Who struck and who was struck in the Gulf?

Last month, in the Gulf, whose waters had for some time been being heated up, there was an air of having come almost to a breaking point. We had warned that one should not be deceived by appearances as to where the ABD's policy of escalating tension, which had not only suspended the nuclear agreement earlier but also given the impression that it could carry out an actual attack on Iran if necessary, would end.

In the Gulf the cauldrons are always boiling, but who will be boiled in these cauldrons is never quite clear in advance. Until now, whenever the cauldron boiled, the target turned out to be different from the one announced beforehand. There is no guarantee that it will not be different this time as well.

True, within the sanctions it is applying against Iran, the ABD had for the first time included, in such a strict form, the closing of all the ways for it to sell its oil. Iran, for its part, defied this sanction, which meant the closing of almost its only source of revenue, by declaring that it could, if necessary, halt all oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz and that it had the power to do so. This statement was a reaction that did not leave the ABD alone in escalating the tension, that gave it too an opportunity to make a move, and that implied threats whose effects would be felt across the whole globe. After all, nearly 40 percent of the world's oil passes through this Strait; even joking about it was not pleasant.

However, the tension, which was thought to have become inevitable, gradually cooled as no counter-moves came from either side. Diplomatic contacts between Europe and Iran, and Iran's mollifying rhetoric, intervened, and for some time expectations had begun to develop again in the opposite direction, that is, toward normalization.

A development that further reinforced these expectations was Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Tehran on Thursday and his meeting with Iran's spiritual leader Ali Khamenei. But precisely at this moment, a development occurred that had a few logs thrown under the cooled cauldron. Two tankers carrying oil to Japan were attacked at the exit of the Strait of Hormuz. That is, this attack took place while the Japanese Prime Minister was in a conciliatory, mediating meeting with Iran's spiritual leader.

Two oil tankers, one the Panama-flagged Kokuka Courageous and the other the Marshall Islands-flagged Front Altair, were reportedly subjected to this attack while sailing from BAE and SA toward Singapore. After this attack, oil prices immediately rose by 3 percent. But as far as can be seen, no one has claimed the attack; that is, there is an unknown perpetrator, and so the question that must be asked in all such cases of unknown perpetrators comes up: Whom does such an attack serve?

Iran had already said, defiantly, in the name of protecting its right, that it would do so if necessary, but it did not claim this incident, and in the present situation taking such a step, which would amount to an invitation to fight the ABD, makes no sense at all for it. Moreover, for it to do this at the very time it was hosting the Japanese prime minister in the hope of silencing the war drums, and moreover in a way that would target Japanese ships, means underestimating Iran's intelligence more than necessary.

Yet the ABD Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did not shrink from underestimating everyone's intelligence. Without any need for investigation, he immediately held Iran responsible for this explosion. Pompeo stated that he put forward this assessment on the basis of many points such as intelligence information, the weapons used, and the level of operational knowledge required for the attack to take place, and added that they would take the matter to the BMGK.

The cooling of the waters in the Gulf is not yet wanted, but what the real target is, despite this, is not as clear as is supposed. It is necessary to calculate well whom it will benefit and whom it will harm to keep Iran's oil, or oil shipments from the Gulf in general, constantly under this hot threat. One must not forget that such steps sometimes have a boomerang effect.

WHAT MAKES A NEWS ITEM AND AN ACTION ISLAMIC?

During last Ramadan, my answer to a TV reporter's question at the end of the iftar program of the Sudanese community living in Ankara, about the problems recently experienced in the relations between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, was strangely distorted on some websites and attributed to me as "We stand with Saudi Arabia against Iran." As though, whatever dispute there might be between them, our side were always fixed and single, as though we had formed an axis.

Frankly, the text of the news item itself was also very problematic. To derive such a statement from the camera recording or from the news text, one would have to have distorted the speech in utter bad faith. Yet my statements are more general and in fact say nothing other than defending peace within the Islamic world itself, independence from outside intervention, and unity.

* The essence of our word is this: Our whole aim is to build a world, especially in the Islamic world, in which no one attacks anyone or poses a threat, in which, through threats against one another, we do not provide the ABD with an arms market and foreigners with opportunities for intervention and occupation.

* We do not want two Islamic countries to see each other as a threat.

* As the Islamic world, when we have problems with one another, we bring the ABD in between us. We call them to establish peace, and the price of the peace service they provide becomes very heavy for all of us.

* We would side neither with SA threatening Iran nor with Iran threatening SA. The alternative to these mutually threatening policies is for the Islamic world to seek dialogue. What suits us is not to fuel conflicts further but to reconcile the parties.

* To characterize our this or that stance as "Saudi-love" or "Iran-love" has no purpose or meaning other than stoking discord. Of course we have no inherent hatred for anyone, but our love is for the freedom and unity of oppressed peoples and for everyone engaged in the striving and effort to bring this about, and, of course, first and foremost for Turkey.

* That the name of a site doing this is "Islamic Analysis" is saddening. Because in this form of news, almost all the principles of Islam are deliberately violated. There is distortion of speech, there is slander, there is discord among Muslims, there is inciting further instead of reconciling two quarrelling Muslims, there is ill will and suspicion in place of good faith toward a Muslim. In short, everything un-Islamic you could look for is there, but the name of the site: Islamic.

* DAEŞ too calls its bandit organizations a state and at the same time sticks the Islamic brand on them. Of course, doing so makes it neither a state nor Islamic.