'Arabising' Neo-Ottoman Turkey Vs Neo-Safavism.

'Arabising' Neo-Ottoman Turkey Vs Neo-Safavism. Al-Akhbar's headline, "Sultan Erdoghan", contained ahigh doze of Ja'fari subtlety. Among things said other thanpraising for the Turkish PM, the Ja'fari-controlled Beirut dailyimplied that he was a Neo-Ottoman. In the diverse Beirut presscommunity, this brought to mind what Sunni Arab analysts callIran's "Neo-Safavi supremacists" ruling a theocracymilitarised by the IRGC. Iraq's Sunni Arabs often refer to theIranian regime's ideology as "Safawi imperialism"; theyrecall the Turkoman/Persian theocracy which ruled much of the GME in the15th century AD and was at war with the Ottoman Empire which was a Sunnicaliphate. Even in Lebanon, secular Ja'faris occasionally calltheir Iran-backed Islamist rivals "Safawis". After the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) came topower in Ankara in November 2002, many in the GME referred to a newNeo-Ottoman foreign policy, suggesting a revival of the intellectual,political and social influence of the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed bythe end of World War-I. That policy was attributed to AKP leaderErdoghan and his Neo-Ottoman adviser, now Foreign Minister AhmetDavutoghlu. In parallel, the Ja'fari theocracy in Iran had by early 1997evolved more into a modern version of Safavism, meant to be a revival ofthe Turkoman/Persian empire established in the 15h century AD byIsma'il-I. Isma'il-I, a Turkoman who became king in much ofPersian after having converted from Sunnism to Ja'fariShi'ism, then founded the Safavid dynasty. The Safavids areinfamously known to the Arabs as "Safawis", or"Safawids". That empire eventually controlled much of the GMEand was at war with the Ottoman Empire (seerim6IranSafawidsHistoryJun28-04). By early 1997, the supremacist wing of the Ja'fari theocracyinfluenced by Qom-based Ayatullah Muhammad-Taqi Musbah-Yazdi, had takencontrol over the command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)through its Turkic-born Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In the spring of1997, most of the IRGC members and the "12-million-strong"Basij militias voted overwhelmingly for reformist Hujjat ul-IslamMuhammad Khatami, a Persian-born theologian who was moderate andgenerally in agreement with the incumbent, then President Ali-AkbarHashemi-Rafsanjani who is a fellow Persian follower of the moderntheocracy's Persian-born Ayatullah Ruhullah Khomeini - later knownas Imam Khomeini who authored the WuF concept and died in June 1989. Immediately as Imam Khomeini died, Rafsanjani lobbied the 86 seniortheologian members of the popularly-elected Assembly of Experts (AoE) tovote for Khamenei as supreme leader to succeed the theocracy'sfounder. In early 1997 it was Musbah-Yazdi, described as "theMachiavelli" behind Khamenei, who made sure that the mid-rankingtheologian Khatami was to be elected president by a landsline majority.It was during Khatami's presidency that the IRGC began to rise inprominence as a military power and spread its industrial/businessconglomerate. In early 2004, the supremacists began preparations tocontrol the Islamic Consultative Majlis (parliament) as the GuardiansCouncil (GC) which they had under their influence disqualified thousandsreformists as candidates to the legislative elections held in Februaryof that year. From then on, with the help of the GC and the Majlis, the IRGC grewmore rapidly so that its man, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, faired well in theJune 17, 2005, presidential elections, which he won in the second roundon June 24 of that year, thus defeating Rafsanjani. Readers of the Safavid history can compare the IRGC toIsma'il-I's formidable Turkoman Kizilbash. The well-armed andindoctrinated Kizilbash - pronounced Qizilbash, Turkic for "RedHeads" as they wore a distinctive crimson hat with 12 foldsdenoting their Twelver (Ja'fari) Shi'ism - these menconsidered Isma'il-I to be both their religious Murshid-i Kamil("the Perfect Guide as head of the Safavi order) and their temporal"Padishah" (king). To the Kizilbash as well as the otherJa'faris, Isma'il-I then was revered as the Shadow of God onEarth - a special title which Abul-Abbas al-Saffah had borrowed in 750AD when he became the first Sunni caliph of the Abbasids (and which theyoung Ja'afari mullah Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq occasionally wascalled by some of his anti-US militiamen of Jaysh al-Mahdi (JaM). In the 15th century AD, it was South Lebanon's Ja'faritheologians of Jabal Amel who helped Shi'itise Isma'il and hisfellow Turkomans as well as much of Persia. So it should not besurprising why the link between Hizbullah and the IRGC has that historicroot - although today it is Hizbullah which is the offshoot of the IRGC,rather than the other way round. Nor should it be surprising that it wasprimarily the Turkic theologians