If the road Putin has opened is followed

With Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement that they had decided to recognize the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic, which had unilaterally declared independence from Ukraine, the fuse of the fire awaited for months has been lit. As the whole world begins adjusting its position according to this decision of Russia, it is already seen, again as expected in the end, that Ukraine, which was emboldened by Europe and the US to stand up to Russia, will ultimately be left to its own devices. Russia has long been familiar with sanctions that will not go beyond matters such as trade embargoes and the cancellation of commercial agreements. No one expects the new sanctions to dissuade it from its decision.

The speech Putin gave while making the decision to recognize the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics is a speech that is a candidate to make all the international law and border agreements formed since the beginning of the last century a matter of dispute. True, we were already hearing these arguments as the thinking underlying both Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and these latest disputes. This time Putin stated it far more clearly as the justification for the decision.

Going back to the founding of the Soviet Union, Putin spoke of "correcting" the borders drawn in that period and in the end announced to the whole world. That is, he said that Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the 17 October Revolution and founder of the Soviet Union, had divided Russia with the federative structure he established over the country and had opened the way for a land belonging to Russia to later become a separate country. If the logic of seeing in oneself a right to correct this situation today, on the grounds that a state called Ukraine came into being because of this practice of Lenin's, is accepted, all the world's borders may become disputed today and many countries may acquire a right to invade or annex the country next door. Everyone could put forward a justification for going back to before the First World War, or to some earlier point of dispute if they wish.

Indeed, among the justifications for Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 there was an emphasis that Kuwaiti territory was a natural part of Iraq and that this connection had been severed by the imperialist interventions of the British Crown. Saddam had tried to build a justification for the invasion by appealing to the historical ties between Kuwait and Iraq and to the conditions behind the old agreements among the Ottomans, Britain and Iraq. The world, the US first of all, took a clear stand against rummaging through old ledgers to create new situations, faits accomplis. The claim that the US had earlier encouraged, even provoked, that intervention is a separate matter. In the end, by not allowing Saddam an allocation of land from old ledgers to the present day, a de facto limit was also placed on international law.

But it was clear that the sensitivity the US showed on that matter concerned only its own interests and that this sensitivity was merely a matter of gross exploitation. Neither then nor in its later practices was there any sign that the US acted with an ethical motivation. In the end, 12 years after Saddam's attempt to invade Kuwait, the US invaded Iraq on a trumped-up pretext and poured poison on the root of peace and stability in the Middle East. From that day to this the Middle East cannot recover.

It was already known that the same US was miles away from the sensitivity it displayed here toward Israel's occupation of Palestinian land, and this distance was tested again. Jerusalem, which even by UN resolutions is described as belonging to Palestine and under Israeli occupation, was declared the capital of Israel with US support and decision. The US Embassy to Israel was moved there. That was not enough: it was declared by the US itself that the Golan Heights, belonging to Syria and occupied in 1967, belonged to Israel, that is, its annexation by Israel.

So what is Israel's justification for claiming rights on Palestinian lands from the beginning? What justification is there other than the claim that these places belonged to the Jews 2,500 years ago? Within today's secular international order, Israel has been able to occupy by basing its entire justification on an interpretation of the Holy Book, at the price of savagely, cruelly rendering a people stateless.

While the greatest support for these occupations comes from the US, could the same US have anything to say to Putin today? If it did, could it have any ethical or equitable basis?

It must not be understood from this that the US will, of course, give no reaction. But just as these reactions will have no ethical basis, they will also have no serious effect on Russia.

In fact, the US, together with NATO, which it leads, has lately not been in an approach that inspires confidence in its members or friends. While making calculations over Ukraine and carrying out certain practices, it promised it no real protection against Russia. On this occasion it is seen that NATO today does not provide serious protection even for the security of Europe, and that it can have no sanctions.

Today the Eastern European countries in particular feel less secure against Russia than even in Cold War times. Because they trusted NATO, most neglected to develop their own private security systems, and NATO's protection goes only this far. May Allah make its end good.