The US's sanctions fall on itself

The sanction against Turkey, long discussed on the pretext of the purchase of the S-400 from Russia, has finally passed the Senate's approval and been decided. Thus Turkey, too, is subjected to sanctions, which are only one of the US's instruments for running the world. Of course, not only with these sanctions but also by using its own currency, and by placing countries in the class of countries supporting terror, the US uses the banking system it has imposed on the whole world as a stick in foreign policy.

In fact Turkey is a country that has frequently been exposed throughout history to other kinds of stick-waving and initiatives by the US. In the past the US had a great many instruments for running Turkey and a very wide room for maneuver. It seems that these days those instruments are no longer as effective as before, and their scope has narrowed considerably. The US could accomplish a great deal through the NGOs inside Turkey and through agents of influence in the press and media. If all else failed, it would have a coup carried out, and get what it wanted by the crudest methods. After the coup it last tried on 15 July through its extremely handy tool FETÖ, it had seen that it no longer had its old strength in Turkey and could not have it from now on.

The decrease in the instruments the US used to establish its influence over Turkey and the narrowing of its room for maneuver is largely due to Turkey's being much stronger than before.

The timing of this decision, which had been on the agenda for a long time, is, so to speak, meaningful. It coincides with a period when a new president has been elected but has not yet taken office. As is known, President Trump, who will remain in office until 20 January, was strongly against this sanction decision. Moreover, he sided with Turkey on the S-400 purchase that is the subject of the sanction, and had openly said that if a culprit was to be sought, one should look to the Obama administration, which had driven Turkey down this road.

Indeed, the process regarding Turkey's purchase of the S-400 defense system from Russia is not one for which the US can accuse Turkey, either in terms of the requirements of the NATO alliance or in any other context. On the contrary, even on this matter it was the US from the start that was the party not in keeping with the spirit of the alliance, and it forced Turkey to procure this system from Russia or somewhere else. As Ömer Çelik reminded us so well, while bombs were raining on Kilis from the Syrian side, the Patriots deployed in Turkey were hastily removed and taken away.

The US did not give Turkey, that is, an ally in NATO, that is, a country which, when an attack is made, should treat it as if it were made against itself and move to defend it, the Patriot defense system even for payment. The reason given was that the US Congress could not be persuaded. But the same Congress was able to provide, free of charge, at least 5,000 truckloads of arms, as far as we have been able to count, to an organization that openly poses a threat to NATO ally Turkey and that is even coded as a "terrorist organization" in its own system.

The US has nothing to say to Turkey, but Turkey has a great deal to say to the US, and from now on let it be ready, Turkey will continue to say much more. The US, which raises the world to its feet whenever it likes in the name of the fight against terror, is at this moment the biggest supporter and biggest financier of terror in the world. Perhaps no one can tell it this, because its sanctions and sticks frighten everyone. But Turkey is saying it, and will say it, to its face and everywhere.

The US has no problem at all with establishing whatever relations it wants with Russia, which it considers an enemy, whenever it wants. But it has the arbitrariness of putting into effect whatever sanctions it wants on countries it chooses, because they established relations with it or bought from it. It can even bring up applying sanctions of the same category to Germany because it buys gas from Russia. In contrast, Greece, again a NATO member, had earlier purchased S-300s from Russia. It made this purchase even before Turkey. Yet no sanction against it even comes onto the agenda.

The US, which with the sanctions it has applied for 30 years has made the innocent Sudanese people experience every kind of pain, removes Sudan from the list of countries supporting terror only in return for normalizing relations with Israel, the very epitome of a terrorist. Did something change in Sudan? No. It has simply normalized relations with Israel, an occupier, distinguished by its non-recognition of UN resolutions and international law, which systematically commits all human rights violations, one by one, as if from a list.

Everyone should know this, the US first of all: these sanctions of the US are, in the last analysis, only against itself. Because this arbitrariness, unprincipledness and inconsistency it displays in its sanctions or its general policy are taking the US farther and farther every day from being a great state. The world has taken its head and gone off, it is changing rapidly, and balances are being overturned in the face of these developments. The US, meanwhile, still acting with its old mindset, is trying to put the world in line. The more it does so, the more it ends up losing at the end of the day. Because in a rapidly developing world no one is condemned to anyone, and no one is without alternatives against anyone.

To keep pace with this rapidly changing world, a different mind is needed. With these practices the US shows that it is far from this mind. That is why it seems inevitable that the sanctions will in the last analysis come back and strike it.