Loving the music. Which music is that from?
Would prefer the instrumental version.
Would prefer the instrumental version.
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Egypt: from 2011 demonstrations to today (16 Viewers)
- Thread starter ReBeL
- Start date
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Look at the who rushed to help his little brother.
Thee White House on Aug. 20 condemned Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's claim that Israel had a role in toppling ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.
White House Spokesman Josh Earnest said the comments were "offensive and unsubstantiated and wrong."
73 sects doesn't mean 73 different versions of Islam. Hadith also states all of them will be in fire expect those who follow what him and his Companions are upon now. Following Muhammad(pbuh) and his Companions means applying Sharia, you're actually proving me right in this case.
quote from another site
''They are the people who adhere to the Hadith; the righteous predecessors who follow in the footsteps of the early generations in acting upon the Qurýan and the Sunnah. Any sect that contradicts them is threatened with the Fire.''
You can easily find what does this hadith mean and it is enough religious discussion, isn't it? Let me walk on the path i choose and you keep
each other. Our differences will be settled in day of judgment.
Quran 23 : 52 - 53 - 54
And indeed this, your religion, is one religion, and I am your Lord, so fear Me."
But the people divided their religion among them into sects - each faction, in what it has, rejoicing.
So leave them in their confusion for a time.
Thee White House on Aug. 20 condemned Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's claim that Israel had a role in toppling ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.
White House Spokesman Josh Earnest said the comments were "offensive and unsubstantiated and wrong."
73 sects doesn't mean 73 different versions of Islam. Hadith also states all of them will be in fire expect those who follow what him and his Companions are upon now. Following Muhammad(pbuh) and his Companions means applying Sharia, you're actually proving me right in this case.
quote from another site
''They are the people who adhere to the Hadith; the righteous predecessors who follow in the footsteps of the early generations in acting upon the Qurýan and the Sunnah. Any sect that contradicts them is threatened with the Fire.''
You can easily find what does this hadith mean and it is enough religious discussion, isn't it? Let me walk on the path i choose and you keep
each other. Our differences will be settled in day of judgment.Quran 23 : 52 - 53 - 54
And indeed this, your religion, is one religion, and I am your Lord, so fear Me."
But the people divided their religion among them into sects - each faction, in what it has, rejoicing.
So leave them in their confusion for a time.
Different religious beliefs = what I mean when I say 'versions'. If this word bothers you I'll drop it and we'll just call it: 'Islam has followers that different set of beliefs'. Happy?
You've lost the point of the argument if you think this has become a religious discussion. The whole argument here is whether Sharia can be implemented on a group of people that have different set of beliefs.
I get it now though, the reason why you keep ignoring that we are split is because in your mind there is only one belief system and you are the true follower of it where there is no room for others. This makes you and your people very dangerous and I hope that groups like the Brotherhood are kept as far out of power as possible.
I hope that Egypt sets the precedent which other Muslim countries follow to release themselves from the clutches of the corrupt Mullah. All these Deobandi's, Wahabi's, Salafi's, etc. need to be thrown into caves because they're not fit to live anywhere else.
Some people should be excluded from politics even when they win the elections because they are too .... for your liking? This is an invitation to violence. Then let's see whose power will surpass whom and who will end up thrown into caves.
Egypt's generals following Algerian playbook?
Comments from Egyptian officers are eerily similar to those heard from the mouths of the Algerian "eradicators."
20 Aug 2013 19:58
Tunis, Tunisia — In case it was not already clear, in an interview with the French daily newspaper Le Monde, the Egyptian General Amr said with remarkable frankness that he is prepared to oversee a campaign that would essentially be aimed at “purging” Egypt of political Islam.
“There are 90 million Egyptians and there are only three million [members of] the Muslim Brotherhood. We need six months to liquidate or imprison them all," said in the interview, published on Monday.
The general’s affirmation is eerily similar to comments heard from the mouths of the Algerian “eradicators” – those within the regime who, advocated that any means necessary should be used to wipe out political Islam. This toolkit included any means necessary, with torture, killings and a complete disregard for basic human rights.
