Turkey and Russia: Cleaning up the mess in the Middle East

[JohnyCanuck]

The neocon plan to transform the Middle East and Central Asia into a pliant client of the US empire and its only-democracy-in-the-Middle-East is now facing a very different playing field. Not only are the wars against the Palestinians, Afghans and Iraqis floundering, but they have set in motion unforeseen moves by all the regional players.

The empire faces a resurgent Turkey, heir to the Ottomans, who governed a largely peaceful Middle East for half a millennium. As part of a dynamic diplomatic outreach under the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey re-established the Caliphate visa-free tradition with Albania, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya and Syria last year. In February, Turkish Culture and Tourism Minister Ertugrul Gunay offered to do likewise with Egypt. There is “a great new plan of creating a Middle East Union as a regional equivalent of the European Union” with Turkey, fresh from a resounding constitutional referendum win by the AKP, writes Israel Shamir.

Turkey also established a strategic partnership with Russia during the past two years, with a visa-free regime and ambitious trade and investment plans (denominated in rubles and lira), including the construction of new pipelines and nuclear energy facilities.

snip

In a delicious irony, invasions by the US and Israel in the Middle East and Eurasia have not cowed the countries affected, but emboldened them to work together, creating the basis for a new alignment of forces, including Russia, Turkey, Syria and Iran.

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6400.shtml

[bemildred]

1. Gee, who could have predicted this? nt

[Nuclear Unicorn]

2. "The empire faces a resurgent Turkey, heir to the Ottomans..."

And this is where you lost me.

You bemoan the so-called neocon empire, apparently ruled by the nefarious iron-fisted arch-tyrant Obama, and pine for the days of the Ottomans...but leave off the word "empire."

And if you think Putin has an altruistic bone in his body then this OP is either mind-blowingly naive or it is a grand piece of propaganda aimed at the mind-blowingly naive.

[Gman]

3. So much for American hegemony on the Grand Chessboard