World War is the inevitable result of multiple ethnic messiahs seeking to liberate only their own people, in contrast to the one Mashiach who came to free the whole world.
Follow the pattern of the downfall of “God’s people” who corrupt themselves by alliances with pagan nations. Whoever Christian America placed their trust in and put their money on for a defense league will conquer her.
That is not the United Nations, which is essentially an extension of America. It is not NATO or the EEC. England paid America to be her ally in World War II through the Lend-Lease Act and Germany transferred massive military assets to America after the war in exchange for reconstruction of her economy.
It is the Eastern Arab nations, the other leg of the Fourth Empire.
Ottoman Empire, empire created by Turkish tribes in Anatolia (Asia Minor) that grew to be one of the most powerful states in the world during the 15th and 16th centuries. The Ottoman period spanned more than 600 years and came to an end only in 1922, when it was replaced by the Turkish Republic…
At its height the empire encompassed most of southeastern Europe to the gates of Vienna, including present-day Hungary, the Balkan region, Greece, and parts of Ukraine; portions of the Middle East now occupied by Iraq, Syria, Israel, and Egypt; North Africa as far west as Algeria; and large parts of the Arabian Peninsula. The term Ottoman is a dynastic appellation derived from Osman I (Arabic: ʿUthmān), the nomadic Turkmen chief who founded both the dynasty and the empire about 1300…
the Ottomans were leaders of the Turkish warriors for the faith of Islam, known by the honorific title ghāzī (Arabic: “raider”), who fought against the shrinking Christian Byzantine state.
The historical accumulation of titles of the Ottoman ruler includes Padishah (Emperor) of Iraq / Babylon, Persia / Iran, Greece / Turkey, and a host of other known states, as well as Caesar of Rome (Kayser-i Rûm) of much of Eastern Europe…Istanbul as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean Basin, was at the centre of interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds for six centuries until its dismantling after WWI.
Turkey is the political successor to the Ottoman Empire. A revolution by the Young Turks in 1908 turned the Empire into a constitutional monarchy…a coup d’état in 1913 created a one party regime which allied the Empire with Germany against the British incursions into Ottoman territory. After being reduced to a small homeland in the Anatolian heartland by the British and French division of spoils after the war, the Turkish War of Independence against the occupying Allies was a rare success. Led by Mustafa Kemal who gave himself the name / way Atatürk / Father pf the Turks, the Republic of Turkey abolished the Ottoman monarchy but not the dreams of restoring the Empire.
Whereas the historical literature about Turkey emphasizes the country commitment to the West since the proclamation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal, later known as “Atatürk” (Father of the Turks), little is written about the country relations with Arab and Muslim countries…Hence, in the 90th year of existence as a republic in the Middle East any scientific analysis of Turkey with its impressive examples of political, economic, cultural as well as societal development should also spotlight its relations with the countries it formerly shared one single empire with…
After having secured its Western borders by signing the Balkans Pact with Greece, Romania and Yugoslavia on 9 February 1934, Turkey…signed a pact with Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq in 1937…
[In the 1950’s] Turkey initiated an assertive foreign policy in the region and to a certain extent achieved renewed importance in the Arab and Islamic world…
the first Islamic country to recognize the Jewish state of Israel on 18 March 1949, less than one year after Israel’s official proclamation of independence on 14 May 1948, Turkey changeful relations with Israel peaked in a trilateral security alliance [with monarchal Iran as the third member] in 1958. Israel and Turkey are considered as two main democracies and Western-oriented states in the Middle East which are often said to have shared common values and common interests in regard to their regional antagonists throughout history…
whenever Israel was in direct confrontation with Arab states and whenever Israel was directly humiliating Palestinians, Turkey was on the side of the Palestinians. Likewise, whenever Arab countries were intimidating Turkish concerns, Turkey returned to Israel’s side…
Combined with rational decisions of realpolitik (closeness with the US because of financial necessities, NATO-membership to counter communist influence, and close ties with European organizations to fulfil the Kemalist state ideology of Westernization alike modernization)…a Turkish “Ostpolitik” started to become part of a newer Turkish ideology. Turkey relations with countries which were formerly part of the Ottoman Empire and which were now part of the Islamic world were no more avoided or discreet…
In 2002 Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan…formed a pragmatic Islamist government that successfully cultivated diplomatic relations with Western powers.
Having gained America’s confidence, Turkey is now openly edging its way into the place vacated by the United States in the Middle East. Turkey is cozying up to its Muslim neighbors to the east with a desire to re-establish the influence and power lost by the Turkey-based (I know, that’s a really bad pun) Ottoman Empire not that long ago.
Turkey, which has strong historical and ethnic ties in Afghanistan…has developed close intelligence ties with some Taliban-linked militia. Turkey is also an ally of neighbouring Pakistan, from whose religious seminaries the Taliban first emerged.
