“I hesitate to use the terms crisis and chaos frequently for the region. If the reality is hot war, then it would be misleading to reduce it to crisis and chaos. Undoubtedly, today’s wars are not similar to the wars of the first and medieval times, nor to the forms of warfare that modernity sustained until the two world wars. Especially with the First and Second World Wars, wars became massive. After the Second World War, it became socialized. It is a requirement of its new essence to understand that the era of wars in the three-legged monster march of modernity, with their internal and external distinctions, is over, and that the new era of modernity means that internal and external wars are waged together within the society. In general, the reality of war in the entire Middle East society, in particular, Palestine-Israel, in its most obvious form. It is of great importance to analyze the reality of the Afghanistan-Pakistan and Iran-Iraq wars in this context. Incredible events and processes will be made more understandable with the analyzes in this scope.
How can the new Middle East wars waged under US-EU hegemony end? Will they become more widespread and intensified? Can hegemonic powers leave the region? What to expect if they do or not? Clearly, these fundamental questions cannot be given clear and definite answers. But it is certain that we are dealing with a different historical stage.
UNLESS THE LOGIC OF NATION STATISTICS IS EXCEEDED
The Greater Middle East Project, which the USA wants to put on the agenda, has little chance of success. In fact, this project is based on nation-states. Many similar projects have pushed the Middle East into more confusion. The situations caused by the last project were no different. Unless the logic of nation-statism is overcome, no project can save the Middle East from its deep depressions and problems, and prevent it from conflicts and wars. Since both the existing Arab League and the Islamic Conference organizations were crippled by the same nation-state logic, they did not have a resolving role in any problem. Unless they overcome their current mentality and structuring, they cannot have a chance for a solution.
SHARE EXTRACTING ACCOUNTS OF TURKEY AND IRAN
In addition, the influence wars waged by both Iran and Turkey through Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda against the USA and the local hegemonic power Israel can only play a role in making the problems more intractable. Share breakout accounts can also backfire at any time. The situation that all these old and new nation-state games brought to the Middle East is in front of the eyes. This situation of the Middle East, which has grown into a tangle of problems under the name of “We solve problems, we practice zero-problem diplomacy”, is structural as we have clearly demonstrated, and this stems from nation-statism.
As we have clearly stated, the democratic nation mentality and democratic autonomy structuring of democratic modernity is the most appropriate egalitarian, libertarian and democratic model and new paradigm for getting out of this chaotic situation. It is a model that shows everyone and every society the way to lasting peace and security.
RADICAL OR MODERATE ISLAM DOES NOT HAVE THE CAPACITY TO BE A SYSTEM
The attack of the last two centuries (Napoleon started this attack, Britain developed it, USA continues) is still going on. Especially today, hot and cold wars continue in many regions from Afghanistan to Morocco, from the Caucasus to Central Africa. It is the weakest state of the existing system. More precisely, the weakest link of Western modernity is the traditional Middle East. Triangle has been tried to be established in the last two centuries, but it has not played a role other than deepening the chaos.
Collaborators of modernity with an Islamic veneer, whether radical or moderate, became the spice of the new chaotic situation. They have the capacity to be a system neither as Islam nor otherwise. Although there are situations beyond anarchy and chaos in the region, it cannot be said that successful exits have come into play. What can be said is that the chaotic situation is constantly boiling. Every boiling is worth creating new alloys and compounds. One of the possibilities that will arise from this fusion may be an original East-West synthesis. It is not possible for the East to revive one of its ancient forms of civilization, nor for the West to unilaterally inject its own modernity. The originality of the synthesis will be determined by the ability of scientific structures and organizational movements to respond to social problems.
It is the weakest possibility for the parties to exit by denying each other. It has become clear enough that new outlets cannot be achieved with orientalism in Western science. The science of the social nature of the East awaits only its pioneers. The desired output can be achieved through the production, organization, mobilization and socialization of this science.
WHETHER NATIONAL OR RELIGIOUS, ALL ARE AGENT
The level of political crises in other Middle Eastern countries, particularly Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria-Lebanon, Israel-Palestine, confirms our approach. It is clear that all the built states of the region, large and small, whether in the name of nationalism or religion, play no more than the role of stale agents and extras of capitalist modernity. Looking at their short histories, it will not be difficult to understand that the nationalist and Islamist states are the fabrications of imperialism of the last two centuries. Because they are hegemonic products and because of the terror they spread through the formation of ‘freak citizens’, the true faces of these states could not be understood.
It is not possible to show any other area that hides the role of agent-surface as much as the power and nation-state powers in the Middle East. Thousands of years of experience and ideological hegemony gained in power and state games have a very important role in this. Those who observe the depth of the power and state crises in Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel-Palestine may find the situation strange. However, this reality only shows and proves that the crisis and the chaotic situation have an important aspect related to the collapse of civilization as much as the depth of the historical basis. Not only are the nation-states of the last two centuries dissolved, but the five thousand-year-old civilizational power tradition is also collapsing.
