tigers and former Army Air Forces commander in China, told _The New York Times_ "Russia's entry into the Japanese war was the decisive factor in speeding its end and would have been so even if no atomic bombs had been dropped..." (pp.335-336)

These judgments also were shared by the two supreme military heroes of World War Two-- Dwight D. Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur. While there is continued debate as to whether Eisenhower, as he claimed, actually advised Truman and Stimson in July 1945 not to use the bomb, it is nonetheless notable that greatest American military leader of the twentieth century and a two-term President of the United States consistently condemned the Hiroshima decision, from 1963 until his death, stating that "[T]he Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing." Even if the meetings with Truman and Stimson of 1945 remain historically uncertain, there is little doubt that Eisenhower's doubts about the bomb dated back to that period. Eisenhower's son John on two occasions has corroborated Eisenhower's "depression" upon learning of the bomb and its impending use. According to the younger Eisenhower, the General stated "Well, again, it's none of my business, but I'd sure hate to see it used, because Japan's licked anyway, and they know it." (pp.352-358)

While Eisenhower's outspoken displeasure with the Hiroshima decision is well-known among historians, perhaps more surprising is that Douglas MacArthur too refused to endorse the atomic bombings as militarily necessary. While MacArthur is another figure who changed his public statements over time regarding wartime issues, he remained relatively consistent regarding the bomb. The diary of MacArthur's pilot, Weldon Rhoades, from August 7, 1945 states that "General MacArthur definitely is appalled and depressed by this Frankenstein monster [the bomb]." Herbert Hoover's diary regarding a May 1946 meeting with MacArthur states "I told MacArthur of my memorandum of mid-May 1945 to Truman, that peace could be had with Japan by which our major objectives would be accomplished. MacArthur said that was correct and that we could have avoided all of the losses, the Atomic bomb, and the entry of Russia into Manchuria." In a postwar interview with journalist Norman Cousins, MacArthur expressed the view that there was "no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier...if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor." (pp.350-352)

These quotations (including the views of additional leaders not noted here), their subtleties, and the variation and shifts which take place over time with different leaders (with particular attention to the view of George Marshall) occupy four chapters at the very heart of the book, yet Bonnett's review does not even acknowledge them. Surely the idea that the military leaders of 1945 did _not_ see the bomb as necessary--and what this might say about the on-the-ground reality of 1945--is worthy of some consideration, some analysis. Surely this is data that historians cannot responsibly ignore--and it might be added here that the material becomes even more striking when one notes that most of these military figures did not take into account the potential effects of a guarantee for the Emperor in making their judgments as to whether Japan could be brought to surrender without the bomb or an invasion.

Indeed, the cumulative impact of this evidence is to illustrate that, within the mindset of people actually on the scene in 1945, there was felt no military urgency to use the bomb to accomplish the end of the war. It is not revisionist historians who read back into the evidence notions of morality alien to 1945 or assumptions that the atomic bomb decision was contestable. On the contrary, it is the traditional view which has forgotten that voices of doubt and unease regarding the use of atomic bombs on Japan without warning and without exploring other options were prevalent in 1945, even (and especially) in the military.

ÖNDER ÖZAR'dan

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Konu: EISENHOWER AND HIROSHIMA

 