When in August 2021, ISIL killed 13 American military personnel and at least 169 Afghan civilians during the U.S. evacuation of Kabul:
…as chaos gripped Kabul airport…which Turkish troops have guarded for six years [Turkish] President Erdogan said he viewed messages from Taliban leaders with “cautious optimism”….“Turkey is ready to lend all kinds of support for Afghanistan’s unity…”
Prof Ahmet Kasim Han, an expert on Afghan relations…says further ties in Afghanistan allow President Erdogan to “broaden the chessboard” of his foreign policy and play to his AK Party’s support base.
“They consider Turkey as a country with a manifest destiny – an exceptional position within the Muslim world… based on Turkey’s…Ottoman heritage as the seat of the caliphate.”
The Turkish proposal to secure and operate the Kabul airport is influenced by…fraying U.S.-Turkish relations…Turkey has found itself sidelined and its political sensitivities ignored…
A greater Turkish role in Afghanistan would also allow [capitol city] Ankara to…become the most important foreign military actor in Afghanistan and a key political patron of the traditional leaders of country’s Turkic minorities, thus furthering its geopolitical and economic linkages with the largely Turkic nations in Central Asia.
Fundamentalist Muslims have good reason to line up with Turkey to clear the Western nations / The Romans out of their land.
As the Syrian Civil War created vast ungoverned spaces after its March 2011 initiation, some of the Syrian jihadists who had joined ISIS in Iraq returned to Syria. They returned partly because they were originally Syrians and had family and clan connections in Syria. The other reason was because the Syrian town of al-Dabiq [just below Syria’s northern border with Turkey] is the site of a prophecy, allegedly by the Prophet Mo- hammed, that the final battle between Islam and the “Romans” (literally the Christian West) would begin at al-Dabiq. ISIS propaganda often featured al- Dabiq.
There is a dark side to Turkey’s ambitions.
The Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in Turkey…between 15% and 20% of the population…primarily concentrated in the east and southeast of the country, within the region viewed by Kurds as Turkish Kurdistan…
Massacres…have periodically been committed against the Kurds since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923…During the Kurdish–Turkish conflict, food embargoes were placed on Kurdish villages and towns…many instances of Kurds being forcibly expelled from their villages…Many villages were reportedly set on fire or destroyed…political parties that represented Kurdish interests were banned.
Iran—formerly an ally with Turkey and Iraq – became one of Israel’s main security threats in the region after regime change following the Islamic Revolution of 1979. This fact shows that even though former allies worked closely together, they can dramatically drift apart when once-shared concerns diverge or fundamentally change…
By 2015, aid to anti-Assad forces became the most expensive US covert action program in history, topping 1 billion USD. However, some of the funds and arms wound up in the hands of violent extremists, while some of the troops with the units funded by the United States defected to other groups, taking their arms with them. After the rise of ISIS in June 2014, more US aid went to groups professing to be anti-ISIS, but some of these groups had violent jihadi orientations…
As the conflict inside Syria was radicalized, more regional actors were taking part in the war. What has made Syria a turning point for the regional policy of Turkey, Iran, Israel, and Iraq?
- Assad [Syria] received support from Iran and Hezbollah
- triggering pacts between Israel and Arab countries who had mutual interests in curbing Iranian influence in the eastern Mediterranean
- ad Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries increased their support for Sunni opposition groups,
- which fueled Iran’s and Hezbollah’s increased support to Assad.
- triggering Turkey to fund extreme jihadi groups affiliated with al-Qaeda-linked organizations, because they were anti-Assad and anti-Kurds.
- triggering Russia to support Assad
- triggering concerns that Russia will establish a broader base of influence in the Middle East
Rodríguez: What are the reasons for this to be a turning point in international politics?
Sorenson: The internationalization of the Syrian conflict raised real doubts about the validity of the previous international order [with America reigning supreme]….Great-power rivalry was increasing…but the Syrian Civil War gave Russia new opportunities, as Russia has positive, if tenuous relations, with Iran, most Arab states, Turkey, and Israel. Russia has no domestic barriers to expansion beyond its laggard economy [which, as with Germany for WWII, is not a barrier but an impetus to war] while the American public is tiring of two long wars that have cost close to 2 trillion USD just in direct costs…
Trump’s exit from Syria represent [s] a game-changer in the US geopolitics…
The United States has rested its security on forward presence and forward engagement since World War II. So…decision to withdraw American forces from Syria…was seen widely as a signal that the United States under Trump was withdrawing from its larger global role. The US Syrian withdrawal came as Trump questioned Ameri- can alliances in both the Pacific and NATO…appeared to downplay the European threat posed by Russia under [Pres. Vladimir] Putin….talked openly about withdrawing residual American forces from Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel and other American friends in the region interpreted the American withdrawal as both a retreat from a region and abandonment of a[n]…ally…
After Trump’s exit, Turkey has entered again in the war scene with virulence.