In fact, even the statistic cited by the Egyptian general echoes Algeria.
Smaïl Lamari, the notorious head of the Algerian intelligence service known as the Department of Counter-Espionage and Internal Security, reportedly made a similar comment twenty-one years earlier.
Mohamed Samraoui, Lamari’s former deputy who defected from the Algerian regime in the mid-1990s and wrote an account of the secret services’ role in the descent into violence titled "Chronicles of the years of blood", attributed the following quote to his then-boss:
"I am ready and resolved to eliminate three million Algerians if it's necessary to maintain the order which the Islamists are threatening."
According to Samraoui, Lamari made these comments at a meeting at Chateauneuf in May 1992, before Algeria had descended into the cycle of violence that would last for ten years and claim an estimated 200,000 lives.
The Algerian generals were themselves borrowing directly from the playbook from the strategy used by the French half a century earlier, during the Algerian War, Samraoui wrote.
Some were experts, having worked directly with the French military until switching sides on the eve of independence.
The theory behind this strategy is based on “Modern Warfare”, written by the French counter-insurgency theorist Roger Trinquier.
As French journalist Marie-Monique Robin demonstrated in her 2003 documentary “The Death Squads: the French School” this same toolkit had already previously been “copied and pasted” in many of the worst dirty wars of the 20th century.
In Argentina, the French secret services provided training to the regime, as she showed in her documentary, which won the French senate’s award for the best political documentary of the year.
Given how many times the world has seen this playbook used before, in some of the worst atrocities of the later half of the 20th century, the fact that General Amr is clearly completely unfazed by the definite human cost of his endeavour or of any potential repercussions from the international community is telling.
“Afterwards, the tourists will come back, and so will foreign investors. And Egypt will be in peace for centuries to come,” he told Le Monde.
His comments, again, suggest he has paid close attention to the Algerian example. And while Lamari said it behind closed draws, Amr has told the world of his intentions.
http://blogs.aljazeera.com/blog/middle-east/egypts-generals-following-algerian-playbook
Those who support what is happening in Egypt, your villainy knows no boundaries
Be careful, don't ever get into a difficult situation. You will get no sympathy.
Egypt's generals following Algerian playbook?
Comments from Egyptian officers are eerily similar to those heard from the mouths of the Algerian "eradicators."
20 Aug 2013 19:58
Tunis, Tunisia — In case it was not already clear, in an interview with the French daily newspaper Le Monde, the Egyptian General Amr said with remarkable frankness that he is prepared to oversee a campaign that would essentially be aimed at “purging” Egypt of political Islam.
“There are 90 million Egyptians and there are only three million [members of] the Muslim Brotherhood. We need six months to liquidate or imprison them all," said in the interview, published on Monday.
The general’s affirmation is eerily similar to comments heard from the mouths of the Algerian “eradicators” – those within the regime who, advocated that any means necessary should be used to wipe out political Islam. This toolkit included any means necessary, with torture, killings and a complete disregard for basic human rights.
In fact, even the statistic cited by the Egyptian general echoes Algeria.
Smaïl Lamari, the notorious head of the Algerian intelligence service known as the Department of Counter-Espionage and Internal Security, reportedly made a similar comment twenty-one years earlier.
Mohamed Samraoui, Lamari’s former deputy who defected from the Algerian regime in the mid-1990s and wrote an account of the secret services’ role in the descent into violence titled "Chronicles of the years of blood", attributed the following quote to his then-boss:
"I am ready and resolved to eliminate three million Algerians if it's necessary to maintain the order which the Islamists are threatening."
According to Samraoui, Lamari made these comments at a meeting at Chateauneuf in May 1992, before Algeria had descended into the cycle of violence that would last for ten years and claim an estimated 200,000 lives.
The Algerian generals were themselves borrowing directly from the playbook from the strategy used by the French half a century earlier, during the Algerian War, Samraoui wrote.
Some were experts, having worked directly with the French military until switching sides on the eve of independence.
The theory behind this strategy is based on “Modern Warfare”, written by the French counter-insurgency theorist Roger Trinquier.