Bir kaç gün önce, ABD Başkanı Truman'ın 6 Ağustos 1945'de Hiroşima'ya üç gün sonra da Nagazaki'ye atom bombası atılması kararını verdiğini anımsatmış ve ABD çıkışlı Truthdig adlı internet bloğunda okuduğum bir makalede, aralarında general - sonradan Başkan olacak- Dwight Eisenhower'in de bulunduğu üst düzey askeri danışmanların, Japonya'nın savaşı sürdürmek için gücü tükendiğine işaretle, atom bombasının kullanılmaması yönünde görüş belirtmiş olduğunu belirtmiş, ancak BaşkanTruman'ın daha fazla ABD askerinin ölmesini önlemek için bombanın atılması kararını verdiğinin öne sürüldüğünü bildirmiştim. Bu konuda ABD kaynaklı bir kitapta, Savunma Bakanı Stimson'un, Potsdam'da müttefik yüksek komutanı general Dwight Eisenhower'e bombanın kullanılmasının kaçınılmaz olduğunu anlattığı ve Eisenhower'in buna tepkisinin sert olduğu belirtilmektedir.Eisenhower, daha sonra Newsweek dergisine verdiği mülakatta Stimson'a verdiği yanıtı şöyle ifade etmiştir: "Stimson,bana bombayı Japonlara atacaklarını söyledi. Tamam, onu dinledim ama bir şey yapmaya gönüllü olmadım. Çünkü benim savaşım Avrupa'da bitmişti ve kararımın bir önemi yoktu. Ama bunu sadece düşünmek bile içimi karartıyordu. Sonra bana fikrimi sordu, ben de ona iki nedenden dolayı buna karşı olduğumu söyledim. Birincisi,Japonlar teslim olmaya hazırdı ve onları böyle korkunç bir şeyle vurmaya gerek yoktu. İkincisi, böyle bir silahı kullanan ilk ülke olduğumuzu görmek istemiyordum." Eisenhower, tarihçi Stephen Ambrose'a itirazını doğrudan Truman'a ve baş danışmanlarına bildirdiğini anlattı. Tarihçi Barton Bernstein Eisenhower'in açıklamasından şüphe etmeyi mantıklı bulur ama general Omar Bradley, Ike'nin yorumunu destekler. (Barton J. Bernstein, "Ike and Hiroshima: Did He Oppose it?"Journal of Strategic Studies 10 (September 1987), 377 - 389.

Kaynak: ABD'nin Gizli Tarihi -Oliver Stone + Peter Kuznick -Profil Yayıncılık -Kasım

