Hasbunallah

I had written that the magnificent meeting that took place in Diyarbakır on the seventeenth of November, when Prime Minister Erdoğan and Masoud Barzani came together, was a candidate to change all the balances in the region. The matter, of course, did not consist of a simple meeting. This meeting also involved important agreements on the marketing of Northern Iraq's oil and the regulation of the flow of money that would arise from it.

In light of this meeting, I had also written that it heralded a new and more positive future, not only for the Kurdish question but for all elements of the region, but I had added this as well:

"However, there are also actors who will calculate potential losses from these gains. One also needs to try to foresee what these actors will do and what kind of reaction they will show. The days ahead will probably be days in which it can be assessed whether these side developments turn from possibility into reality."

Only a month has passed. The operation carried out in Istanbul on December 17 took place as a great attack in which that possibility became reality. The corruption and bribery dimension of the operation is, of course, a well-chosen path only for increasing its effect and destructive power. Otherwise the operation itself is the height of corruption. Even this chosen path only shows how large-scale the corruption, the lawlessness and the aggressiveness contained in the operation are. Could there be a finer corruption than turning a few unrelated investigations, whose technical surveillance ended months ago, into an operation with this sensational emphasis at a time when elections are approaching? If the aim is truly to uncover corruption and bribery that may well exist and to catch the culprit, there are fifty ways of doing it. Turning it into a high-destructive-power fragmentation weapon against the government is not one of those ways.

If there is corruption and bribery that has come to light or may come to light on the occasion of this affair, it is of course impossible, and will remain impossible, for anyone to defend or tolerate it. That too will be pursued. But in my view there is a far greater illegitimate structure that has actually come to light on the occasion of this operation. Pursuing this second one is much more important. As Gülay Göktürk aptly noted, wherever such a structure exists, no one is safe.

Because this structure displays all the attitudes of a gang-state within the state that is subject to no law. It is quite clear that this gang-state abuses the legitimate means at its disposal for illegitimate ends. The media campaigns supporting the police-organized operation and the revolting smear activities against respected people show that serious files have been compiled somewhere on everyone, starting years ago.

The criticisms of interference in the judiciary have no meaning against the will to be cleansed of this structure. What confronts us is a structure that formed outside the legitimate state structure in Turkey, that takes its power and its instructions not from its legal superiors but from "outside," from certain centers outside the state hierarchy. This structure appears before us, in the middle of a struggle for foreign influence that has been going on in Turkey or over Turkey for months, acting in favor of foreign and illegal elements. In the abstract this directly targets Turkey.

It cannot be concealed in any way that the operation openly targets the government. The judiciary of course acts independently of the government, and of course it comes down on whoever commits a crime, but the judiciary cannot behave as if it were in a hostile posture even toward the person who committed the crime. Least of all can it be in a hostile posture toward the prime minister. Yet in this affair there is the appearance of an attack whose target is directly the prime minister, and precisely for this reason no one believes that this is a corruption and bribery operation.

Whatever the media within the operation team may say, this affair is being written in line with Sarıkız and Ayışığı, Balyoz, the April 27 e-memorandum, and the February 7 and Gezi coup attempts.

The surprise nature of the actors in this new attempt and of the alliance they are part of only shows how great the tricks and deceptions of the putschists can be. Let us remind and warn: this serves nothing other than to strengthen further Prime Minister Erdoğan, before whom they can never get enough of being defeated and never learn their lesson from being routed. Because his Lord is God, and the people.

Those who have thrown themselves forward with desperate zeal in the December 17 coup attempt have evidently seen the possibility of a Turkey without Erdoğan and without the AK Parti. Someone may have shown them such a simulation of Turkey. That is why they are charging in without recognizing any moral or legal limit.

When things calm down, the account of what they are losing or making others lose will be seen better. They will not be able to say that they are entering such a fight in the name of the values they represent, because the first thing they betray on entering this fight is those very values. Then in this fight they will be left alone with whomever they hoped for anything from. Hasbunallah and ni'mel vekil, ni'mel mevla...