The Baath lobby in Turkey

When the winds of the Arab Spring first reached Syria, among the various possible developments I heard from experts on the subject in different meetings I attended to discuss the matter, one to which I gave little chance was a powerful Syrian-Baath lobby that would become active and effective in Turkey. Of course I was aware of the existence of such a lobby, but I must admit that I greatly underestimated its potential power to shape public opinion in Turkey.

After all, we had not thought that the Baath regime would resist the protests with such violence, on such a scale and in so short a time. But the skill and performance this lobby has shown in standing by the Baath regime in every case, whatever it does, is frankly unbelievable.

Look, whichever way you look at it, there are 14 thousand dead, tens of thousands wounded, more than a hundred thousand detainees, and at least 140 thousand refugees forced to take shelter in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Yet they will make us believe that the sole party responsible for nearly this whole picture is the terrorist opponents who rose up against a regime as innocent as the driven snow.

We are also watching with amazement how the "opposition to the AK Parti no matter what" sentiment in certain circles has produced strange alliances in this affair. Kılıçdaroğlu's words describing Erdoğan as America's subcontractor are replayed over and over as enlightening news on Iran's Press TV. The CHP's inclination toward the Baath regime was no secret, but we had thought this was a one-sided love. That this love has found a response all the way from Iran is now a promotion the Syrian affair has given us.

The typical working style of the Baath lobby is to spread whispers of doubt. A whisper of doubt, as its name suggests, never rests on valid information with a real counterpart, on a sound comparison or on an argument. It is enough for it to plant an image in the mind.

For example, whenever attention is drawn to the massacres and tortures of Assad and the Baath regime, what NATO has done in Afghanistan is brought up. When the massacres in Syria are mentioned, Saudi Arabia-Qatar and Bahrain are suddenly brought up. Each of them is something that makes you ask "what is the connection?", but that is the whisper of doubt for you. That this whisper is taken seriously only gives a picture of what kind of market conscience has been put out to. Has the principle of being "against oppression no matter who it comes from, on the side of the oppressed whoever they may be" run dry? Is it really so hard to be against the oppression NATO has inflicted on Muslims or other oppressed people in this or that geography?

For one thing, as we have said before, Turkey's concern was never anyone's regime. There are many different regimes in the region, but Turkey has no mission, and cannot have one, of changing these regimes. Let us never forget how things reached this point in Syria. Had Assad listened to what Turkey advised Syria, things would not have come to this point, and this regime of Syria would have continued at peace with its own people and with strong relations established with Turkey. Indeed, Jordan listened to the advice that Assad did not, although not nearly as much effort was spent on it, and escaped the destructive effect of the Arab Spring.

The Jordanian academic sociologist Prof. Muhammad al-Hawrani, who follows the Arab Spring and revolution processes very closely, was describing, in a very fine comparison, the attitudes of Arab countries toward the winds of spring on the TRT Arabic program Bayn al-Turath wa al-Hadatha. In contrast to the violence-centered approach of the Syrian regime, which brought things to this point, the attitude of the Jordanian administration is very striking in this respect. At the beginning, let us all remember, the Jordanian administration, too, under the influence of the winds of the Arab Spring, witnessed perhaps far heavier protests. But the Jordanian police not only did not intervene against the protesters in any way, they offered water and juice to protesters scorching under the sun. Moreover, the Jordanian king did not ignore these protests, declared that they had been heard, and carried out considerable reform. Many ministry officials and intelligence officers whom the protesters accused of corruption were arrested. In the end, the Arab Spring has of course affected Jordan today, but thanks to the regime's intelligent approach it has found its own course.

It was expected that the domino effect of the Arab Spring would affect Saudi Arabia in the same way. Yet Saudi Arabia acted even more proactively than Jordan, trying to remove possible discontent among its own people by raising salaries and distributing money in abundance. At present there is no sign of strong discontent among the people of Saudi Arabia toward the regime. In the end, those who invite Turkey, in the name of consistency, to adopt toward every country whose regime it does not like the stance it has adopted toward Syria are truly very confused, even somewhat daft.

Returning to the beginning, let us remind ourselves that the problem between Syria and Turkey from the start was not the regime, but solely and only its murders, which no one with a conscience can stand by and watch.