Its hegemony in the region having suffered as a result, first, of its political defeats in Afghanistan and Iraq, and then of the Arab revolutions, the USA is now trying to use the widespread anger against the Islamic State to regain the initiative through the ‘core coalition’ it created at the NATO summit.
Once again, the excuse is the same: to fight against “Islamic terror”.
Turkey participated in the meeting of the coalition in Saudi Arabia, but did not sign the final resolution which says "the Islamic State is going to be destroyed everywhere in the world."
After visiting Turkey and holding talks with President Erdoğan, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister, John Kerry declared, "Turkey and the US will continue to fight together against all the terrorist organisations in the region, just as we have done in the past". The Pentagon announced that they had seen signs that Turkey would contribute to any joint military operation in the area.
The history of violence in the Middle East is directly related to interventions by Western imperialism.
The USA’s closest allies in the region are Israel, which has just murdered more than 2000 Palestinians; Saudi Arabia, which supports reactionary movements throughout the region; and Egypt, where General Sisi’s military junta has murdered thousands.
Iraq is a country which the USA has repeatedly embroiled in war, turned into a bloodbath, and broken up by promoting sectarianism.
The USA supported the dictator Saddam Husseyn in the eight-year-long Gulf War in the 1980s. Then an international coalition led by the USA attacked Iraq. An embargo was imposed on the country through the 1990s. Iraq was bombed again as the 2000s approached. Finally, the country was occupied in 2003. Millions of Iraqis lost their lives in all these wars.
Now, US fighter planes have bombed Iraq more than 150 times in the past month. It is claimed that a planned military intervention would destroy the Islamic State and bring Iraqis freedom, just like all the previous interventions.
The Islamic State emerged in a period when the Arab revolutions retreated, the movement in Syria appeared bogged down, the peaceful wave of protests in Iraq was violently put down, and a military coup pushed the revolution in Egypt back.
The conditions for the emergence of this sectarian organisation which has killed countless people were created by the wars various imperialist powers of the West and the East fought and ignited, and by the regimes supported by these powers.
The Islamic State can only be stopped by the struggle of the people of the Middle East to overturn this general picture.
Those who caused the Islamic State to come into existence cannot stop it.
NATO, the perpetrator of wars and occupations across the world, has a dark and bloody history. It is a war machine. Any military intervention led by NATO can bring nothing but death to the people of Iraq.
We call upon everyone who wishes to show solidarity with the people of the Middle East and wants to see peace, freedom and equality in the region to fight against any intervention by this imperialist coalition.
We in Turkey built a massive anti-war movement in 2003 and stopped Turkish participation in the attack on Iraq.
We can beat the warmongers again.
The AKP government must refuse to make Turkey part of this war coalition. Turkey must immediately come out of NATO.
No to NATO’s bombs!
The USA out of Iraq!
