What is Turkey losing in the Middle East, who is winning?

In Tunisia, where the first spark of the Arab Spring process was lit, in elections held in line with the new constitution drawn up after the Revolution, the secular-liberal Nidaa Tounes party became the first party, taking 39 percent of the votes and leaving Ennahda behind. With this vote share Nidaa Tounes took 85 of the 217 seats in parliament, while Ennahda, with a vote share of 32 percent, remained at 69 seats.

These results are the official record that, since the very beginning of the whole Arab Spring process, it is the first time the Brotherhood or Islamist currents have been left behind in elections they entered, and the first time secular-liberal segments have come to the fore.

Since the Arab Spring began, Turkey, as a movement taking place in its natural, sociological channel, chose to stand by the will of the people. This support meant neither exporting a regime to anyone nor interfering in the internal affairs of some countries. Turkey voiced the voice of conscience in response to Hosni Mubarak, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali or Muammar Gaddafi attempting to suppress their own peoples' demands with blood. As a requirement of reason and human responsibility, it reminded them that this resistance was hopeless and stood by the peoples.

Indeed the process would soon confirm Turkey's stance, and the blood the dictators who could suppress the peoples' demands with blood had shed would sweep them from power. Who carried out the revolutions that took place, and who would come to power as a result of the revolutions, was not clear. Indeed, no one foresaw that the Brotherhood or Islamist parties might come to power as a result of these revolutions. After all, the revolutions were carried out not by Islamists but by masses demanding bread, freedom and dignity.

Turkey too supported these processes without caring who would come to power. Because what mattered was answering people's demands for freedom, dignity and bread.

Yet all the ballot boxes set up after the revolutions brought to power either the Brotherhood or parties on an Islamist line, and for Turkey there was nothing in this to make an issue of. When democratic procedures are operated, why should it be a problem that the sides who have accepted respecting the results of the election win?

Turkey naturally established good relations with everyone who won the elections. Even had parties other than the Brotherhood won the elections, Turkey would never have shrunk from dealing with the winners as the actors representing those countries.

Did Turkey also have its own preference in this process? According to some, Turkey chose the Brotherhood and was working solely for their coming to power. It is true that the AK Parti government's relations with the Brotherhood and other Islamist parties of a democratic line are good, but that this good relationship is one that determines who will come to the governments of those countries and by what means is nothing but a delusion that some have benefited from greatly. After all, however much Turkey or the AK Parti may support a party that has no standing among the people, what result could that have?

Indeed, Turkey did not oppose the bloody coups later carried out against elected governments, ignoring the will of the people, because they were being carried out against the Brotherhood. Those who have still not even been able to call these coups coups, who have still not shown the necessary human reaction to the blood these coups shed, and who turn around and describe Turkey as bankrupt for having tied its entire foreign policy to the Brotherhood, are, at the very least, thereby made accomplices of these criminals against humanity and enemies of democracy.

Yet Turkey opposes these bloody coups or counter-revolutions never because they are being carried out against the Brotherhood, but only because they are coups, because they are against the people and because they commit crimes against humanity. Had these coups been carried out by the Brotherhood against others, our stance would not have changed.

Indeed, it never disturbs us that in the elections held as a result of the successfully proceeding national dialogue process in Tunisia it was Nidaa Tounes, not Ennahda, that emerged victorious. The will of the Tunisian people has been realized in this direction, and Turkey receives the decision of the Tunisian people with respect and congratulates Nidaa Tounes, Ennahda and all the other parties that took part in the election process. From the result of this election, the Arab Spring process, that is, the will of the peoples, has emerged the gainer.

Turkey supported the Arab Spring process without outside intervention, as a manifestation of the will of the peoples. Yet today the same revolutions are being attempted to be strangled from outside with a thousand and one kinds of intrigue, coups, massacres, incitements to war and direct interventions. Those who are expected to show some reaction to all these processes in the name of humanity, instead of displaying the minimum humanity, democratic sense or civility expected of them, have turned around and plunged into the pleasure-stroll of how much Turkey has come out harmed from this process and how lonely it has become.

Has Turkey become isolated, and who has gained strength by coming together in which alliance? Has Turkey lost in this process, and who has won?

Are those who have turned the Middle East into a blaze by supporting these coups and these bloody processes gaining much now? A deadly paranoia that robs them of sleep, that none of the Gulf countries will vanish without collapsing, has gripped them all. No one is at ease in his place precisely because of the crimes they have committed and their partnership in these crimes.

NOW GO AND EXPLAIN ALL THIS TO CENGİZ ÇANDAR

I had asked how much and what Cengiz Çandar, who said he watched one of my interviews "with the naked eye," could see and understand with so many veils before his eyes. Now he has described my interview to the Wall Street Journal as "nonsensical."

That all the words of mine that Çandar criticizes are words of mine that were reflected in the foreign press already sufficiently shows the nature of the veil before his eyes. But he has lined up a pile of words over two half-baked sentences of mine. Not a single "sensible" sentence about foreign policy is in any of the words, but in both his articles he has fixed on my Professorship, whatever that has to do with anything?

If, without looking at his own state in these latest articles, in which he performs every duty other than journalism, he is bothered by our bearing the title Prof., the problem is beyond me. At this point I refer it to his friend Salih Tuna.

Tell me, Salih, what is this friend's trouble? Is it because you haven't been taking an interest in him for a while?