The power and state crises in the Middle East can only be comprehended if they are resolved on the basis of civilization. The last two centuries’ veneer of capitalist modernity should not ignore the crisis of civilization. Moreover, modernity itself has revealed its chaotic features with all its clarity with its practices in the Middle East. There is no other experience that makes capitalism a crisis regime as instructive as its applications in the field.
THE Dominant POWERS HAVE NO SOLUTION
When we look at it from this basic perspective, the first thing that can be said about the contemporary is that neither the traditional nor the modern dominant powers can offer a solution to the social problem in general, and to get out of the crisis and chaos in particular. Of course, the forces that are the source of problems and crises cannot be solution forces. Whether in the name of religion or nationalism, a solution cannot be found by taking refuge in traditional history. Because the history of these forces is also the history of insolvency. What ancient glorious civilization could be revived? Even if Islam and the Ottomans can be resurrected, this resurrection will probably be achieved under the strict protection and medicine of the USA, with its miraculous power, which will be another Islam and Ottoman Empire.
Nor do modern powers have solutions to offer. How can they be the solution when they are the builders of the most problematic and frequently crisis system? While the current financial crisis cannot find a way out with its global and structural dimensions, what solution can it offer to the problems and crises such as the Middle East, whose foundations extend beyond centuries and which modernity has made even more intractable? A system that exploits ten times the current world production (approximately $600 trillion per year) just by playing with virtual cards and numbers can only open the way to hell, not the solution.
The great chaos experienced in the mother country and region of the central civilization reveals the bankruptcy of nation-statism and power sharing with all its aspects and with all its nakedness. This chaos has unmasked the Palestinian-Israeli, Iraqi and Afghan nation-states and the rulingism based on the most advanced hierarchies, making it clear that they constitute the main source of the problems, and revealing in every aspect that unlimited violence, terror, wars and massacres are fed from this source. It has been sufficiently proven that nation-statism and power-sharing are incapable of hitting their owners like boomerangs.
As for the ‘Third World War’ issue, it is sufficient to understand the reality of this war that the balance sheet of what happened in certain countries, especially Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Turkey, Yemen, Somalia and Egypt, has already exceeded the balance sheets of the First and Second World Wars in many ways. It is an understandable issue that the ‘Third World War’ will be fragmented, spread over a long period of time and will be carried out with different technologies due to nuclear weapons. NATO’s last Lisbon Summit provides the necessary information about the deepening of the US blockade around Iran and the course of the ‘Third World War’.
THE HEART OF THE 3rd WORLD WAR IS THE MIDDLE EAST
The ‘Third World War’ is a reality and its center of gravity is the geography and cultural environment of the Middle East. Even what happened in Iraq, the center of intensity of the ‘Third World War’, explains very well that the war here is not about a country, but about the interests and existence of the world hegemonic powers. This war can only be ended if Iran is completely neutralized, Afghanistan and Iraq are stabilized, and China and Latin America are no longer a threat. So we are in the middle of the war. While it is not true from a social science point of view to say anything definitive, the war may continue for at least ten years (NATO’s latest strategic plans also foresee a period of ten years). Sometimes diplomacy, sometimes violence will intensify. The agenda will be intervened with severe and controlled economic crises. The priority of the areas will change, but one way or another, the war will take place in many areas as a whole. But given this fundamental nature of the war, it will become clearer why the 1998 operation against me was conducted internationally and is NATO’s largest Gladio operation. Undoubtedly, hegemonic powers do not always win in great wars, and peoples can gain a lot. Even hegemonic powers may lose systematically, and peoples may gain systemically.
NATION STATE BREAKS DEFINITION AND WAR
One of the biggest disasters of the nation-statism impasse is experienced on the Afghanistan-Pakistan line today. In addition, the Kashmir problem experienced in connection with this is entirely due to nation-statism. Pakistan-India, Pakistan-Bangladesh problems were experienced as a result of the same nationalist minds, they are still being lived. By their very nature, nation-state solutions and peace breed deadlock and war. These concrete examples are quite revealing of this fact. It was desired to apply both republican, royalist and real socialist models of nation-statism to Afghanistan. The result is a disintegrated Afghan society that has lost its ability to sustain itself, in an environment of blind violence that has gone out of hand and has no principles.
Apart from the democratic nation theory and concepts, it is unthinkable to think of any other mentality and will that will regroup these societies and lead them to a more free and democratic life. Social problems cannot be solved structurally unless they are solved mentally. The democratic nation mentality constitutes the most appropriate integrative framework for a wide variety of cultures and peoples, from Central Asia to India. Moreover, the cultures and peoples in these places have been able to maintain their existence and originality, although not ideal, by living under common political roofs and empires of the confederal type throughout history.
Whether in the form of religious or secular nationalism, as the nation-statist mentality continues, further dissolution and conflicts of these societies are inevitable. By presenting Islam, which they claim to be strongly attached to, as an ideology of terror, they also highly negate this tradition. For these large geographies, as for Iran, it is necessary to develop democratic national unity throughout the Middle East in a way that is intertwined with it. The most appropriate alternative to the intense disintegration that nation-states such as Pakistan are already experiencing is a Democratic National Unity project to be developed across the Middle East.