of modern Iran who worked on foundingHizbullah in Damascus in 1982 after Israel's invasion of Lebanon. The man who celebrated the founding was then Iranian ambassador toSyria Hujjat ul-Islam Ali-Akbar Muhtashemi-Pour, an Azeri theologian wholater became Iran's interior minister and now is one of the topaides to the Khomeinist opposition leader, ex-PM Mir-Hussein Moussavi -a fellow Azeri who claims that Ahmadi-Nejad's re-election to asecond presidential term on June 12, 2009 was rigged by the IRGC. Atthis point, it is important to note that the current theocracy underKhamenei, who belongs to an Azeri clan, is universal and not confined toIran or the GME - an area stretching from Russia to the AfPak front andfrom China's Central Asian border to the Western Sahara'sAtlantic coast. The Ottoman Empire's Sunni caliphate was also universal. It isnot clear whether the Neo-Ottoman AKP government is working on a revivalof that caliphate whose capital was Constantinople (Istanbul) and wasfounded in the 14th century AD as a universal entity, not confined tothe GME. The Neo-Salafi movement, including al-Qaeda and Hizb ut-Tahrir,also wants to revive the Sunni caliphate which collapsed in the 1920swith the demise of the Ottoman Empire, just before Mustafa Kemal"Atat?rk" (father of the Turks) founded his secular movementlater to be known as Kemalism. Quickly, however, the Neo-Ottoman description faded away as it wasdifficult to see to then secularising Turks. It remains difficult tomarket that description in countries formerly controlled by the OttomanEmpire due to continued indoctrination against Ottomanism by the Arabsover nine decades. Some, however, continued to stand by the term,including Cuneyt Zapsu, an adviser to the Turkish PM, who recently said:"A new, positive role for Turkey in the world requires areconciliation with its own past, the overcoming of societal taboos, anda positive new concept of Turkish identity. We are the Ottomans'successors and should not be ashamed of this". Decision-makers in Turkey had, since the 1920s, tried to hide theirOttoman past, ashamed of it during the heyday of Atat?rk because itlooked backward and was too Islamic for the secular state which wasbeing carefully erected in Turkey. That is now a thing of the pastthanks to the steady policy of the AKP, which has been opening up to theArab world. Many wrongly interpret Erdoghan's policy towards theArabs, now entering its tenth year, as purely a Syrian-Turkish alliance. By nature of his new orientation, Erdoghan is striving to restoreTurkey to its rightful place among Arab and Muslim states. It is apolicy which embraces the whole GME and much of Africa. In 2008 Turkeysponsored indirect talks between Syria and Israel, tried to hammer outsolutions between Fatah and Hamas, and worked on mending broken fencesbetween Damascus and Baghdad after relations soured last August. Turkeyhas stood as a mediator between Iran and the Arabs and has worked hardto help embrace non-state players like Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas,whose leadership it received in Ankara in 2004, despite public outcryfrom the US. Turkey has tried to flex its muscle within the complex Iraqipolitics, calling on Sunni leaders to take part in the political processstarted after the 2003 downfall of Saddam's regime. Turkey hadmediated in similar waters at the turn of the 20th century and knows theArab world, its people and their plight only too well, and still feelsbest suited to solve existing conflicts within it. Turkey's closest ally in the Arab world is Saudi Arabia,followed by the rest of the GCC region, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya,Morocco, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, etc. The Jeddah-basedSecretary-General of the 57-state Organisation of the Islamic Conference(OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoghlu, is a Turkish diplomat fluent in Arabic andclose to the Wahhabi royal family. Many members of the AKP leadershipspeak Arabic. The Arabic language has been re-introduced since 2003 inthe curricula of many Turkish schools, colleges and universities. To theArab heavyweights - Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Syria - Turkey under the AKPis being "Arabised" in the context of inviting Ankara to playa more active role in support of the pan-Arab causes, such as that ofPalestine. In this sense, Ankara has been pleased by the invitation becausesince Saddam's Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in 1990 collective Arabaction has been mostly symbolic. Saddam divided the Arab world beyondrepair. Where the Saudi-led Sunni camp is concerned, the downfall ofSaddam and the US invasions of Afghanistan in late 2001 and Iraq inMarch 2003 have occasioned the rise of Iran and the demise ofpan-Arabism. Saudi Arabia is championing a revived version ofpan-Arabism and wants Turkey to be an active partner. This is