As French journalist Marie-Monique Robin demonstrated in her 2003 documentary “The Death Squads: the French School” this same toolkit had already previously been “copied and pasted” in many of the worst dirty wars of the 20th century.
In Argentina, the French secret services provided training to the regime, as she showed in her documentary, which won the French senate’s award for the best political documentary of the year.
Given how many times the world has seen this playbook used before, in some of the worst atrocities of the later half of the 20th century, the fact that General Amr is clearly completely unfazed by the definite human cost of his endeavour or of any potential repercussions from the international community is telling.
“Afterwards, the tourists will come back, and so will foreign investors. And Egypt will be in peace for centuries to come,” he told Le Monde.
His comments, again, suggest he has paid close attention to the Algerian example. And while Lamari said it behind closed draws, Amr has told the world of his intentions.
http://blogs.aljazeera.com/blog/middle-east/egypts-generals-following-algerian-playbook
Those who support what is happening in Egypt, your villainy knows no boundaries
Be careful, don't ever get into a difficult situation. You will get no sympathy.
Some people should be excluded from politics even when they win the elections because they are too .... for your liking? This is an invitation to violence. Then let's see whose power will surpass whom and who will end up thrown into caves.
Those who support what is happening in Egypt, your villainy knows no boundaries
Be careful, don't ever get into a difficult situation. You will get no sympathy.
Those who support what is happening in Egypt, your villainy knows no boundaries
Be careful, don't ever get into a difficult situation. You will get no sympathy.
why don't you pack a bag and go fight evil insted of being an internet warrior? there isn't even a point in you sharing your opinions here as you don't even share common, basic humen beliefs with the rest of us, you are just a ghost from dark times in humen history.
The world will be a safer place 10 folds if there weren't people like you around, There I said it.
Don't worry, i am not promoting violence half as much as those who wish eradication for millions of Islamists. Have to admit, your(plural) indifference towards people's suffering and attempts to make a joke out of it could turn many ordinary people to radicalists. Even if you are against them, don't try to be funny in a matter of life and death.
That is no threat but the reality, what is for me today can turn against you tomorrow. How do you expect people to stand for you when you laugh at them in their time of need? Many people are currently experiencing the thing you can't even bear to imagine. Maybe this will put some sense into your head.
That is no threat but the reality, what is for me today can turn against you tomorrow. How do you expect people to stand for you when you laugh at them in their time of need? Many people are currently experiencing the thing you can't even bear to imagine. Maybe this will put some sense into your head.
Dude I'm not only Jewish but even worse I'm from Israel. If the Mb takes over egypt what do you honestly think it means for my country safety? I'm the last person you can talk to about harsh reality, we and the palestinians are living it every day unlike you (admittedly they have it much worse and to be honest I respect their fight 10 times more then "yours" in egypt)
I find it hilarious that you don't see the irony in what you have just said, I'm sure the MB or any other part of the extremist islamic world for that matter will rush to our aid in case of injustice
Do I even need to give you examples? just open a history book
And just to clerify, I'm not making fun of people suffering those horrible things even though it's a choice they made, but it's not even a choice in your mind is it? I'm making fun of your reasoning and feeble attempts to justify that way of thinking, nothing else
I find it hilarious that you don't see the irony in what you have just said, I'm sure the MB or any other part of the extremist islamic world for that matter will rush to our aid in case of injustice
Do I even need to give you examples? just open a history bookAnd just to clerify, I'm not making fun of people suffering those horrible things even though it's a choice they made, but it's not even a choice in your mind is it? I'm making fun of your reasoning and feeble attempts to justify that way of thinking, nothing else
Could meaning of 'extremist' get any cheaper? So it is everyone who is living according to his religion now. No, not everyone, Israeli are even more religious but you have to be a Muslim to be called an extremist. You're right as long as you're stronger
You know you're awakening a bigger threat and pushing ordinary people to arms of truly radical organizations by denying their right to vote. You could have reason with MB, no way they would have think about anything offensive towards Israel, there were a lot of intellectuals even liberals among them but as i said, once again your own wrongdoings will put you in a difficult situation.