THE DEMOCRATIC NATION SOLUTION AND CONFEDERAL GOVERNMENTS
Problems are being tried to be resolved with three or more nation-states instead of one nation-state in Iraq, three states in Palestine, and statelets as many as the number of tribes in Afghanistan. Adding new power and state elites, which are already burdensome enough, will only result in more oppression and exploitation. This means more social problems and conflicts. If the Kurdistan Revolution institutionalizes the democratic nation solution with the establishment of confederal governments and democratic authority, this model may lead to radical transformations in solving the thousands of years old power knots and statism diseases of the Middle East. What the peoples and cultures of the Middle East desperately need is democratic authority. Apart from this, every solution move based on the test of power and state power, as observed in all the examples tried so far,
Although the Western hegemony did not show the power to institutionalize itself in the Middle East, it at least managed to connect the region to its system with minimalist nation-states. The stage reached is the bankruptcy of this method. The institutions that the Kurdistan Revolution will produce and build in democratic nation dimensions may reverse this tradition. It can develop the Democratic League of Nations on the basis of shared cultures in history. The democratic elements of Middle Eastern cultures should not be underestimated. If the still strong tribal and tribal traditions and the religious and sectarian tradition of community are integrated with the principles and institutions of democratic nationhood, it can be transformed into the power of democratization. It should not be forgotten that the more valid the despotic power is, the more necessary is the need for democracy and it can be realized. Wherever power is strong, democracy also has great potential power. It has become very clear that the Middle East cannot be governed by the current understanding of nation and power.
THE SOLUTION: DEMOCRATIC INTERNATIONAL UNION
In the solution of national and regional problems, the framework of the Democratic Nations Union needs to be established immediately. While it is clear that no single state can cope with the growing problems, escaping from unity is synonymous with unpretentiousness and insolubility. The nation-stateization of Kurdistan cannot be described as a revolutionary development for the Kurds. A much more serious problem would only be added to the severe regional problems. The Kurdish nation-state tried in Iraq can only play a positive role in Kurdistan and the Middle East if it is surrounded by democratic nationhood and is made a conciliatory backup for this process. Otherwise, it can be expected to cause more serious problems than the Israeli-Palestinian one.
The solution imposed by the democratic nation model does not require the denial of nation-states, but their commitment to the democratic constitutional solution. The intertwined state-democracy union is not the only solution model in Western Europe. On the contrary, it is a model that has many problems and delays its solution. The model that should be tried in the Middle East is the democratic constitutional solution based on the existence and autonomy of the state-nation and the democratic nation. Otherwise, the unity models that will emerge will not go beyond the formations such as the Islamic Conference and the Arab League (to include the Council of Turkic States) in terms of their roles. The Democratic Union of Nations, which will be formed among the nations that are internally dependent on the democratic constitutional system (the concept of nation here means the supreme nation or nation of nations arising from the reconciliation of the state-nation and the democratic nation) will undoubtedly be a great development. It will mean not only the establishment of lasting peace, but also the economic productivity and cultural renaissance of the masses, completely freed from unemployment, with the coexistence of the communal economy and ecological industry.
No one can see unemployment, inefficient economy and unpromising cultural life in the region as destiny in the current age of information and technology. Those who see it this way are those who are in ideological blindness or who experience the ideological hegemony of the system. Only under the umbrella of the Democratic League of Nations can the Middle East re-play its universal role, which has been so long in history. As I always say, the Kurds can play the same role they played at the dawn of civilization, this time on the basis of democratic civilization. The potential of the Kurdistan Revolution and the Kurdish democratic nation solution provides all the necessary power (intellectual and physical strength) for this. The Kurdistan Revolution is more than ever a Middle Eastern Revolution. Kurdish democratic nationhood is the Middle East Democratic Nations Union.
In that case, the path of the Kurdistan Revolution to universality will pass through the Democratic Union of Nations in the Middle East. Many regional unions (nation-state associations in Europe, Asia, America and Africa) and the UN, based on nation-state units of capitalist modernity, have not been able to find a solution to any global and regional problems since their establishment. Because the inherent insolvency, problem development and postponement capacity of the nation-state is more than valid for such regional unions and UN units.
REGIONAL DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL UNIONS
Instead of these unsuccessful examples, the creation of new units with units that exceed nation-state units is an undeferred need. Just as there is a need for Regional Democratic National Unions, there is a strong need for the World Union of Democratic Nations (DUB), which consists of democratic national units that transcend nation-states instead of the current UN. Whether we think regionally or globally, the Democratic League of Nations should be a union of not only state units but also democratic non-governmental organizations. World peace cannot be achieved with nation-states, which are the source of war. At the same time, development cannot be achieved with the institutions of modernity, which are the source of crises. Existing examples amply prove this fact. As world peace passes through democratic nations.”
Taken from People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan’s Manifesto for Democratic Civilization.
