The Operation and Its Actors

Turkey is passing through a critical phase. It will either become a full legal state, with its political structures and institutions, or accept living under a conventional tutelage regime.

For the first time ever, large groups of people are coming out and extending full support to democratization. People in other countries are also supporting this process to a certain extent. Those who twist the facts about developments that have transpired as part of the reform of the Constitution, the elimination of military influence over civilian politics and the discovery of coup plans are continuing their manipulation efforts abroad because they have lost hope in the dynamics inside the country. Their goals are to preserve their traditional positions of privilege by reversing the developments and to deter Turkey from taking up the role it would like to play in the region.

Without a doubt external dynamics were as effective as internal dynamics in the termination of the coup period. The leading external dynamics are America, NATO and some European Union countries. These actors see a transformation in Turkey as crucial for the regional and global order to function. The extent to which their projections match our interests and are in Turkey's and the Muslim world's benefit is a subject that needs to be questioned. Personally, I have some concerns, but we're so occupied with domestic problems that we can't find the time to debate these issues. However, those who want Turkey to stay in its old shell and within the framework created by certain lobbies believing that this is the only way they can preserve their privileged position within the system are churning out propaganda as if they don't know along which new parameters America, NATO and the EU want to shape the region and the world. The propaganda is so simple that it can only fool ignorant people.

Soner Çağaptay is one of the people who have been disseminating this kind of amateur propaganda among American circles for a very long time. In his most recent article published in Foreign Policy magazine, Çağaptay wrote, “All signs point to Fethullah Gülen, whose shadowy Islamist movement is rapidly extending its tentacles into all aspects of Turkish political life.” This propaganda can be summed up as: “During the Fethullah Gülen and Justice and Development Party (AK Party) period, Turkey is shifting toward Islam. Some may see this as necessary in order for Turkey to play a role in the region now. However down the road, once it's too late, they will realize that it's causing Turkey to completely break off from the West, lose everything it achieved through secularism and consequently impair the West's plans in the region. Religious and conservative people, communities and parties with ties to Islam can never be trusted. They need to be kept in their condign status. If Turkey is going to play a role in the West's plan in the region, then it should do so under the direction of the secular-Kemalist staff.”

America, NATO and the EU are not interested in Muslims for no reason. But when they consider Realpolitik, they realize that the secular-Kemalists' ideological formations, which thrive on 19th century ideologies, are not suitable to play this role, that Turkey cannot communicate or establish dialogue with people in the region with an authoritarian and totalitarian secular identity, that the country's problems get worse after every coup and intervention implemented to seize civil politics in the name of secular-Kemalist ideology and that these groups of people do not have enough support from society. Secular-Kemalist circles cannot implement any reform. To the contrary, reforms become necessary because of their mentalities. Can the cause of the problem be its solution? No.

So in order to implement reform, obstacles must be removed. The first step to this end is putting an end to the era of coups. This has nothing to do with Gülen. Unexpectedly, the AK Party found itself in the midst of this situation. Gülen is a victim who has been unjustly forced to live away from his homeland for 11 years. Claiming he has the power to collect classified documents and information from various sources in the state is propaganda to agitate the sensitivities of some circles. Those who wonder who disclosed information and documents that have left all of us appalled need to realize that doing so requires access to extraordinary technological equipment and a high level of skills and need to turn their attention to other centers. Wasn't the leak of Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ's confidential speech at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, which was recorded and posted on Web sites, a good enough lesson?