by making fun, i mean this kind of clownery
You know you're awakening a bigger threat and pushing ordinary people to arms of truly radical organizations by denying their right to vote. You could have reason with MB, no way they would have think about anything offensive towards Israel, there were a lot of intellectuals even liberals among them but as i said, once again your own wrongdoings will put you in a difficult situation.
by making fun, i mean this kind of clownery
Could meaning of 'extremist' get any cheaper? So it is everyone who is living according to his religion now. No, not everyone, Israeli are even more religious but you have to be a Muslim to be called an extremist. You're right as long as you're stronger
You know you're awakening a bigger threat and pushing ordinary people to arms of truly radical organizations by denying their right to vote. You could have reason with MB, no way they would have think about anything offensive towards Israel, there were a lot of intellectuals even liberals among them but as i said, once again your own wrongdoings will put you in a difficult situation.
by making fun, i mean this kind of clownery
You know you're awakening a bigger threat and pushing ordinary people to arms of truly radical organizations by denying their right to vote. You could have reason with MB, no way they would have think about anything offensive towards Israel, there were a lot of intellectuals even liberals among them but as i said, once again your own wrongdoings will put you in a difficult situation.
by making fun, i mean this kind of clownery
Israel has a clear separation between state and religion as any normal, modern country should. If it was a religious country I would have been on the first plane out.
We do have our own extremists as any religion seem to have those, thankfully for us they are smart enough to understend that without us, the normal people, they have no chance in hell to study all day and run a proper country at the same time. They may talk all day about having a country run under jewish law but when it comes down to it they know better even if they will never say it out loud.
If I could I would have put all you fanatic religious loons on the same deserted island and be done with it, islamist and jewish alike. Try and convert eachother till hell freeze over for all I care
off martin's case NOW!!
he is badass and if he likes the music and makes fun of morsy he is an ace in my book - - - Updated - - -
- - - Updated - - -
Q: How come do you call them terrorists and say they are your friends?
A: Thinking that “Pro Morsi” are not a single category is another syndrome for mainstream media addicts!
There are 5 categories:
1) Sympathizers. They are dramatically decreasing after seeing their actions themselves.
2) Deceived. Still believe in the elites, and think it’s being peaceful or that it’s really for the sake of religion. Those will eventually wake up.
3) Brainless. Blindly following commands without ever thinking. Those are hopeless.
4) Militants. Those are the terrorists, and their fate is a bullet or to be hanged.
5) Elites. Those are on the run, trying to escape the country, leaving all the above behind them!
a status update that made a lot of sense to me.
Mubarak being released Dictators are riding their horses across the country, elected president jailed and his supporters getting slaughtered in hands of junta. A fucking tribe.
@Bisco
You wanted a Pharaoh, Allah gave you two.
Wasn't the whole idea of Israel about promised lands? Hostility towards non-jews based on what is written in your book? Goyim can be killed, raped, they are there to serve you? This is what written in your book and how your ''founding fathers'' acted according to. Israel are most fundamentalist state in the world yet they are marketing their shit so good, one has to admit.
Then it's time for you to realize the difference between a leader and political figure. Respect the choice of people even when you disagree, especially when those people are suffering greatly because of that choice.
Dictators are riding their horses across the country, elected president jailed and his supporters getting slaughtered in hands of junta. A fucking tribe.@Bisco
You wanted a Pharaoh, Allah gave you two.
Wasn't the whole idea of Israel about promised lands? Hostility towards non-jews based on what is written in your book? Goyim can be killed, raped, they are there to serve you? This is what written in your book and how your ''founding fathers'' acted according to. Israel are most fundamentalist state in the world yet they are marketing their shit so good, one has to admit.
Then it's time for you to realize the difference between a leader and political figure. Respect the choice of people even when you disagree, especially when those people are suffering greatly because of that choice.
How Turkey Went From 'Zero Problems' to Zero Friends
And lost its leverage everywhere.
