What can Biden change?

"American elections are not just America's elections," it is said. The outcome of the elections of the world's superpower is naturally watched with interest in all the countries of the world, because its results concern everyone. There is no place it does not touch, no country it does not touch. Therefore there is no country that the election results are not expected to change. Whether the US Central Bank raises interest rates by a quarter point, increases them or leaves them unchanged directly affects the world's economies. So there is no part of this world that could say these elections do not concern us.

In fact, there is also a rote belief or a prejudice that, especially regarding institutionalized foreign policy options, the USA does not show a great difference. If so, the election results too should not change much, or change should not be hoped for.

Perhaps it is true. Particularly on Israel and Middle East policies, the USA has an electoral history in which each newcomer makes one look for the one before. The Republican Trump gave Israel the greatest support in its history; making concessions that no earlier president had dared to make or approached, he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, recognized Israel's annexation of the occupied Golan, and legitimized the opening of new settlements; he exerted all kinds of pressure on Arab countries for the normalization of relations between Arab countries and Israel, and achieved this too.

He did not care at all, nor take any notice, of the distance from democracy and human rights, or the war crimes, of the Arab states that took these normalization steps. It is true that the USA's Israel and Middle East policies have an institutional continuity, but probably no US president could have taken on a policy this reckless and this indifferent to the sensitivities of the Islamic world.

Still, even if the president-elect Joe Biden, especially in this matter, does not follow a pro-Israel politics of the same recklessness as Trump, no one should expect him to give up the policies won on Israel's behalf together with Trump. Perhaps in the end Joe Biden will have played the good cop in the Middle East on behalf of the USA. Of course, from whichever side you look at it, this too will make a serious difference.

At the same time, however great a power may be attributed to it, the claim that institutionality is not at all affected by leadership, that is, by the elected presidency, is not true at all. Just looking at the earthquakes that Trump caused in US politics, and foreseeing the other earthquakes he could cause if he continued, it is very clear that the presidency is not an ineffective thing at all.

US presidents can change a great deal if they wish, both within the system and in foreign policy. But most find it much safer for themselves to submit at once to a certain establishment, and since they proceed from there, they end up reinforcing that institutionality even further.

It is certain that Joe Biden will follow a different path from Trump in the Middle East, but it is not possible to expect Israel policies to work against what Trump has won for Israel. Not because he is not brave, but because he does not have, in this matter, a world of feeling, meaning and politics different from Trump's.

In relations with Turkey too, the words he spoke against Erdoğan in an interview to representatives of the New York Times give a clue only about the mental ground of his Turkey policy. But we have to assess how much importance we should attach to this.

We said it before the elections too. The idea of toppling Erdoğan outside democratic means, by a coup or other intrigues, is not a path that the USA, with or without Biden, has not tried. Starting from the summoning of the MİT Undersecretary to testify on 7 February 2012, the Gezi Incident, 17-25 December, the 6-8 October Kobani events, 15 July, the support for PYD-PKK terror in Syria, and a series of economic operations carried out back to back, all were attempts to topple Erdoğan by deliberately undemocratic means, and in all of them the USA had a first-degree role.

All of these attempts failed. In the past, even one of them would have sufficed to change a government in Turkey, but such is the USA's influence on Turkey with Erdoğan.

From here on, Biden has an accumulation of sufficient experience showing the probable firing range against Turkey.

Of course the USA's policies have an effect on Turkey; one would have to be far from the facts to say they do not. But since the firing range of these policies is now known, there is no option other than to assess relations within the framework of mutual benefit.

It is inevitable that Biden too, with his crowned head, will grasp this and see that good relations with Turkey, the region's only democratic country, are the only way in terms of the USA's interests.