History writes not only the past but also the future: What will happen in Turkey and Syria?

Looking from the perspective of the government and pro-government media, Erdoğan and Turkey have won a great victory in Syria. With the added encouragement of the US President-elect Trump, an atmosphere is being created as if we have returned to the days of Ottoman conquests. What Trump is doing is egging Erdoğan on to complete another phase of the Greater Middle East Project with Turkey's help and support. The end result is not auspicious for Turkey at all.

We have won a great victory. According to President Erdoğan, Turkey is larger than 784 thousand square kilometers, and there is a mission that history has imposed on Turkey. Are we going to occupy our neighbors? No, I believe what is meant is becoming a guarantor country for the autonomous Kurdish region to be established in Syria and the autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq... A US carrot dangled by saying, "You will gain territory"...

If we look at history, especially economic history, we see that the winner of a war does not always win, and in fact, even the winners of wars sometimes lose. Economic history does not just write the past; it also provides clues about what will happen in the future. Let us look at wars through the lens of economic history and try to predict what will happen in Turkey and Syria in the near future.

The general rule is this: The loser of the war pays.

Sometimes, the winner of the war also loses. The Ottoman-Russian Crimean War... (October 1853-March 1856). Britain and France did not want Russia to strengthen in Europe and descend into the Mediterranean. They supported the Ottomans. The Ottomans won the war. For the financing of the war, the Ottomans resorted to external borrowing for the first time. They could not escape the quagmire of external debt they entered due to the Crimean War. External borrowing is among the most important reasons for the fragmentation and collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

WHAT THE WINNERS OF WARS LOSE

The rematch of the Crimean War was the 1877-1878 Ottoman-Russian War. It is also called the 93 War because it corresponds to the year 1293 in the Rumi calendar. The Russian Army entered as far as Yeşilköy, then known as Ayastefenos. The Ottomans suffered a heavy defeat. They lost the Balkans, and in the East, Batum, Kars, and Ardahan. In exchange for reducing the heavy war reparations demanded by the Russians, they gave Cyprus to the British. The winner of the war was Russia, but the heavy financing of the war increased misery. Due to the misery caused by this war, the Tsarist regime collapsed with the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Soviet Union was established in its place.

Let us come to the First World War, and from there to the GMEP and today. The Crimean War, the 93 War, the First World War, and today's GMEP... They are all connected to each other... They are all wars of controlling and sharing economic resources.

With the Industrial Revolution, Britain's share of world industrial production in 1860 was 25 percent. By 1913, Britain's share had fallen to 10 percent, and Germany's share had risen to 15 percent. Germany had reached an agreement with the Ottomans and had taken the Baghdad Railway project. At the same time, it had begun building a very large navy in its shipyards that would hinder Britain's overseas power. The Serbs, who gained their independence from the Ottomans after the 1877 war, also rose up against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A Serbian nationalist killed the Austro-Hungarian Prince. Austria declared war against the potential Serbian uprising. However, it convinced Germany to distract France so that France would cut its support for the Serbs. Germany, which defeated France in a short war in 1871 and received 5 million German Marks (1.5 billion French Francs) in war reparations, attacked France again with the hope of winning another large indemnity. However, the plan did not work out as expected. The British, seeing the war dragging on, also joined in. The losers of the war were Germany, the Ottomans, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria. The winner was Britain. However, Britain borrowed from the US to finance both its own and its allies' war efforts. Britain became the winner of the war, but as a result of the heavy debts it incurred due to the war, it had to leave the imperial seat of world imperialism in 1931. It abandoned the gold standard for the pound sterling, and the pound lost its status as the world's reserve currency. World trade continued through bilateral agreements.

In 1944, even before the Second World War had concluded, the US took the imperial seat of imperialism that had been vacated in 1931 with the Bretton Woods agreement. At the end of the Second World War, there were two major victorious states: the US and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union took Eastern Europe and half of Germany. The US took control of Western Europe and the Middle East.

The US did not establish the world dominance of the dollar solely through the Bretton Woods agreement. To secure the throne of the dollar, it established the IMF and the World Bank, and NATO as the gendarme of this power. In the Middle East, it appointed kings to the fragmented Arab states as if appointing provincial governors and made oil agreements.

THE SOVIETS COLLAPSED, THE GMEP CAME INTO PLAY

While the war of partition was taking place after the Second World War, Israel had not yet been established. The establishment of Israel was in 1948. Due to the bipolar world, a broad and effective move for Israel's security could not be made in the Middle East. That was until the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991.

As the neoliberal era began in the economy, the US's Greater Middle East Project (GMEP) also came into play. It started with Iraq in 1990. As US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also stated within the scope of the GMEP, the borders of 22 countries in the Middle East and North Africa were to change. It was openly declared in maps published in many places, and even brought up at NATO meetings, that Turkey was among these countries. The goal is to establish a Kurdish State that will ensure Israel's security by taking territory from Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. The Kurdistan map they brought up at Sèvres is being staged again.

TURGUT ÖZAL, GUARANTORSHIP, AND GMEP CO-CHAIR

Before this project was called the Greater Middle East Project, it was also announced by the then-President Turgut Özal during the First Gulf War. Özal made the first statement about a federation and Turkey being the guarantor of the federation to me on January 30, 1991. I was working at Hürriyet Newspaper at the time, and the statement was given as a headline. I am sharing the newspaper clipping below the article...

In that statement, Özal had said, "We are evaluating the issue of Turkey being a guarantor in a Turkish-Kurdish-Arab confederation to be formed in Iraq after the war."

When the AKP came to power, the then-prime minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that he was the "Co-Chair of the GMEP." The map of the GMEP project is well-known. Turkey's Southeast is the target...