BY PIOTR ZALEWSKI | AUGUST 22, 2013
Not so long ago, Turkey seemed to have found the elusive formula for foreign policy success. Its newly-adopted philosophy, "zero problems with neighbors," won praise both at home and abroad as Ankara reengaged with the Middle East following a half century of estrangement. It expanded business and trade links with Arab states, as well as Iran, lifted visa restrictions with neighboring countries, and even helped mediate some of the region's toughest disputes, brokering talks between Syria and Israel, Fatah and Hamas, and Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Just a few years later, in the wake of the Arab Spring and its aftermath, that once-reliable formula is starting to look like alchemy. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has now burned his bridges with the military regime in Egypt, squabbled with Gulf monarchies for refusing to stand by deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy, and started a war of words with Israel for having a hand in the coup that removed Morsy from power.
For a fleeting moment, Egypt was the centerpiece of Turkey's foreign policy in the Arab world. When Erdogan visited Cairo in September 2011, after the revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak, he arrived to a hero's welcome, feted not only as the first major world leader to call on him to step down but as a regional power broker. That has now all changed: Turkey and Egypt pulled their ambassadors from each country amidst the dispute, and Erdogan publicly slammed the new government in Cairo. "Either Bashar [al-Assad] or [Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi], there is no difference between them," he said last week. "I am saying that state terrorism is currently underway in Egypt."
This week, Erdogan dragged Israel into the dispute, saying that Israel was "behind" the coup in Cairo. The evidence for this perfidy, his office would later confirm, was a 2011 video of former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy discussing the Arab Spring.
Former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman shot back at Erdogan on Wednesday, saying that "everyone who hears [Erdogan's] hateful words and incitement understands beyond a doubt that he follows in the footsteps of Goebbels." Not to be outdone, an Egyptian government spokesman slammed Erdogan as a "Western agent."
Such disputes have left Turkey watchers wondering if Erdogan's bombastic approach is undermining his effectiveness. "Turkey did the right thing" by deploring the Egyptian coup, a former high-ranking Turkish diplomat told me, but found itself "on the wrong side of the international community."
Ankara should have thrown its weight around well before the Muslim Brotherhood was ousted from power, the diplomat added. "Turkey put too much emphasis on the success story of democracy in Egypt and did not see properly the wrong things that were being done by the Morsy regime."
The truth of the matter is that it was always only a matter of time before Turkey's heralded "zero problems" policy foundered. Having zero problems meant keeping your nose out of other countries' domestic affairs, and even cozying up to regional strongmen. That was possible so long as the regional status quo held: Turkey kept mum on post-election violence in Iran in 2009, for instance, and nurtured an alliance with Syria's Assad before the bloody revolt in that country. And in Libya, Erdogan had been only too happy to ignore Muammar al-Qaddafi's dismal human rights record, if that was the price to pay for Turkish businessmen to ink construction deals with his regime.
By blowing the regional status quo into oblivion, the Arab Spring forced Turkey out of this policy of non-interference. Ankara has struggled with the notion that it could not bend the region to its will: In Libya, before it ended up helping unseat Qaddafi, Turkey argued that the West had no business intervening against him. In Syria, it has broken completely with Assad, embroiling itself in a conflict that shows no sign of ending. And in Egypt, of course, it is setting itself on a collision course with the most populous state in the Arab world.
The extent to which Turkey has since ditched its softly-softly approach to the region has been surprising. One of the commandments of "zero problems" was what Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu referred to as "equidistance" -- that is, the refusal to take sides in regional disputes. This was always something of a myth, particularly when it came to the Israeli-Palestine dispute, where the government seldom missed a chance to bolster its regional and Islamic credentials by slighting the Israelis. But in the wake of the Arab Spring, equidistance appears to have gone into the gutter.
It's not only in Egypt where Turkey is now seen as a partisan actor, rather than a neutral problem-solver. In Iraq, it has openly defied Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government, accusing it of fomenting sectarian strife and going behind its back to negotiate oil deals with the Kurdish Regional Government, which administers the country's north. In Syria, it has lent unqualified support to the anti-regime rebels, letting them operate freely on its soil, turning a blind eye to their atrocities, and reportedly criticizing the United States for branding the al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra a terrorist group.