whyErdoghan in recent years has been attending the annual Arab Leaguesummit meetings "more as a dear partner than a foreignobserver", as a leading Saudi diplomat put it to APS on Jan. 30. The volume of two-way trade between Turkey and the Arab world ismore than double the $10bn per annum between Turkey and Israel. Bycontrast, the volume of trade between Iran and the Arab world is insteady decline and nowhere to compare with the size of Turkish-Arabpartnerships. The Saudi diplomat told APS: "We were sincerelyhoping that the trading partnership between the Arabs and Iran wouldmatch the one we have with Turkey. But, unfortunately, Iran'sdivisive policies have seriously damaged Arab causes and split thePalestinians so deeply". On the occasion of Hariri's visit to Turkey, PM Erdoghan saida "regional Schengen" system similar to the agreement signedbetween European countries in Luxemburg in 1985, had now gone intoeffect in this part of the GME, removing systematic border controlbetween these countries - making them closer to how they had been underthe Ottoman Empire. When Iraq normalises, he added, it also could jointhe regional "Schengen" system. A Turkish commentator wrote during Hariri's visit:"Clearly from all the optimism shown by Erdoghan for[that visit],co-operation between Turkey and Lebanon will not end there. The Turkishpremier, after all, has visited Beirut twice, in 2007 and in 2008, andwas the most senior foreign guest attending the [May 25, 2008]inauguration of Lebanese President Michel Suleiman". During the Israeli-Hizbullah war of 2006, Erdoghan firmly stood bythe Lebanese, and in its immediate aftermath, sent 600 Turkish troops totake part in peacekeeping on the Lebanese-Israeli border by the UNIFIL.Erdoghan send $50m worth of aid towards the rebuilding of South Lebanon,along with building 41 schools, five parks and a rehabilitation centreworth $20m. Lebanon and Turkey are now colleagues in rotating positions at theUNSC, and this is where real political co-operation will materialize in2010-2011. Turkey's heavyweight influence will come in handy asLebanon tries to prosper from the current period of calm thank to the2009 reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Syria, on which Turkeyplayed a major role in the background. At Davos in January 2009, Erdoghan told Peres: "PresidentPeres, you are old, and your voice is loud out of a guilty conscience.When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill. I know wellhow you hit and kill children on the beaches". During their joint news conference, Erdoghan told Hariri Turkeywill help further normalise Syrian-Lebanese relations, saying that headvised his "friend" President Assad to reciprocateHariri's visit by paying a visit of his own to Beirut. It was Assadwho asked Erdoghan not to go too far in his verbal war with Israel overthe humiliation of his ambassador to Tel Aviv. Assad told ErdoghanDamascus was still counting on Ankara's role in mediating betweenSyria and Israel for the return of the Golan Heights in exchange for apeace treaty. Nor did Erdoghan wasted his country's historical relationshipwith Israel. Although critical, his embassy remains open in Tel Aviv,and Turkey well received Barak in Ankara in late January. Only by beingable to talk to all parties will the Turks achieve the security andnormalcy to which they aspire in the GME. While Netanyahu is not pleasedwith Erdoghan's policy, claiming that he has clearly taken sides inthe Arab-Israeli conflict, the Arabs are thrilled that the Turkish gianthas re-emerged and, unlike the case since 1918, is now clearly on theirside. Erdoghan has reminded the Arabs that, despite a very rough periodin bilateral relations during World War-I, the Ottoman legacy in theArab world was not all that bad, and not all autocratic. Why? Because bydefending Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, Erdoghan feels that he is alsodefending Turkey, seeing all four countries as one, given theirgeographic, historical, social, religious and cultural proximity. Manyof the finest buildings in Damascus and Beirut were built during theOttoman era. So were many of the codes, laws of commerce and aspects ofcivil administration, which lasted well into the 20th century. Nor canthe Ottoman influence on Arabic language, heritage, music and cuisine beignored, despite years of trying to write off anything Ottoman as beingdestructive to Arab culture. Although the Ottomans hit with an iron fist at the Arabs workingwith Great Britain against them during World War-I, they also - verysymbolically - refused to sell land in Ottoman Palestine to the Zionistsduring the reign of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid-II. It is that part ofOttoman history that Erdoghan wants the Arabs to remember, not thehangman's noose which was erected by the Ottoman governor of Syria,Jamal Pasha, in the central squares in Beirut and Damascus in 1915-1916.