Turkey Pursues New Ottomanism Under the Cover of Pan-Islamism

By Appo Jabarian
Executive Publisher / Managing Editor
USA Armenian Life Magazine

Turkish-executed and Neo-Con-supported International invasion of Syria by Islamic extremists and terrorists is already more than two years old.

While the United States, Russia, France, Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Iran and others are actively competing for their respective national interests, Turkey has been quietly seeking the creation of the New Turkish Ottoman Empire.

On several occasions Turkey has expressed a desire to re-establish itself as the nucleon of a New Ottoman Empire threatening to ‘devour’ all of the Middle East, Caucasus, Central Asia, and parts of Europe.

“In this context, it is useful to consider how useful a resuscitated Ottoman aggressor would be to transnational corporate (and perhaps NATO) elements, who might see it as a vehicle to be used against Russia and China,” wrote spitfirelist.com.

Once the bridge is crossed, can New Ottoman Turkey turn against its Western and Arab paymasters in the Gulf monarchies? A rear-view mirror look into the recent past provides the answer — a resounding yes!

During the heydays of the previous Ottoman regime, the Turkish Sultans and their entourage did not hesitate to be despotic vis-à-vis their Arab, Armenian, Greek, Alevi, Circassian, Jewish, Assyrian and European subjects.

Apparently neither the West nor the Middle East has learned any lessons from the past.

At a time when Washington and Europe are praising Turkey as the model of Muslim democracy for the Arab world, Turkish human rights advocates say the crackdown is part of an ominous trend. Most worrying, they say, are fresh signs that the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is repressing freedom of the press through a mixture of intimidation, arrests and financial machinations, including the sale in 2008 of a leading newspaper and a television station to a company linked to the prime minister’s son-in-law, reportedSpitfirelist.com.

Mr. Erdogan’s reputation as a tolerant Muslim has been badly damaged during the recent internal and external developments. Mr. Erdogan’s veil hiding his real ambitions has evaporated.

Now it turns out that his policies suppressing freedom of speech are married to his undemocratic treatment of the press and the Gezi protesters. His true face of Ottoman intolerance, “prickly and thin-skinned” persona has surfaced on more than one occasion. His arrogance, human rights advocates say “contributes to his animus against the news media.” Ottoman despotism against moderate Islam, Christianity and secularism has been re-launched.

There are a number of news accounts regarding the now-tarnished ‘moderation’ of Mr. Erdogan and his AK Party government. In reality the regime has a story inextricably linked with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Bank Al-Taqwa. This is whatWikipedia.com has to say about the bank: “The Al Taqwa Bank (occasionally Bank al Taqwa or simply Al Taqwa) is a financial institution incorporated in 1988. It is based out of The Bahamas, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. Al Taqwa Bank was accused by the United States of having links to Islamist terror organizations, and that it was a major source of funds for the operations of Osama bin Laden and his associates.”

However “on August 2, 2010, the bank was removed from a list of entities and individuals associated with Al Qaeda that is maintained by the UN Security Council,” in order to pave the road for unholy cooperation between oligarchs in the West and Islamic extremists and terrorists via Erdogan’s Turkey. In reality, the quality of relationship between Ankara and the neo-Cons in the West is nothing more than mutual exploitation majeure.

What other steps are being taken to establish the new Ottoman Turkish Empire?

Since Turkey is keenly aware that it cannot facilitate the victory of the ideology of Ottomanism over Arab nationalism, Ankara has resorted to overtly supporting Pan-Islamism. When Pan-Islamism failed to spread among Muslim Arabs, Turkey resorted to exporting to Syria foreign Muslim extremists from various foreign countries.

The Turkish war of attrition against Syrian Arab nationalism transcending ethnicity and religion is a blatant example of Ankara’s Ottoman ambitions. Many sources confirm that Turkey has been a leading enabler of Islamic extremist fighters in Syria.

The neo-Ottoman Turkish master plan calls for the elimination of Arab nationalism by way of first liquidating Syria’s moderate Muslim Sunni Arabs who have long forged strategic partnership with fellow Muslim Alawites, Kurds, Shias, Druze as well as Christian Armenians, Syriacs, Greeks and others.

In a recent statement critical of Erdogan’s policies, Arab Americans For Syria (AA4Syria) lambasted Turkey’s inhumane role in Syria: “Ankara’s government has been involved in an act of war against the Syrian people for the past 2 years, and here is how: 1. Turkey helps harboring and training terrorists and mercenaries from all over the world, and providing safe passage to them in and out of Syria; 2. Turkey helps bringing in arms, artillery, money, and logistic support to all the different terrorist groups in Syria; 3. Turkish-backed terrorists have been systematically attacking Syrian villages mainly inhabited by minorities. Villages that are heavily populated with Syrian Christians, Kurds, and Armenians have been paying a very heavy price in recent months as Turkey escalated its Ottoman Empire historical persecution” of moderate Sunnis, Alawites, Kurds, Arab Christians and Armenians in Syria.

Reminiscent of Ottoman culture of looting, AA4Syria underlined: “Turkey, with the full knowledge of its government, has been facilitating the transport of stolen goods from over a 1000 robbed factories from the industrial city of Aleppo into Turkey. Whole factories, goods, equipment, and machinery have been dismantled and passed through to Turkey. This form of international piracy is leading to the destruction of the Syrian economy.”

Mr. Erdogan is ‘lionized’ in the Middle East as a ‘powerful’ regional leader who can ‘stand up’ to Israel and the West, but in reality his government operates under the cover of Pan-Islamism vying to undermine Arab nationalism and promoting Ottoman-era feudalism to systematically weaken the Arab nation and to eventually pave the way for New Ottomanism.