The former Turkish diplomat said that Ankara was right to support the demise of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, but deplored the ham-fisted way that it went about it. "Turkey was right to side with the people against the dictator, but it could have stopped there," he said. "By burning all bridges with the regime, Turkey lost its leverage with Assad." And when the international community, wary as the rebels' ranks swelled with jihadists, shied away from lending further support, "Turkey, to use a football term, found itself offside."
Erdogan is struggling with a new array of foreign policy challenges in other parts of the world, too. Turkey's image in the West took a beating this summer with the protests in Gezi Park. Erdogan's decision to put down the demonstrations with riot police, tear gas and water cannons undermined his relationship with the European Union: In late June, in the midst of the post-Gezi crackdown, Brussels decided to postpone a new round of accession talks with Ankara until October. Erdogan himself, meanwhile, has come under scathing criticism in the American press.
Turkey has done virtually nothing to undo the damage. Instead, officials have accused Western countries of orchestrating the protests and various "dark forces" -- including what Erdogan cryptically calls the international "interest rate lobby" -- of bankrolling them. The prime minister's new top advisor, Yigit Bulut, has no qualms about calling the European Union "a loser headed for a wholesale collapse" while Egemen Bagis, the very minister responsible for the accession talks, quipped, "If we have to, we could tell them, 'Get lost'."
While Turkey's foreign policy struggles in the Middle East may have been inevitable, its isolation elsewhere seems self-inflicted. Today, the country risks returning to the mindset of the 1990s, when tensions abounded with Arab and European countries, conspiracy theories poisoned the political debate, and Turks -- convinced they were a country under siege -- repeated faithfully, "The Turk has no friend but the Turk." Erdogan, it seems, has taken his country from "zero problems" to international headaches as far as the eye can see.
Source: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articl...t_from_zero_problems_to_zero_friends?page=0,1
And lost its leverage everywhere.
BY PIOTR ZALEWSKI | AUGUST 22, 2013
Not so long ago, Turkey seemed to have found the elusive formula for foreign policy success. Its newly-adopted philosophy, "zero problems with neighbors," won praise both at home and abroad as Ankara reengaged with the Middle East following a half century of estrangement. It expanded business and trade links with Arab states, as well as Iran, lifted visa restrictions with neighboring countries, and even helped mediate some of the region's toughest disputes, brokering talks between Syria and Israel, Fatah and Hamas, and Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Just a few years later, in the wake of the Arab Spring and its aftermath, that once-reliable formula is starting to look like alchemy. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has now burned his bridges with the military regime in Egypt, squabbled with Gulf monarchies for refusing to stand by deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy, and started a war of words with Israel for having a hand in the coup that removed Morsy from power.
For a fleeting moment, Egypt was the centerpiece of Turkey's foreign policy in the Arab world. When Erdogan visited Cairo in September 2011, after the revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak, he arrived to a hero's welcome, feted not only as the first major world leader to call on him to step down but as a regional power broker. That has now all changed: Turkey and Egypt pulled their ambassadors from each country amidst the dispute, and Erdogan publicly slammed the new government in Cairo. "Either Bashar [al-Assad] or [Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi], there is no difference between them," he said last week. "I am saying that state terrorism is currently underway in Egypt."
This week, Erdogan dragged Israel into the dispute, saying that Israel was "behind" the coup in Cairo. The evidence for this perfidy, his office would later confirm, was a 2011 video of former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy discussing the Arab Spring.
Former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman shot back at Erdogan on Wednesday, saying that "everyone who hears [Erdogan's] hateful words and incitement understands beyond a doubt that he follows in the footsteps of Goebbels." Not to be outdone, an Egyptian government spokesman slammed Erdogan as a "Western agent."
Such disputes have left Turkey watchers wondering if Erdogan's bombastic approach is undermining his effectiveness. "Turkey did the right thing" by deploring the Egyptian coup, a former high-ranking Turkish diplomat told me, but found itself "on the wrong side of the international community."
Ankara should have thrown its weight around well before the Muslim Brotherhood was ousted from power, the diplomat added. "Turkey put too much emphasis on the success story of democracy in Egypt and did not see properly the wrong things that were being done by the Morsy regime."
