Aleppo is there, but where is the yardstick?

To those who make baseless claims, who spout nonsense without evidence or documentation, we say, “If Aleppo is there, the yardstick is here.” It means: prove your claim, do what you say you did in another place and time right here before our eyes so we can see it. It is the most effective way to expose a lie and silence a braggart.

“Friday prayers in Damascus” was marketed as a sweetener to convince the public to destabilize Syria. The effect of that sweetener, which was as short-lived as morning dew, has long since worn off. It seems that those who should apologize for the hemlock of Damascus they made the nation drink under the guise of honey syrup are now trying to sedate us with an Aleppo syringe. They have already begun to link the legends of saints and the Stories of the Prophets to Aleppo in one way or another. Take note of the regulars on television who, morning and night, harp on about Turkey’s inheritance rights in the Seljuk and Ottoman legacy of Aleppo.

Seeing those who lack wisdom dancing with joy at the occupation of Aleppo by HTS forces, the following quatrain by Yunus Emre immediately came to my mind:

                                           If they stacked jars from earth to sky

                                           And bound them one to another

                                           If they pulled one from the middle

                                           Watch the crash that follows

The only necessary option for survival in this geography is the founding equation of the Republic of Turkey, based on a nation-state and a unitary structure. Look at the situation Turkey has been dragged into by an understanding that is the antithesis of the Republic’s founding architecture and is incompatible with a nation-state and unitary structure. Turkey is experiencing the very crash that would occur if one were to pull a jar from a stack reaching from earth to sky. It must be realized before it is too late that the tangle of problems caused by an approach incompatible with the founding values and the state’s traditional roadmap has turned into a permanent state/regime crisis, far beyond being merely periodic.

The first phase of the imperial project was the fragmentation of Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines. We are all witnessing the second phase: the ethnic and sectarian fragmentation of Syria. One must either be completely devoid of state culture or acting with clear intent not to see the target country of the project’s third phase. The only way for Turkey to emerge from this fire without shrinking its political geography and without changing its founding equation based on a nation-state and unitary structure is to recover as soon as possible from the State Alzheimer’s it is suffering from.

It must be seen that the insistence on turning the schizophrenic ramblings of the likes of the "Fesli" (the one with the fez) and his ilk—which do not align with history, realpolitik, or state institutionalism—into foreign policy will throw Turkey right into the middle of a ring of fire. It should be known that Turkey’s reputation in neighboring countries and the Middle East stems from the Republic’s traditional foreign policy. The political power’s contradictory rhetoric, which ignores national interests, the balance of power, and regional realities, lacks strategic planning, and creates distrust among its interlocutors, is diminishing Turkey’s reputation and eroding its deterrence.

As the political history of our time is written, have no doubt that Turkey will provide the most examples regarding the destruction caused by governing a state with an "ummah" culture, creating policy with religious references, and being at odds with founding values.

May God protect us all from the destruction of unconscious, inexperienced administrators who cannot grasp that if Aleppo is there, the yardstick is here!