Lebanon Target of Ottomanist Ambitions of Turkey

Since the August 4 explosion at the Beirut harbor, aid flights are arriving from around the world — from Egypt, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia and 30 other countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron was the first head of state to arrive, walking the streets of the city surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd. The scene apparently frustrated President Erdogan, who that day sent his undersecretary, Fuat Oktay, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavusoglu, who vowed to rebuild the port and issue citizenship to anyone who has claims to Turkish or Turkoman ancestry.

All the aid flowing in is not without strings attached, particularly for parties which pledge to participate in the post-explosion reconstruction projects, estimated to hit the $100-billion mark.

The Saudis, who had withdrawn their financial support for Lebanon after a fallout with former Lebanese Premier Saad Hariri, have joined the recovery effort in a grand way, to counter Turkey’s ascent in Lebanon.

The Turkish government’s religious arm, the Diyanet, has distributed cash in envelopes among the Sunni community. As we can see, the parties have been trying to exploit the misery of the Lebanese people.

Turkey has also resorted to all-too-familiar methods to gain influence, ones that it first used in Iraq and to better effect in Syria. It is arming its murderers and mercenaries who have wreaked havoc on Syria and today in Libya. Turkey has built a solid political base in the northern Lebanese cities of Tripoli and Akkar.

Recent photos show that Turkey’s “charitable” hand has been creeping further down all the way to Junieh, where Turkish barges have docked to help with the neglected electricity sector. Junieh is mostly Christian, located just north of Antelias, where the Armenian Catholicosate is located. Somehow, that help involves the dissemination of weapons.

The news broadcast by Al Arabiya English reveals a familiar pattern of Turkish behavior.

“We are pretty worried about what’s going on. The Turks are sending an incredible amount of weapons to the north,” a Lebanese army intelligence sources is quoted in the report, following a surveillance operation.

This is exactly how Turkey started the war in Syria, by infiltrating that country through its mercenaries and supplying them with weapons. That was a blatant foreign aggression, which the Western media, in collusion with Turkey, branded a “civil war.”

It looks like a similar scenario is being drawn up in Lebanon. It does not take too much to ignite a civil war in Lebanon. This has been done time and again, in 1958 and later in the 1970s; the latter lasted for 15 years, to be concluded by the Taif Agreements in 1989 in Saudi Arabia. Any faction in or out of Lebanon can explode a bomb at a church or mosque through its intelligence services and blame the opposite community. Next thing you know, everyone is at each other’s throats. The army, in its turn, will split along religious lines and then you have a perfect storm on your hands.

A commentary in the Jerusalem Post this week states: “A man who inherited a promising economy that was built with American and European support is now leading a country to the brink of bankruptcy. In his quest to revive the ‘Ottoman Legacy,’ he has brought blood and destruction not only to his own people but also on hundreds of innocent civilians throughout the Arab world. Erdogan, the leader who promised to promote democratic reforms in his country, turned his back on Turkey’s democratic institutions and placed them under the tight grip of organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The pursuit of that Ottoman legacy has threatened Armenia and Armenians on all fronts; yesterday, in neighboring Karabakh and today in Lebanon.

Arab public opinion believes that Erdogan’s drive is to extend his rule’s influence over Lebanon and beyond. But in the meantime, the Armenians community will sustain the collateral damage.

During the war in Syria, Erdogan’s target was Bashar Assad’s regime, but his proxy mercenaries took special pains to bomb the Armenian neighborhoods in Aleppo and completely destroy Der Zor and the Armenian town of Kessab.

Since Erdogan is in pursuit of the Ottoman dream, he must also have in mind the goals of the Ottoman rulers. For example, when US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire Henry Morgenthau asked Talaat Pasha why innocent Armenian children were also being massacred, his cynical answer was, “Because they may grow up and seek the revenge of their fathers.”

That message continues to ring in his mind as the Sévres Syndrome. Any Armenian who in his description is “the sword’s remnant,” will remind him of the revenge which Talaat had feared.

In Lebanon, Erdogan is betting on two political scenarios.

If Lebanon survives this crisis and continues to be ruled by the coalition of 18 confessional groups, he can seek power-sharing through his Ottomanist surrogates.

If Lebanon plunges into a civil war and eventually is partitioned, which some of the neighbors are pondering, he has mercenaries ready in the north to implement his plans.

During the last Lebanese Civil war, Armenians had the wisdom to stay away from the warring factions and adhere to a policy of “positive neutrality.” This time around, they have no alternative other than to continue that policy.