IRAN : The Change is happening already

Iran: The Change that Matters Is Happening Already

lobelog.com/iran-the-change-that-matters-is-happening-already/

‎10‎.‎08‎.‎2017

 by Sanam Naraghi Anderlini and Sina Azodi

In Washington, the policy of Iranian regime change that blossomed during the Bush years and withered under Obama has flowered again in the Trump administration. But those advocating regime change and those arguing vociferously against it are both losing sight of the fact that profound change is already happening in Iran.
In the Iranian political arena, differences of opinion and vision among reformists, centrists, and hardliners are daily on public view. Two strands of influence have shaped the political system of the Islamic Republic since 1979. The clerical establishment has wielded authority and determined laws and policies according to a deeply patriarchal and paternalistic approach that assumed that “the people” needed guidance. But the revolution also rekindled the idea of public reason and people’s power to shape their own destiny. These two divergent ideas came together in the state’s identity as simultaneously Islamic and a republic.
Tensions between these two tendencies have been evident since the 1990s, and the balance of power is now shifting. At a July 19 cabinet meeting, President Hassan Rouhani reminded his team of the demands of the public and the democratic process to which the officials are accountable. These shifts in attitude are critical indicators of change occurring within the system.
The change in the political sphere is prompted by the dynamic transformation of Iran’s social and cultural space since 1979. One of the best indicators of this transformation is the status of women, who have been key players all along. In the 1970s, the reform of family law that gave women increased rights under the shah helped to rile up the traditional clergy against Iran’s westernization. The clergy in turn mobilized women from poorer and more conservative communities to support the revolution. But the suspension of the family law, forced imposition of the hijab, and early attempts to take away women’s rights to vote prompted a fierce backlash from women across the social spectrum. In the 1980s, barred from certain university degrees, women fought back and reclaimed their spaces, so much so that in 2015 some 70% of science, technology, engineering, and math graduates in Iran were women. The late, great Maryam Mirzakhani, the only woman to win the Fields Medal in mathematics, was among the generation of girls born after the revolution into a system that overtly discouraged gender equality. Mirzakhani’s ascendance was not unique. On July 11, 2017, Iran’s flagship airline, Iran Air, appointed 44-year-old Farzaneh Sharafbafi as its first female CEO.
Women have also fought their way into politics. The 2016 parliamentary elections led to a new majlis with the largest number of women since the revolution. Similarly, in the 2017 city council elections, there was a 6% increase in women’s victories. In the highly conservative Sistan and Baluchistan province, some 415 women won council seats. Meanwhile, there is outcry at the absence of women in the newly appointed cabinet, despite President Rouhani’s election promise to appoint more women to ministerial posts.
The Iranian public has long shown that it wants the regime to change, but it does not want “regime change” a la Washington or Riyadh. Regime changers in Washington try to co-opt the human rights agenda by claiming that the majority of the Iranian public would support the toppling of the regime. But the 73% voter turnout in Iran and among the diaspora in the May presidential elections sent a loud and clear message: people want peaceful evolution with order, not chaotic revolution with disorder and violence.
There is good reason for this caution. Iranians historically have experienced the cycle of harj-o-marj (chaos and turmoil) when one dynasty has toppled its predecessor, destroying the good along with the bad and the ugly. The Pahlavis did it to the Qajars, who did it to the Zandiyeh dynasty. If there is fatigue about internal disruptions and fear of the unknown, there is positive revulsion at the thought of foreign interference. Throughout the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Iranians tried to ward off the colonial drive of the Russians and the British. In 1953, they were blindsided by the arrival of the American empire on their doorstep, undermining the country’s most popular and most democratic of leaders, Prime Minister Mohamad Mossadeq. The blowback came in 1979 with the har-o-marj that accompanied the toppling of the shah, the US embassy hostage crisis, and the emergence of the Islamic Republic.
It has been a tough 38 years. Those who were children when the revolution occurred saw their lives change overnight, witnessing firsthand the horrors of the Iran-Iraq war in the trenches and across the nation’s cities for eight years. The following generations have often been thwarted by the limitations imposed by the hardliners, but they have also learned the lessons of the past. It is easy to reject a system and demand its demise, but the fundamental question is: what comes in its place? The lessons of Iraq and Libya, which were plunged into chaos in the name of freedom and democracy, are sobering. Wary of violence and the disintegration of their own country, Iranians do not want the same fate.
Of course, regime-change advocates claim that there are “legitimate,” publicly supported opposition movements waiting in the wings to take control and bestow democracy on the Iranian people. Sadly, they are backing losing horses, such as the reviled Mojaheddin-e-Khalq that supported Saddam Hussein and his chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq war. Meanwhile, Iranians did not heed the call of the erstwhile crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, for civil disobedience and election boycotts and treated his statements with derision.

In reality, although regime changers may claim to be defenders of democracy, they either want a malleable client state or a collision between the US and Iran. And knowing that indigenous and independent voices of dissent and dual nationals will be at even greater risk, the regime changers demonstrate a calculated cruelty by claiming to side with them. But any attack, bloodshed, or imposed leadership by external forces will prompt greater internal cohesion. When the dust settles, a population that desperately desires moderation and engagement will be angry with the world and more dependent on the very hardline forces that are currently on the wane.

There is also great danger. Iran is situated in a turbulent region, with difficult borders to control. If a weakened state can no longer police those borders, then Pakistan with its mix of Taliban, the Islamic State, and nuclear weapons would have easier passage to the Persian Gulf and beyond. Iran itself has a population of some 80 million people, mainly young and highly educated. But if the country falls into chaos, the potential ramifications of its instability would engulf the entire region.
The Iran of today is a very different country to that of 1979, 1989, 1999, or even 2009. The population increasingly has a democratic mindset. There is a genuine desire to find a transformative path to a world of live and let live. Unstoppable socio-political change is in motion with women at the lead. The best the US can do is let Iranians fulfill their own destiny, one that will be better for Iran, the region, and the U.S.

