The final scene: Waiting for the Goeben and the Breslau

The issue in Ankara is not about whether or not to approve a law.

It is something else, something much bigger. We are as if in the finale. Turkey is officially being liquidated. We are truly in 1914. Or at the end of 1918... There are parallels; we have written about these before.

What is happening, you ask?

It is simple: Islamist Ankara has "framed" its determination to open up to the outside world—with the support of the opposition in this endeavor—in order to prevent the visibility of the class war, which has intensified due to the liquidation of the last remnants of the republic at home, and the ruthlessness of the wealthy. They are working hand in hand. Including the New Party and the marginal left that has latched onto (parasitized) both it and the DEM...

Our "III. Abdulhamid regime" and its cadres know that they must engage in a show of force abroad to be able to control the interior. They will be visible abroad. We see the dimensions of this "opening up" in the "Mecca Joint Defence Agreement."

Some are talking about a "Sünni NATO" or something similar, but a more accurate definition should be "NATO-ist Islamists" or a "NATO of Islamists." A continuation of NATO, a "complementary" force to it, is being constructed. Such definitions are more appropriate. This is a new type of (dwarf) NATO where the reins are, of course, in Washington and the EU that gets along well with it, but where millions of poor Muslims can be driven as pawns into regional proxy wars.

Let's call it the "Middle East NATO" of Islamist/pro-American politics.

Even children can see that its target is Russia, China, and Iran. Ankara is trying to explain to the West that this pact is a "complementary coordination mechanism." We can assume it has explained it: At the very least, Berlin, Paris, London, and Brussels have not shown any reaction to this initiative. Perhaps quite the contrary... Why, the Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker was in Ankara yesterday.

Undoubtedly, there will be those who interpret the Mecca initiative as "opening a shop within a shop." In a Germany-led Europe that is in the midst of an intense crisis, there are quite a few dissenters who might think this way. Trouble may arise.

The real question: Why?

THE BIGGEST EXPORT PRODUCT

Why it is needed is important. Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, in his statements that have also drawn attention in international agencies, expresses the view that the intervention of major powers from outside the region has not yielded the desired results. These are the "these places should be managed by us" tropes/excuses.

This may be a necessity. It seems proxy wars will proceed in this fashion.

Such a military pact shows that Turkey is in the hands of teams determined to export its largest and most valuable "export product," its soldiers, to the Middle East. The New Ottomanism is a project of teams determined to relive/make others relive the catastrophe of 112 years ago and the Treaty of Sèvres that followed. The climate is driving everyone there.

But their real concern is the class conflict that is hardening every day at home. The Turkish society, which is impoverishing at a ruthless speed, may not want to perceive this conflict with such clarity—media, religion, and ethnic madness exist for this reason—but the aforementioned conflict could turn into an open war. If the collapse in the economy continues at this speed, such an outcome is already inevitable. The III. Abdulhamid regime must be thinking that it can only block that path with a war or the threat of war abroad.

So, Iran will take on the role of Tsarist Russia. And what about today's Russia?

Anyway, now we are waiting for the current Goeben and Breslau. Ankara's Islamists and the government's "secular" supporters may think they are establishing a union of monarchies and that they can send their biggest export goods to the region from here, but they also do not have the answer to this question: Who will these monarchy-like administrations—Pakistan, the Saudis, Turkey, and even Egypt at the door—serve and how?

The "accumulation" of these three, and soon four, Islamist/Islamic administrations seems to have dazzled eyes: Turkey as a military power that also claims to develop technology, the populous Pakistan with atomic bombs, and the Saudi ocean of oil... Everyone is sure that this calculation will hold.

Yet they have no chance. It is Turkey that will suffer.

Expressing this objection is now futile: Okay, a quarter of a century ago, you wouldn't even think of such things, let alone openly attempt them. Today's reactionaries are very daring. However, repeating this over and over today and demanding a return to the old ("parliamentary regime," etc.) has no meaning.

The lesson to be learned? Re-establishing the Republic from a much more advanced position, as an egalitarian, liberating, and enlightenment-oriented unitary state—that is, a socialist-oriented government—is the only thing that can reverse this finale.

Otherwise, we are now in a bottomless abyss, and we may be playing the final scene in the process of the republic being wiped off the face of the earth with the first Goeben and Breslau.

A secular, anti-imperialist, public-oriented/planning government. Only that can prevent this terrible end.

Did we speak too openly?

Are we dreaming?

Mustafa Kemal Pasha saw the crisis and collapse more than the republic in May 1919; we can undoubtedly think that he sensed the revolutionary possibilities hidden in that destruction.

No solution will come from the cautious.

The crisis is taking on unprecedented dimensions and is pregnant with unprecedented results.