"If the revolutionary mind loses its morality, it loses everything"

The Syrian revolution, which made a magnificent finale in 12 days, has already earned the right in many respects to enter the history of the world's revolutions. For instance, the fact that this great victory, won against a regime that has behind it so many massacres, so much repression, oppression, torture, destruction and deportation over 14 years, ended with a peacefulness extremely disproportionate to this violent past. This is a lesson that should make everyone who has accused the Syrian revolutionaries in one way or another until now, who has accused them of being instruments of the US, Israel or Western imperialism against the axis of resistance, sink into the ground out of shame.

FROM THE MIND OF THE FREEDOM STRUGGLE TO THE MIND OF THE STATE

The crimes against humanity that Iran and its brothers, who until now have acted with the claim of being the so-called front of resistance to Zionism, have committed against Muslims in Syria are beyond reckoning, and it is also clear that they have not made Zionism retreat a single millimeter. That is why, although the people of Syria, who expressed themselves with exhilaration after the revolution, are angry at these so-called Shiite Shabiha, this does not lead them to vengefulness. Indeed, perhaps if the clashes had continued and the events had not unfolded so quickly, this feeling of revenge might have stayed alive. However, with Ahmed al-Sharaa and the SMO elements taking charge of the situation quickly, the mind of the state began to come into play within a short time, and the mind of law began to replace the chaotic atmosphere of the freedom struggle. Even the elements of the old regime notorious for crimes against humanity, when now caught, despite all the anger directed at them, are met not with a logic of revenge but with the rule of fair trial beginning to operate. That this rule of adjudication has begun to operate in such a short time is in itself an important event.

This was a question we also put to Ahmed al-Sharaa in our meeting, and he expressed the situation, in aphoristic sentences that I think will enter the literature: "In this revolution, we were raised on courtesy and compassion toward the people, because fundamentally the source of our struggle was to deliver the people from injustice. That is why we tried to guide the fighting youth as much as possible. We wanted them to have the highest level of morality. We were victorious, true, but with this victory we showed mercy. We asked this from God. A victory without vengeance. Because the regime mentality does not build. The revolutionary mentality can kill, but if it loses its morality, it loses everything. Thanks be to humanity and to the Almighty that we accomplished this, and it was good behavior because when others also felt safe, we received a positive response. Thus they felt how great the difference is between the revolution and the regime. Had it been the opposite, many crimes would have been committed. It is true that we are the victorious side. But, thank God, we acted in accordance with morality. This is not politics, this is a duty. This was our responsibility."

A MODEL WHOSE ONLY EXAMPLE IS NOT SYRIA

Frankly, these were sentences that I felt great pride and joy in hearing and in seeing their counterpart on the ground. Because seeing the possible and realized practice of the creedal and moral codes that also bring me into being, let us use a more intellectual expression, of my theoretical approaches, gave me great excitement. A victory without vengeance is a model of victory and power that our Prophet left as a legacy to all humanity at the conquest of Mecca. Muslims do not try to dominate, to do what their enemies did, to follow their path. Their cause is always to be a carrier of God's mercy, compassion and justice for all people. It is possible for them to show this through their practice, and they show it at every opportunity they find. Umar and Saladin showed it in Jerusalem. Muslims showed it wherever they conquered. 3-4 years ago in Afghanistan, at a moment when everyone was conditioned to expect similar angry and savage revenge from them, the Taliban not only forgave everyone but went on its way without even dismissing anyone from their posts. The cause of Muslims is to remove occupation and oppression. That they show this precisely at the moment they are powerful is also an indication of how loyal they are to their covenants.

"WILL SYRIA BECOME IRAQ?" ANXIETIES IN THE US

In Syria there is an army and a governing apparatus that has ruled the country for so many years like a steel curtain with great repression. Is its collapse that easy? By laying down their weapons, can they be regarded as completely innocent of their crimes arising from the slaughterhouse into which they turned the country in the past? Even if they are pardoned and left alone, won't they organize again and take some actions in favor of the old order?

These worries are now being voiced in some US circles. The comparison is made with the situation in Iraq after Saddam. Saddam's commanders too, as the remnants of the army dissolved after the occupation, had organized and launched great acts of violence that would plague the occupation for years. Now US intelligence circles say that the same scenario could be repeated in Syria. Whether this is a possibility they foresee, or a plot in which they themselves will take part, one honestly cannot tell.