Sanam Naraghi Anderlini is the executive director of the International Civil Society Action Network and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Sina Azodi is a current PhD candidate in the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies at The University of South Florida. Photo: Farzaneh Sharafbafi

Syria's civil war Jihad wins in Idlib

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Jihad Wins in Idlib

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Takes Over Syria's North

Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi

AYMENN JAWAD AL-TAMIMI is a Research Fellow at the Middle East Forum, primarily focusing on Syria, Iraq and the Islamic State. His website is http://www.aymennjawad.org [1]
 

Most media coverage of Syria focuses on two aspects of the country’s civil war: first, the campaign against the Islamic State (or ISIS) [2] in northeastern Syria—including the battle by U.S.-backed Syrian forces to retake ISIS’ de facto capital, Raqqa—and second, the broader Russian involvement in the country [3].
In northwestern Syria, however, an overlooked but important battle has been taking place, pitting Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a successor to the Syrian al Qaeda affiliate known as Jabhat al-Nusra [4], against Ahrar al-Sham, a rival Salafist group aligned with Turkey and Qatar. The two have been engaged in heavy fighting for control of Idlib Province, the epicenter of the remaining anti-Assad insurgency, and HTS has acquired important gains. It has seized the provincial capital, Idlib city, and forced Ahrar out of Bab al-Hawa, the main border crossing with Turkey. HTS, in other words, has already scored a major strategic victory against Ahrar and will likely dominate Idlib from now on.
HTS control of Idlib means that the province will increasingly be viewed as a pariah internationally. Although the group claims to be independent, the United States and the international community at large see it as an al Qaeda front [5]. One result of this perception is that while HTS may claim that it can preserve NGO independence, fewer and fewer NGOs will be willing to work in Idlib, leading to a further deterioration in the province’s humanitarian situation. Moreover, the Assad regime and its allies will likely have greater international support for an offensive to retake the province.
But how did this disastrous turn of events come about, and who is to blame for it? Largely, the fault lies with Ahrar itself.
DECLINE AND FALL
With support from outside powers such as Turkey and Qatar, Ahrar has emerged over the course of the war as one of Syria’s most powerful rebel organizations. It possesses networks across the country, but is strongest in the north. Its prominence has made it the subject of polemical debate among Western commentators and policymakers, who are unsure whether to treat the group as a potential ally or enemy. Arguments about Ahrar (and Western policy toward it) have tended to focus on its internal ideological trends: although the group is commonly recognized as Salafist, outsiders disagree as to whether it is a jihadist group little different al Qaeda and ISIS or something more complex—a movement with diverse and evolving ideological strands, some jihadist, some more nationalist or moderate. HTS control of Idlib means that the province will increasingly be viewed as a pariah internationally.
Yet debates about Ahrar’s ideology often obscure the bigger picture. The main problem with the group, from the Western perspective, has always been its role as an enabler of jihadists, whether or not its members can be fairly described as jihadists themselves or have changed their position over time. This problem was captured well in a 2014 McClatchy article in which Syrian journalist Mousab Alhamadee [6] profiled Ahrar’s first leader, Hassan Abboud, who was killed in a mysterious explosion in September 2014 and with whom Alhamadee had had extensive interactions. Before his death, Abboud had apparently made attempts to distance the group from al Qaeda, with which it was most notably connected by way of Abu Khalid al-Suri, an Ahrar member who was appointed by al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2013 to mediate between Nusra and ISIS and who was killed in February 2014. But Alhamadee recognized that under Abboud’s leadership Ahrar had worked to bring large numbers of foreign jihadists into the country and undermine local councils and civil society. In particular, under Abboud Ahrar played a significant part in enabling the rise of ISIS in Syria in 2013—cooperating with it in Tel Abyad and Hasakah and standing by while it crushed other groups, such as Ahfad al-Rasoul in Raqqa. These problems came at a time when an early rebel mobilization against ISIS might have prevented it from seizing considerable swaths of Syrian territory.

Khalil Ashawi / Reuters Ahrar al-Sham fighters patrol a hill in Jabal al-Arbaeen, in Idlib Province, May 2015.                         

