IN THE AFTERMATH OF AN ELECTION

Cumhuriyet website
Nov 6 2008
Istanbul

The United States has elected Barack Obama as its next president.

We watched it live on television. When Obama rose to the podium to
thank the hundreds of thousands of people flooding the square in
Chicago, more whites applauded him than blacks.

The people of the United States are essentially celebrating their
deliverance from President Bush and the beginning of a hope-inspiring
"era of change."

The world is celebrating its deliverance from an incompetent president
who started wars out of religious obsessions and using lies (e.g. Iraq)
and who created an economic and financial crisis that has ruined the
American people and virtually all countries of the world over the
past four years.

Will the black leader who is looking through a window of hope realize
the hopes that are pinned on him?

Or will Obama follow the lead of virtually all other US presidents
and refuse to step out of the orbit defined by the deep state, which
upholds US national interests above all political ideologies?

All news and commentary broadcasts about Obama’s election on virtually
all [Turkish] television channels were marked by unbounded joy and
excitement.

Much praise was heaped on Obama, but there was not a single commentator
or news report that could fully answer the question of how the new
US president views Turkey.

Narratives that raise suspicions but also inspire hope
aâ~B¬Â¦. [Obama’s] unequivocal promise that he will recognize the
Armenian genocide casts a shadow on his view of Turkey [sentence
as received].

We are consoled, however, to hear that all presidential candidates
promise to recognize the genocide in their election campaigns in
order to win the support of Armenian voters.

It has been underscored that Obama would not risk losing Turkey given
that the Turkish economy is reportedly the sixth largest in Europe
and the 15th largest in the world and in view of its critical location
in the Middle East.

However, Obama may not behave like his predecessors. If he will not
risk losing Turkey, it will obviously not happen because of economics
or the importance he attaches to Turkey’s friendship. Unlike Bush,
he may pursue a policy that may favour Turkey in practice – if this
is what US interests require – but he might also recognize the alleged
genocide by arguing that this is a time of change.

We must not forget that Democrats perceive Turkey quite differently
from the Republicans.

Barack Obama finds that "restoring the strategic partnership with
Turkey is an important interest," as pointed out on his campaign
website.

However, will he choose to use his strategic partner to attain his
aims in the Middle East like Bush? Will he continue to see Turkey as
a weapon that can be used as part of the Greater Middle East Project?

Now let us turn to the question that stems from the real
problem. President Bush help to undermine the foundations of the
secular republic by citing the Turkish democracy as an exemplar to
Islamic countries using the paradigm of moderate Islam. He contributed
substantially to the RTE [Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan]
government to realize this goal.

The AKP [Justice and Development Party] has been able to survive
and remain in government mainly because of President Bush’s policies
favouring moderate Islam and the support he has provided to the AKP
along those lines.

To what extent will [Obama] respect the tradition of a secular
Turkey? In our opinion, this is the most sensitive aspect of the
policies Obama will pursue.

In view of these realities, we have to ask Obama questions that
are of paramount interest to Turkey: Will he retain the "moderate
Islam policy" current President Bush has applied to Turkey? Will he
continue offering US support to the RTE government, which has acted
out of religious instincts, which has paid lip service to secularism,
and which has used every opportunity to eradicate the basic conditions
of secularism?

As long as President Obama does not demonstrate that he is pursuing
a policy that can comfort Turkey on this basic concept, the "change"
he has promised will at least not apply to us.

–Boundary_(ID_4xjqIU0/FbUL5OtMlw7zZw)–