But if it is a possibility, the difference between Syria and Iraq is that those who conquered Syria are Syria's own sons themselves, who have returned to the homeland and homes from which they were driven out. Moreover, in doing so, by forgiving even those who drove them from their homes, they are trying, however hard it is, to win them over. Yet in Iraq everyone who had taken part in Saddam's Baath structure was declared guilty from the start, and taking revenge on them on behalf of the Shiites, victims of the old regime, was encouraged, even provoked and orchestrated, by the occupiers.

A long-lasting civil war, by plunging Iraq into a spiral of revenge, was a choice of the occupying US itself. It called this resulting spiral of violence "creative chaos" and tried to extract certain gains of its own from it. Who obtained this gain, whom it served, and why such an adventure was entered into for a finale in which thousands of US soldiers also died, Iraq was handed to Iran on a golden platter, and the US went to great lengths to find an exit, are of course mind-burning questions. Do you suppose the US does everything it does with reason, logic and calculation? Being a powerful state sometimes brings with it not needing reason. Intoxication with power takes away the mind; sometimes, relying on its strength, it does things that cannot be explained by reason, and at the end of the day it finds that it has nothing in hand but zero.

Could the elements of the Baath regime in Syria, whether they have laid down their weapons or not, launch an insurgency similar to the one in Iraq again, to take revenge for the defeat they cannot stomach or to topple the newly established government? If pressed, of course, this possibility is by no means impossible, but as far as we can see, the forgiving attitude of al-Sharaa and his government has completely eliminated all ideological or legitimacy grounds for it. The regime itself had been illegitimate until now anyway. Even the Baath in Iraq, despite its discriminatory policies against the Kurdish and Shiite elements, had a much broader and deeper-rooted resonance in society. Yet Assad had no support left from his own people, not even from the Nusayri segment.

THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN SYRIA ARE FORCING THE US TO ACT MORE RATIONALLY

The most important point the US now cites as its justification for being east of the Euphrates is the ISIS presence here. As far as we know, this organization has no presence left to fight with in any case. Despite this, in recent days news was published that the US eliminated the organization's leader, Abu Yusuf, in a successful operation. Everyone commented that ISIS was revived with this incident and that the US had begun to revive this pretext. That may be. But there is also a possibility about which one can be somewhat more optimistic. Perhaps the US has to find itself a way out in order to withdraw, and for this it has already begun to open that way by announcing that it has killed the person who was directly the leader of ISIS. For the US currently has no justified, reasonable or rational ground left for being in Syria to support the YPG presence.

It too knows that there is no such organization as ISIS. It will be left caught between Turkey, its ally in NATO, and the YPG, and more importantly between the YPG and a now-strong Syrian regime with a clear victory and popular support behind it. Moreover, for each of the so-called ISIS militants held in prison here there is a per-head sum that it has to pay to the YPG, and this amounts to a very serious total. This is a war whose lining costs more than its cloth, with no meaning or rationality. Moreover, it is a process that has caused 2,000 US soldiers to be present in a zone of tension. It seems the US will now have to do the accounting for this too.

YOU SAY THESE ARE QUESTIONS WE DID NOT ASK AHMED AL-SHARAA?

The interview we conducted with Ahmed al-Sharaa undoubtedly contained very important messages. During our meetings with him, two in total, each lasting more than an hour, we asked many of the questions we wanted to ask, but not everything of course. Criticizing an interview not for the questions asked and the answers received but for the questions not asked is one of our typical opposition maladies in Turkey. When I saw criticisms in many places under the headline "The questions Yasin Aktay did not or could not ask Ahmed al-Sharaa," I only laughed. Because the questions in question were neither questions I could not ask nor questions I had not asked. However, the interview was only in one part of my two-and-a-half-hour meetings in total. I had asked those questions outside the interview, and there was in fact nothing to prevent me from asking them during the interview. One of those questions, without being off the record, concerned the PKK. In the following days, al-Sharaa in any case addressed those questions abundantly and gave his answers: it was a speech that can be summarized as, "The Kurds are our brothers and all their rights are protected like those of every other Syrian. However, no one will be given permission to carry arms separately or to form a separate administrative zone."

The second subject was the Israel matter. On that too he said that he was aware of what was happening and that Israel's opportunism in this process would not be accepted in any way. He also added that what it did showed how harmoniously it had worked with the Assad regime until now and that, contrary to what some claim, it felt no satisfaction at the Syrian people coming to power.

But perhaps some were expecting al-Sharaa to say whether he would declare war on Israel at this stage. Their expecting al-Sharaa to declare war immediately on Israel, at which the Assad regime has not fired a bullet for 61 years, is not because they are against Israel but, of course, again because of their incorrigible mischief, don't we see?