According to the plan, a piece was first torn from Iraq. Now it is Syria's turn, and then it will be Iran and Turkey's turn. Since Turkey is a NATO country, an open war path is not seen. If they get cornered, they could stage a civil war. They wore down the army with conspiracy cases like Ergenekon, Balyoz, and Espionage. They severely damaged Turkey's demographic structure and polarized society through faith and ethnic identities. There are as many jihadist militants and Afghan-origin American soldiers in civilian clothes in Turkey as we do not know the number of.

According to the plan, the possible developments are as follows:

Syria's territorial integrity has been shattered. For a period we cannot estimate, a chaotic period will be experienced. With Turkey's consent, a Kurdish Autonomous region will first be established in Syria. Turkey will undertake the guarantorship of this region together with a few other countries. The Iraqi autonomous Kurdish region and the Syrian autonomous Kurdish region will merge. By calling it a guarantor Turkey, the voters' eyes will be deceived by saying, "Look, our lands have expanded, we are living in a period of conquest." After a while, without the need for war, a piece from Turkey will join the federation. First a federation, and then a puppet Kurdish state under US and Israeli control will be established.

Let us summarize the purpose of the GMEP: To control land and underwater energy resources in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean, as well as fresh water resources and agricultural lands in the water-poor Middle East; to prevent the Russian presence in the Eastern Mediterranean; to block China's Belt and Road Project; to control trade and energy routes; and to ensure Israel's security in the region.

To achieve this goal, a puppet Kurdish state is needed, and for this, Turkey needs to give up territory. In this case, how will Turkey emerge profitable from this war?

WAR REQUIRES FINANCING

Turkey took an active role in the Syrian civil war. It declares that it opposes the establishment of a Kurdish region in northern Syria. From time to time, it uses force against the PYD there. However, it is facing the US. It does not have the power to fight the US. To fight, one must first finance the war. Remember the Pastor Brunson incident. A currency storm had broken out in Turkey for the sake of a tiny stubbornness. The currency problem that Turkey, which is up to its neck in internal and external debt and accumulates reserves by giving interest on dollars at a rate unseen in the world, will face will go far beyond a storm.

Power aside, Turkey does not have such a will or desire. The overthrow of the Assad regime and the disruption of Syria's territorial integrity were developments entirely in the interest of Israel and the US. Turkey did not gain anything from this.

THE REASON BEHIND THE CONSTITUTIONAL DISCUSSIONS

Let us look at the constitutional amendments discussed recently and a few statements.

Devlet Bahçeli inviting the leader of the terrorist organization Abdullah Öcalan to parliament...

The article full of hatred and malice towards the republic and especially secularism by DEM Party Deputy Speaker Sırrı Süreyya Önder...

The outbursts of a female DEM Party MP from the parliamentary podium saying, "You cannot sell us the electricity you produce from the dams you built on our lands for money"...

The statements to be made after the meeting of DEM Party officials with Abdullah Öcalan on İmralı Island when this article was written...

Look at these through the lens of the GMEP.

Is the constitution an obstacle to raising the standards of law and democracy in Turkey, and for the economic prosperity of the people to increase, or are the practices that do not recognize the constitution and laws? Democracy standards can be raised and economic prosperity can be achieved without touching the constitution and laws.

There are two articles targeted in the constitutional amendment. The justifications in the preamble of the Constitution will be removed. After these justifications are removed, the way will be paved for changing the articles of the Constitution that are said to be unchangeable. Especially after the article by DEM Party's Sırrı Süreyya Önder, we understand that if the emphasis on a "unitary state" is removed or if a "founding people" definition is made for the Kurds, it is possible that the DEM Party will approve the removal of the emphasis on secularism.

If you add the 35 political Islamist MPs that Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu brought to parliament and the DEM party to the AKP+MHP+Hüdapar partnership, a constitutional amendment can be made in parliament without the need for a referendum.

All of these give us clues about what will happen in the near future.

THERE IS ALSO AN ECONOMIC LOSS

Turkey took sides in the Syrian civil war and provided military and economic support to anti-Assad forces. It accepted 5 million Syrian refugees into Turkey. It ensured that land was allocated to them for the establishment of a Kurdish region in northern Syria.

For example, the share that retirees receive from the national income has fallen from the 7 percent level to 4.3 percent. Moreover, even though their numbers have increased by 40 percent. Is it just the retirees... Nearly 80 percent of the society has had to live below the poverty line. The government cut from the welfare of the Turkish people and fed around 10 million refugees, mostly Syrians, inside the country. It provided military and financial support to the opposition army it supported in Syria. In the war that Assad and Syria lost, Turkey lost a lot economically even during the war.

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF SYRIA

It is said that a 400 billion dollar investment will be made for the reconstruction of Syria. First of all, to get a share from here, the financing of this investment is required. Turkey, which is swimming in debt, does not have the capacity to provide such financing. On the contrary, it is swimming in debt and Turkey itself needs external financing. However, Turkish contractors can be subcontractors for the countries and companies providing the financing. The income they will earn will not contribute a single penny to the welfare of the Turkish people or the budget of the Turkish state. Our contractors do not pay taxes on the money they earn from jobs financed by the budget of the Republic of Turkey. They do not keep the wealth they earn in Turkey but take it to England. Will they bring the money they earn from jobs financed by the World Bank, the US, and Israel to Turkey and pay taxes in Turkey? Don't make people laugh...

And Turkey is going to provide Syria's electricity. As if it could collect the money for that electricity... As if it is not enough that we look after so many refugees, are we also going to give free electricity to those there? The secret electricity hike in 2025 through the 5000 kilowatt annual tariff on electricity is obvious. It means more is to come.

It is in the hands of the Turkish people to spoil this plan...