Here is the reality: War is knocking at the door

Kemal Okuyan, TKP General Secretary

https://www.tkp.org.tr/en/international/tkp-general-secretary-kemal-okuyan-wrote-on-the-recent-developments-in-middle-east-war-is-knocking-at-the-door/

Israel wants a full-scale conflict. Its interests and the fanaticism it constantly nurtures require that. It believes that it has seized a favourable opportunity to consolidate and expand the territories it has occupied. 

It may not be led by a consensus in the run-up to the elections, but there is ample evidence that the United States, calculating to break the growing influence of Iran and Russia in the region, is also encouraging Israel to wage a wider war. The US special forces and intelligence are already directly involved in the war in Gaza, the US air force and navy are periodically striking Shia militias in Iraq and Houthi targets in Yemen, and US troops continue to be present as an occupying force in Syria, which has been at war with Israel since 1948.

While strengthening solidarity with the resistance of the Palestinian people, it is important to remember that tensions and conflicts cannot be confined to the Palestinian issue.

The Middle East is one of the regions where the competition and crisis within the imperialist system has intensified and brought it to the brink of a major rupture. The fact that the Gazans are paying the biggest price of this conflict does not change the fact that we faced the same heavy balance sheet yesterday in Iraq and later in Syria.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the strategic moves of the US developed in line with the goal of settling in the regions where socialism had retreated and to include the countries that were able to enjoy a certain space of movement by relying on the balances of the two-bloc world under its influence. Iraq was invaded for this reason, Yugoslavia was dismembered for this purpose, Iran was besieged with these objectives, Syria was drenched in blood in line with these calculations, and the former socialist countries were enrolled in NATO one after another with this logic.

In fact, in the 1990s and 2000s, US imperialism was endeavouring to achieve more than its declining economic superiority could bear. In some cases it achieved its goal, in others it hit a wall. 

On the one hand, the resistance of the aforementioned countries, on the other hand, the anti-US sentiment that manifested itself in different forms among the masses of poor people; on the one hand, the gradual recovery of Russian capitalism, which, after having tried to "co-operate" with the USA, realised that this was impossible, and on the other hand, the increasing competitiveness of China, which knows that time is on its side, has become a threat to the US hegemony.

What the USA is trying to do today is to break this resistance at the weakest point and to engage more strongly in the coming confrontation with Russia and more particularly with China.

The history of imperialism, especially US imperialism, is full of miscalculations. Besides, the US administration is aware that the bloc it is facing does not act with certain principles and ideals and ideological consistency as it did in the Soviet Union. In fact, there is no bloc at all. Many capitalist countries, large and small, who think that the US and NATO's constant opening of new intervention areas all over the world threatens their interests, have linked up with each other, and with different ideological orientations have created armed forces attached to them from the masses of poor people who are angry at the aggression of the US and its allies. It must be recognised that while Islamism appears to be the strength of Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah it is also their weak point.

So what will happen today? And what are the dimensions of the issue that concern Turkey? Let's go one by one.

1. Iran, which has suffered a succession of heavy blows and serious weaknesses in its institutional structure, has no choice but to try to compensate for the loss of prestige caused by the inability to protect an important guest in Tehran. This is what Israel also wants.

2.Similarly, Hezbollah, which is being questioned due to the economic crisis in Lebanon for a long time, has no chance to ignore Israeli provocations any longer.

3.On the other hand, Israel has decided to deploy the full capabilities of its war machine and its extensive intelligence network. It must be taken into account that this will have a deterrent effect on some elements and may even create serious internal problems in some countries.

4. Israel is determined not to tolerate any Palestinian authority, not to mention an independent Palestinian state. Therefore, what we are witnessing is a border expansion operation from Gaza to the West Bank, from the Golan Heights to South Lebanon. It is impossible for this operation to succeed through low-intensity conflicts and massacres of civilians.

5.For the Arab countries (and Turkey), which have been advocates of a policy of rapprochement with Israel, to enter into such a détente with Israel today, when Palestine is on fire, would represent an enormous domestic political risk. Israel will not receive any meaningful support even from the most co-operative regional countries.

6.On the other hand, despite all claims of a new axis, Iran is as isolated as Israel. China and Russia do not intend to intervene directly in an Israeli-Iranian conflict. Turkey, which has taken a stance against Israel on Gaza, is in competition with Iran as much as with Israel.

7.Israel, on the other hand, can count on the military and political weight of the US in the region, the bases in Cyprus, which the UK and the US use as they wish, and its deep-rooted relationship with the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) in Iraq. The KDP's close co-operation with Turkey should also be noted.

8. In addition, any force in Syria that keeps the Damascus government and the pro-Iranian forces under pressure is of value for Israel. Who are these forces? The PYD (Democratic Union Party), which the US continues to support, is one of them. But it does not end there. Israel is also associated with some jihadist groups in Syria and provides them with logistical support. The Syrian National Army, proudly patronised by the AKP, is in partnership with Israel in the fight against the Syrian army and pro-Iranian militias.

9.Israel will want to utilise every opportunity in the countries of the region in case the war expands.

10.The problem and rivalry between Iran and Turkey is one of these opportunities. In this sense, the Sunni Hamas, an extension of the Ikhwan movement, moving away from the influence of the AKP and coming under the influence of Shia Iran is one of the biggest failures of the Neo-Ottomanist policies.

11.In Turkey, some media and official organisations linked to the government, which started a race to insult Iran after the helicopter crash in which Reisi was killed, displayed the same attitude after the killing of Haniyeh and started a psychological war against Iran. Regardless of the strange picture of Iran, which has been dragged into deep problems by the mullahs' regime, it is necessary to note this aside.

12.In this picture, we need to understand that it is not Iran's willingness to risk such a conflict that raises the possibility of a wide-scale war, but Israel's goal of spreading the war and expanding its borders.

13.We need to know that Turkey faces the risk of being dragged into new and much more severe problems in order to solve the problems accumulated as a result of AKP policies in a possible regional war with Israel at its centre.

14.The neo-Ottomanist mentality may want to turn the expansion of the scope of the war into an opportunity in Syria, Cyprus and even Iraq. It is useful to evaluate Erdoğan's recent discourses from this perspective.

While the danger of war is knocking on our door once again, let us leave the issue of what should be done against US imperialism, Israeli aggression and the danger of Turkey's involvement in a large-scale war to the next article.