BY HASAN BULENT KAHRAMAN
SABAH- Since Barack Obama was elected US president, I have predicted many times that his administration would usher in a very different era. New developments confirm this. Now we see the Obama era. Obama made it clear that he would promote very different paths in international politics. When the US coughs, the rest of the world catches pneumonia. So US domestic policy is also important. The US is also the only superpower.
As this new era and Obama's policies follow a long period of pressure, exclusion and denial, and Obama himself and his family come from a down-to-earth place in US society, this era will clearly be based on more understanding, tolerance and consensus. That's why many people ask how Turkey has suddenly gained so much importance. Turkey is almost an instrument of the policy that Obama wants to follow with the regional role that it plays, the areas that it controls and it can control, its cultural climate, and its ability to act as a bridge among cultures. Even today, the US can't take needed steps of mutual cooperation, a relationship based on dialogue and interaction. The wounds of the Bush era haven't healed yet, and Obama hasn't proven himself or created sufficient confidence yet. But Turkey is here in a position that the US wants and is striving for.
Some people might find this overblown, but it has a positive spin. Turkey is the US' right-hand man in this new era. How will this position be used, utilized and operated? In one direction: in its relations with the Islamic world, which the US has destroyed unfairly, unnecessarily and excessively in recent years. This relationship is neither simple nor isolated. On the contrary, it is very complicated, but also real. The Eastern-Western rapprochement that Obama stresses in his speeches, his statements about new relationships to be established with Islam with the same emphasis, and the fact that he included Turkey on his first foreign tour are reasons for this.
Yet there's a great 'but' at this point, so Obama's speech to Parliament should be evaluated very carefully. He mentioned Ataturk specifically in this speech as the founder of the modern state. This might not mean anything on its own and could be considered mere diplomatic posturing. But actually it was more, because he continued by saying that the US is a majority-Christian society with people from other faiths as well and that they consider themselves not a Christian nation, but a democratic one. He went further, saying that the US and Turkey can create a model for the world.
This speech was anything but accidental, and we can only conclude that the Obama era will be certainly oppose radical Islam, and won't use the concept of moderate Islam, but will try to integrate secularism into Islam. That's why Turkey is very important. So there are two conclusions. First, the US is going back to a place it strayed from. Secondly, if the US is thinking a lot about Turkey, it's doing so because it primarily thinks a lot about itself.