Turkey's Prime Minister has set himself up as the Supreme Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its leaders have gathered from all parts of the world to pledge allegiance to him during the congress of the Justice and Development Party (AKP – Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi), especially those of them brought to power by the Arab Spring, who have accepted for Ankara to become their role model economically and politically, as well as in terms of its Arab, international and regional relations, and who hold the ambition of following in its footsteps in all of those fields. Erdoğan said: “God willing, we will be one and together under different missions, titles" (other than the mission and title of Prime Minister). This clearly implies that he will be President of the Republic in the first direct elections by the people, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Leader and authority of reference, or their Vali (in the Ottoman rather than Iranian style). It was striking to see the “Supreme Leader" mixing his trans-national Islamic identity, in the confessional and political sense, taking as witness Ottoman history in the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus, with his nationalist Turkish identity, just as the Iranians mix their nationalism with their Islamic confessional identity. Both base themselves on their history of struggle in the Middle East and on their geostrategic position to spread religious “awakening". Both wrestle for influence over Arab countries, which have become devoid of their own vision, with disputes eating away at them and turning them into mere vassal Vilayets. Perhaps Chairman of the Hamas movement's Political Bureau Khaled Mashal was the one who best expressed his allegiance to the new “Supreme Leader" during the AKP congress. Mashal said: “Turkey has shown the bright face of Islam [and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is] not only a leader in Turkey now, [but] a leader in the Muslim world as well", adding that “the Turkish experience led by Erdoğan has provided a model of modern, centrist and moderate Islam, connected to its people, who are open to the world; the role it has played in Palestine, Somalia, Burma and Syria has been unforgettable". Despite such a display of allegiance, Erdoğan's circles and his party were not convinced by their “Arab Brethren". Indeed, they are in their view in need of developing their philosophy and political conduct – in other words, they are still backward in terms of the age of “Turkish Islam". Their evidence for this was that Morsi and Mashal began their speech with the Basmala (the Islamic phrase “In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful"), while the speech given by the “Supreme Leader" was truncated, like the famous speech by Ziyad Ibn Abih (Ziyad Ibn Abi Sufyan), i.e. devoid of Basmala. Making use of such absolute allegiance, of the fragmentation of the Arabs, of the siege on the Syrian regime and of efforts to topple it by force – after the destruction of the Syrian state and of its institutions at the hands of the Syrians themselves, loyalists and members of the opposition alike, and of their supporters from among those with experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia – and relying on his NATO allies, Erdoğan prepared to wage war on Syria, after obtaining the green light from Parliament, in order to discipline the Vali of Damascus and teach him a lesson, as his predecessors the Sultans used to do. He took an incident at the border, which is inflamed to begin with, as a pretext to increase his support for Syrian rebels, in hopes of achieving what he had called for since the first moments of the eruption of these blood-spattered events, i.e. splitting off part of the country and turning it into a launching pad for his campaign to discipline Damascus, and to appoint a different “Vali" from among those who have pledged their allegiance to him, so as to implement his Ottoman-NATO plan, become the policeman of the Middle East and turn Turkey into the West's stronger partner, instead of it remaining at the threshold of the European Union, which is refusing to grant it entrance through its pearly gates. From his virtual position of Sultan, Erdoğan set forth to respond to the Syrian shells that had landed in a Turkish village – shells that are not the first and will not be the last, and that are not as dangerous as they have been portrayed in the media. Indeed, the Turkish side of the border has turned into a training camp for Syrian rebels, and a rear base to supply them with weapons and fighters. Ankara has failed to turn this incident into a pretext for dragging NATO into waging war on Syria, and Erdoğan has nothing left to wager on but the battle of Aleppo in order to fulfill his dream of turning Syria into a Vilayet and a vassal of Istanbul.
