What is Turkey going to do if [President George W.] Bush is defeated in next year’s elections, and if the new president decides to withdraw from Iraq? If Bush wins the elections and announces to the entire world that he is going to stay in the Middle East with his new projects, what is Turkey going to do then?

In the strategic games, every prediction and plan made from possibilities are being used in brain storming. Turkey needs to plan beforehand, for every possibility, including what kind of situation it might fall into. In this matter, the caravan won’t hit the road but will only get robbed, so to speak. In the Middle East three major streams have engaged in hot competitions: Vahabism, Shiitism, the modernized Sunni tradition and the Turk Islam understanding that emanated from the Ottoman civilization and culture. The U.S. sees Vahabism today as a swamp where terrorism is being bred. Vahabism was also the most aggressive and reactionary stream during the Ottoman period. Their attacks on Turks and on the Turkish Islamic faith were documented in newspapers in the 1800s. There is no place for global tolerance in Vahabism, and it will not even call a Muslim who is not liked by the sect a Muslim. This was said me a lot in the region. Shiitism adopts a spreading policy and a politicized stream. that controls an expansion policy in the Middle East. It has won many enemies with the politics of Khomeini in Iran. The Turk Islam understanding did not even take part in the Middle East stage, forget about the world scene. Turkey’s bashfulness that reminds us of a new bride, who cannot dance with the excuse that the place is too narrow for dancing, has turned into a meaningless concept. The Turk Islam understanding, which even the West is aware of and even America talks about, is still ‘something our intellectuals have to be ashamed of!’ In Europe, even those who produce theories on ‘European Islam,’ show Morocco as an example by ignoring the Turk Islam understanding. The impossibility of Morocco being an example is a historical determination. There is nothing from the millions of Turks and their intellectuals, from the politicians and the culture producers…! Sending or not sending troops to Iraq is not the main problem today. The question, ‘Exactly what role is Turkey going to play in the modernization of the Middle East?’ is more important. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) is trying to implement the reforms that had been delayed for years, while at the same time trying to control the modernization of the country and also trying to be the initiator of changes in the Middle East and the Arab world. Besides, it is getting stuck between the pro-modernization role that history and the nation have given it and the conservative role it wants to play. While the West has been exerting every effort since the Ottoman era to materialize the demands of modernizing Turkey, Ataturk did not do this through insistence but through the wish of the Turkish nation. This demand was enough to internalize modern life. Today our interests and those of the West overlap. The presence of tyrannical rulers, hunger, corruption, injustice and cruelty are things we do not want in the Middle East, politically and from the humanity perspective as well. Turkey needs to take the leading role in modernization instead of giving it to the Westerners. Because modernization had been brought to these lands during the hundreds years of Turkish culture, Anatolian life-style and culture. Its roots are here. Turkey is the representative of modern Islam and possesses the attributes of global tolerance. Turkey should do the pioneering work with its modernization role. The isolation policy is not going to do anybody any good. Anyway, in this kind of a world, isolation is not possible. Sending troops to Iraq is not a matter of discussion, because our soldiers have been in northern Iraq for the past 10 years anyway. So, the unavoidable is penetrating the borders. Northern Iraq cannot be abandoned to its own fate. Cooperating not clashing is what we need with the Kurdish groups. Turkey should be the architect of the live-together project in the entire region. In the long run, anti-Americanism will damage Turkey’s interests. Let us trust our culture and ourselves with courage. Let us see our place on the stage, because the Middle East will not calm down easily. September 16, 2003