The most dangerous scenarios for the US

The turbulence in relations with the US may perhaps be viewed as a new difficulty entered into in Turkey's foreign policy. Indeed, those who see it as a link in the chain of problems Turkey has recently been experiencing in its foreign policy are in the majority on this. The situation in the Middle East since the Arab Spring process is well known. Relations strained by the EU's attitude especially during and after the 15 July coup have added a palpable air of pessimism to Turkey's process of integration with the EU.

Out of the unjust murmurs rising especially from EU countries about the post-coup process, a serious anti-Turkey discourse has now formed. The tear-jerking sensitivity that the EU countries, which did not think to stand by the Turkish people who defended their democracy and human rights with their lives on the night of the coup, have displayed after the coup regarding the rights of the putschists and the PKK terrorists is increasingly poisoning Turkey-EU relations from the grassroots to the top.

Nevertheless, Turkey is trying to do its best to sincerely fulfill whatever conditions are necessary for EU membership. The problem arises largely from new problems produced in passing on issues like Cyprus and the fight against terror, and from the big states' standing by as spectators to the obstructions of states admitted to the union later.

Turkey is a country that is growing, wants to grow, and wants to use its resources effectively and efficiently in that direction. It would not want to create, with anyone, a problem area that would set it back on this path for no reason. In none of the recent developments has Turkey itself produced this problem area. The people of Turkey, its democracy, its state and its leader have been exposed to the most organized and most insidious coup process in its history.

Viewed from one angle, this coup process is Turkey's own internal problem. The countries that, when the coup attempt took place, preferred to watch it as an internal problem, that is, did not think to show solidarity with the Turkish people, after the coup turned Turkey's process of settling accounts with the coup or the putschists into their own problem, and turned the measures Turkey has taken and tried to take in this regard into a problem area.

The criticisms directed at the state of emergency, the safe harboring and protection of the putschists in their own countries, the overlooking of their activities against Turkey in their own countries, and the unjust and uncomprehending criticisms directed at Turkish democracy in the meantime have constituted the source of these problems.

To return to the beginning, reading our strained relations with the US by placing Turkey at the center of all these problems is one way, but it is a way that is both unjust and incompatible with the facts. A more realistic way is to read it by looking at the US's recent foreign policy graph. In that case a picture emerges before us like this: since Trump, there is almost nobody left with whom the US has not spoiled relations.

Setting aside Trump's trip to the Gulf, aimed at collecting money as if collecting tribute, all the remaining relations give the picture of a US at odds with the whole world. In fact, how much money he actually collected in the Gulf, which he is given the impression of having collected, is open to debate. An approach that earns nothing and only covets its own gain is both unsustainable and, in the long term, serves nothing but to make the US lose. In the end, at best, in return for the money he puts in his coffers once, a goose that lays golden eggs will in effect have been slaughtered, and a process in which the US will shrink in the long term and lose in international competition will have been accelerated further.

The US's reviving the frozen problems with North Korea and Iran by setting Germany, France, Britain and all the European countries against it and without taking any ally with it, and its forward-one-step-back-one-step policies with Russia, have created a situation that leads any country to wait for its turn to be picked on by Trump. Viewed from this angle, the page of crisis that the US under the Trump administration has opened with Turkey on the occasion of Brunson is not exceptional.

Especially the trade wars it has entered into with China and Europe and the page of crisis it has now opened with Turkey are moving toward an effect that increasingly isolates the US in every field. Truly, this seems like a process that will bring about a kind of closing in of the US on itself and lead it to become a closed economy.

Trump, with the rhetoric he pumps up at home, has created a considerable base of American nationalist supporters for this. In fact, the most intriguing outcome of these policies may be their effects on the domestic economy. In this regard, the economic indicators within the US are not giving danger signals as much as expected in the short term. The growth expected as 2.2 percent has been revised to 2 percent at year end, with the 2 percent growth seen in the first quarter. Non-farm employment increased by 213 thousand in June, etc.

The reason the indicators are lower than feared is the revival of domestic demand in an economy closing in on itself and, with rising dollar prices, the decrease of exports but at the same time the decrease of imports. All of these are, in the long term, signs of the economy closing in on itself. However, no one can calculate how much a US economy so dependent on exports will endure this closedness.

Meanwhile, the scenarios awaiting the US should the increasingly stoked enmity toward Erdoğan give the desired result in the short term are also sufficiently cautionary. Let us return to the 15 July coup attempt and proceed from there:

God forbid, a Turkey that would have fallen into turmoil as a result of a successful coup would not only be in turmoil itself but, with the migrations and asylum processes that would take place, would have thrown all of Europe into turmoil as well.

The result in Europe would have been, directly, the far right coming to power everywhere. The only country to come out ahead from this situation would be Russia in the region and China in the world. However much the US supported this coup, its consequences would have been the beginning of the end for itself too. Even this scenario alone should be a sufficient warning for the US to repair relations with Turkey as soon as possible. And repairing relations with Turkey means making peace with its people's values, its leader and its democracy.