The truth of the matter is that it was always only a matter of time before Turkey's heralded "zero problems" policy foundered. Having zero problems meant keeping your nose out of other countries' domestic affairs, and even cozying up to regional strongmen. That was possible so long as the regional status quo held: Turkey kept mum on post-election violence in Iran in 2009, for instance, and nurtured an alliance with Syria's Assad before the bloody revolt in that country. And in Libya, Erdogan had been only too happy to ignore Muammar al-Qaddafi's dismal human rights record, if that was the price to pay for Turkish businessmen to ink construction deals with his regime.
By blowing the regional status quo into oblivion, the Arab Spring forced Turkey out of this policy of non-interference. Ankara has struggled with the notion that it could not bend the region to its will: In Libya, before it ended up helping unseat Qaddafi, Turkey argued that the West had no business intervening against him. In Syria, it has broken completely with Assad, embroiling itself in a conflict that shows no sign of ending. And in Egypt, of course, it is setting itself on a collision course with the most populous state in the Arab world.
The extent to which Turkey has since ditched its softly-softly approach to the region has been surprising. One of the commandments of "zero problems" was what Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu referred to as "equidistance" -- that is, the refusal to take sides in regional disputes. This was always something of a myth, particularly when it came to the Israeli-Palestine dispute, where the government seldom missed a chance to bolster its regional and Islamic credentials by slighting the Israelis. But in the wake of the Arab Spring, equidistance appears to have gone into the gutter.
It's not only in Egypt where Turkey is now seen as a partisan actor, rather than a neutral problem-solver. In Iraq, it has openly defied Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government, accusing it of fomenting sectarian strife and going behind its back to negotiate oil deals with the Kurdish Regional Government, which administers the country's north. In Syria, it has lent unqualified support to the anti-regime rebels, letting them operate freely on its soil, turning a blind eye to their atrocities, and reportedly criticizing the United States for branding the al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra a terrorist group.
The former Turkish diplomat said that Ankara was right to support the demise of President Bashar al-Assad's regime, but deplored the ham-fisted way that it went about it. "Turkey was right to side with the people against the dictator, but it could have stopped there," he said. "By burning all bridges with the regime, Turkey lost its leverage with Assad." And when the international community, wary as the rebels' ranks swelled with jihadists, shied away from lending further support, "Turkey, to use a football term, found itself offside."
Erdogan is struggling with a new array of foreign policy challenges in other parts of the world, too. Turkey's image in the West took a beating this summer with the protests in Gezi Park. Erdogan's decision to put down the demonstrations with riot police, tear gas and water cannons undermined his relationship with the European Union: In late June, in the midst of the post-Gezi crackdown, Brussels decided to postpone a new round of accession talks with Ankara until October. Erdogan himself, meanwhile, has come under scathing criticism in the American press.
Turkey has done virtually nothing to undo the damage. Instead, officials have accused Western countries of orchestrating the protests and various "dark forces" -- including what Erdogan cryptically calls the international "interest rate lobby" -- of bankrolling them. The prime minister's new top advisor, Yigit Bulut, has no qualms about calling the European Union "a loser headed for a wholesale collapse" while Egemen Bagis, the very minister responsible for the accession talks, quipped, "If we have to, we could tell them, 'Get lost'."
While Turkey's foreign policy struggles in the Middle East may have been inevitable, its isolation elsewhere seems self-inflicted. Today, the country risks returning to the mindset of the 1990s, when tensions abounded with Arab and European countries, conspiracy theories poisoned the political debate, and Turks -- convinced they were a country under siege -- repeated faithfully, "The Turk has no friend but the Turk." Erdogan, it seems, has taken his country from "zero problems" to international headaches as far as the eye can see.
Source: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articl...t_from_zero_problems_to_zero_friends?page=0,1
It's still zero problems with neighbors. We are still allied with Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Azeri and other people of the geography. It's governments without legitimacy who are killing their own people. When you're scolded by likes of Bashar Assad, Sisi of Mossad and Zionists, that can only mean one thing; You're on right path. If we only acted like blind and deaf to suffering of innocent, happiness would rule the world 