"Let them think about the rest"

The order of international relations is not a fixed structure. Like weather systems, it is under constant pressure to change from the effects of low and high pressure. Sometimes the flap of a butterfly's wing affects the outbreak of storms in a distant place.

Just as among ordinary people, what governs the conduct of states is not always deep reason, the flawless pursuit of long-term plans, or strategy.

However much states institutionalize such long-term calculations and strategies, the successful implementation of these strategies on the ground ultimately depends on other actors also consistently displaying the same attitude in their own conduct.

The behavior of a country or actor that was not factored into the calculation, or an unexpected development inside one's own country, can lead to strategies drawn up for fifty or a hundred years being reconsidered from scratch. Of course, unlike relations between people, the memories and behaviors of states are borne in each period by individual actors with different personalities, ideological orientations and characteristics.

Contrary to what is assumed, these actors can be decisive in determining the policies of countries in the short, medium and long term.

No one can say that there is no difference between Clinton and Bush, or between Obama and Trump, in determining their country's policies. When we speak, we speak of a single US, of its monolithic policies and behavior. But in truth, storms are blowing inside the country itself. The personal characteristics of the president can produce serious differences.

The behaviors and inconsistencies of the US that cannot be fitted into any reason or logic actually stem from its being thought of as a monolithic whole. Yet when the US is mentioned, what should come to mind first of all is a structure in which the main actors, such as the White House, the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI, the Justice Department, Wall Street and the Jewish lobbies, and the arms, silicon and pharmaceutical industries, ceaselessly struggle with one another, each trying to pull it to its own side. In the midst of these tugs-of-war, it is very difficult for a country to display consistency within itself.

Nevertheless, America's greatest advantage is still that the president, depending of course on the performance he can deliver, is able to manage the conflict among all these forces. For that reason, contrary to what is assumed, there is actually not much continuity in America's policies on specific issues. The appearance of easily selling out its allies simply stems from the balance within this internal equation having shifted rapidly in favor of one side. This mobility of balance endows the US with a considerable quality of unreliability.

How had the US under the Obama and Hillary Clinton administration become convinced that Assad must now go in Syria, and how had they begun to beat the drums of a policy to that effect before the whole world? Having made so much buildup in Syria to topple Assad, under the influence of which internal-balance shift did it redirect all this buildup toward a new threat called DAESH? These things need to be followed closely. Our friend Abdullah Muradoğlu, in his writings on America, offers analyses that shed light on the effect of the Pentagon-CIA-White House conflicts on these policies.

Indeed, in light of these analyses, we need to know that the attitude formed inside the US against Turkey is also temporary, and that, relying on this, we too should not build a policy of metaphysical constancy.

Not only in relations with the US but also in our relations with other countries, and in our relations with the EU, the definitions we build on metaphysical constants become a shackle on our feet after a while, deprive us of the ability to read developments in the world, and may keep us from making the necessary adjustments in our policy in time.

Indeed, the actors who have coded Turkey according to their own stock assumptions and who try to build axes against Turkey in their own way have been faced with the reality of throwing all their calculations in the trash in the face of Turkey's assumption-breaking diplomacy on Syria.

During President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's visit to Sochi on 13 November, in his meeting with Putin, they decided on a trilateral summit that would also include Rouhani. This meeting, held without delay on 22 November, gave rise to a new environment in which all the cards have been reshuffled, both on Syria and in all Middle East policies. Whatever kind of Middle East anyone has planned on the basis of however many years of strategy, those plans now have to be revised.

To the extent that the implementation of those plans had a demoralizing and pessimism-producing side for us, the situation that has emerged today is just as hopeful and just as thought-provoking for others. Turkey has thus shown that it will not allow any game that is designed outside itself and defines itself as a victim to be staged. It is not playing the role assigned to it in the plays already written and being staged, and this is ruining the whole scenario.

While their scenarios were running like clockwork, our morale was sinking and we were being made to brood; they were rubbing their hands in advance delight at the gains they would collect. Once Turkey showed in this way that it would not play in their game, the whole scenario came to nothing. The rest is now a matter that will make them think and worry.

They have already begun to worry about how their axis has started to spin in vain.

In this situation, what falls to us is of course not to lie back and relax. It is to continue to be vigilant, knowing that they will never give up.