Abboud’s death and Ahrar’s conflict with ISIS, however, did not lead the group to abandon its close working relationship with Nusra—even after the latter expelled the most important Western-backed group in northern Syria, the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, from Idlib by the end of 2014. In 2015, Ahrar and Nusra together set up and led the Jaysh al-Fatah alliance of rebel groups, which would go on to drive the regime out of all major towns in Idlib in the spring of that year. But the coalition made no further gains, and its advances in Idlib helped provoke the September–October 2015 Russian intervention that has over the last two years helped Assad win victory after victory, including the December 2016 recapture of Aleppo that dealt a major blow to the insurgency. Ahrar’s unwillingness to dissolve Jaysh al-Fatah meant that over time, Nusra was able to embed itself more deeply in Idlib society and grow in strength.
Over time, certain political differences between Ahrar and Nusra—such as the former’s desire to distance itself from the al Qaeda brand—grew more pronounced, partially contributing to Nusra’s rebranding, first as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS) and later as HTS. For example, in early 2016 Ahrar rejected the idea of a merger with Nusra on the grounds of the latter’s al Qaeda affiliation, but even after that affiliation was officially dropped (and despite some support for the move within Ahrar) the group’s leadership feared that a merger would hurt its relations with Turkey, its main external backer.
The fall of Aleppo, however, put further pressure on Syria’s remaining rebels to unify against the regime. Again, a merger between Ahrar and JFS was floated, but didn’t work out because of Ahrar’s fear of alienating Turkey. Infighting subsequently broke out among the Idlib rebels, leading several smaller groups to seek protection in Ahrar. Meanwhile, JFS, groups that had a close working relationship with JFS, and a pro-JFS faction from Ahrar came together to merge into HTS at the end of January 2017.
AFTER AHRAR
At the beginning of this year, it seemed as though Ahrar and HTS held roughly equal power in Idlib—a view I myself held at the time [7]. In reality, HTS was strengthening its hand, gaining control of some important supply routes near the Turkish–Syrian border despite Ahrar’s control of the Bab al-Hawa border crossing. HTS, it turns out, was invigorated and determined to expand its administrative capabilities. Ahrar, although it knew it wished to maintain ties with Turkey, was indecisive, unable to formulate a clear stance against HTS. Indeed, it maintained the broader Jaysh al-Fatah alliance thanks to fears of further conflict. As Syria analyst Aron Lund wrote in early February [8], “The balance of power has now visibly tilted in favor of the jihadis”—that is, HTS and its allies.
Since then, a new round of infighting has begun in which Ahrar has suffered major losses. Conflict between HTS and Ahrar, as noted by Abu Sulayman al-Muhajir [9], an independent Australian jihadist previously involved in Nusra and JFS, was likely inevitable. The two have been running incompatible projects: both established their own administrative systems in Idlib, including governmental institutions such as courts, which could not coexist in the long run. And between them, HTS is clearly winning. Whatever words Ahrar’s leaders might utter against HTS are now of little use—the group allowed HTS to fester and grow for too long. Recently Ahrar, long one of the dominant groups in northern Syria, has even seen many defections from its own ranks to those of its rival. HTS’ ascendancy in Idlib can only be described as a major jihadist victory in northwestern Syria.
HTS’ ascendancy in Idlib can only be described as a major jihadist victory in northwestern Syria. That will lead to international pariah status for the province and increase the chances of a new regime offensive. At this stage, the only viable option for reversing this victory would be a direct Turkish military intervention in favor of Ahrar and other rebel factions in Idlib, although there is little incentive for Turkey—which does not see HTS as a direct threat to its territory—to do so. Absent that intervention, the most likely alternative is an ugly regime-backed offensive to retake Idlib, prompting greater refugee flows into Turkey.
Such an offensive into Idlib is not necessarily imminent. For now the regime and its allies will still focus most of their firepower on ISIS in the east, hoping to outcompete U.S.-backed forces for valuable natural resources and control of the border with Iraq. In the long run, however, a negotiated compromise between Assad and HTS is unlikely: the latter clearly affirmed in a recent statement [10] that “the revolution continues.” Eventually, however, Assad will attempt to take Idlib, and Turkey and the West may have to prepare for a new wave of refugees.