We can expect to see Turkey reintegrate Iran, Iraq into an alliance – oh, wait – Turkey already did that in the Baghdad Pact of 1955.
And a Jerusalem Post headline in March 2021 reads “Iran, Russia and Turkey Signal Growing Alliance“.
For many years, Ankara would say one thing to Moscow and Tehran about partnership while telling Washington’s Iran hawks that it was “against Russia and Iran…”
However, the reality was that Turkey was always working closely with Russia and Iran…
This is the long-term goal of Turkey in finding an accommodation with states in the region and bringing together its alliance with Iran and Russia to legitimize its continued occupation of parts of Syria and bases in Iraq.
“The Real Outcome of the Iraq War: US and Iranian Strategic Competition in Iraq” which is available on the CSIS web site at: http://csis.org/files/publication/120308_Combined_Iraq_Chapter.pdf
Since the 2003 war, both the US and Iran have competed to shape the structure of Post-Saddam Iraq’s politics, governance, economics, and security.
the US invasion now seems to be a de facto grand strategic failure in terms of its cost in dollars and blood, its post-conflict strategic outcome, and the value the US could have obtained from different uses of its political, military, and economic resources. The US went to war for the wrong reasons – focusing on threats from weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi-government sponsored terrorism that did not exist. It had no meaningful plan for either stability operations or nation building. It let Iraq slide into a half decade of civil war, and failed to build an effective democracy and base for Iraq’s economic development. The US failed to establish anything like the strategic partnership it sought.
Iran has very different goals from the US. It seeks to ensure that Iraq does not…reemerge as a threat to Iran. It seeks to rid the country of American influence – particularly of American military personnel – to the greatest extent possible. Iran has aggressively used its networks, patronage, economic ties, religious ties, aid money, and military support to various factions in Iraq to achieve these goals…
Iran seems likely to be the de facto winner of the US invasion of Iraq. It now enjoys deep ties in a neighboring country with which it once fought a fierce and bloody eight-year war. Iran has a great deal of cultural, military, and economic resources available to influence Iraq.
This US-Iranian competition will not only have a major impact on Iraq, but the far broader range of US and Iranian competition in the Arab world – especially the Southern Gulf, in Turkey, and in dealing with Iran’s efforts to create an area of influence that includes Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon and which poses a major challenge to Israel…
For more than two decades, the United States has seen the politics of the Middle East as a tug of war between moderation and radicalism—Arabs against Iran. But for the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, it was blind to different, more profound fissures growing among the region’s three non-Arab powers: Iran, Israel, and Turkey.
For the quarter century after the Suez crisis of 1956, Iran, Israel, and Turkey joined forces to strike a balance against the Arab world with U.S. help. But Arab states have been sliding deeper into paralysis and chaos since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, followed by the failed Arab Spring, leading to new fault lines. Indeed, the competition most likely to shape the Middle East is no longer between Arab states and Israel or Sunnis and Shiites—but among the three non-Arab rivals…
Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear capability and its use of clients and proxies to influence the Arab world and attack U.S. interests and Israel are now familiar. What is new is Turkey’s emergence as an unpredictable disrupter of stability across a much larger region. No longer envisioning a future in the West, Turkey is now more decidedly embracing its Islamic past, looking past lines and borders drawn a century ago. Its claim to the influence it had in the onetime domains of the Ottoman Empire can no longer be dismissed as rhetoric. Turkish ambition is now a force to be reckoned with.
For example, Turkey now occupies parts of Syria, has influence in Iraq, and is pushing back against Iran’s influence in both Damascus and Baghdad. Turkey has increased military operations against Kurds in Iraq and accused Iran of giving refuge to Turkey’s Kurdish nemesis, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkey has inserted itself in Libya’s civil war and most recently intervened decisively in the dispute in the Caucasus between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Officials in Ankara are also eyeing expanded roles in the Horn of Africa, and in Lebanon, while Arab rulers worry about Turkish support for the Muslim Brotherhood and its claim to have a say in Arab politics.
And don’t forget Russia, America’s only major ally in WWII, allowed to retain seized booty in both territory and military scientific assets like rocket science for its participation in the Allied forces against the Axis powers. Immediately following the close of WWII America turned on Russia in the Cold War using Communism’s atheism as a religious justification to overthrow the Eastern brnch of the Roman Empire and attain total supremacy. And if I sound utterly unpatriotic, think. Seriously, how does total supremacy ever turn out for the population? Totalitarianism under any label of type of government is oppression.
Kingdom Come 