How WikiLeaks Influence the Middle East

The Middle East has its own logic: people there believe that the US is all-powerful, and when it chooses to, enforces order as it sees fit. To them, whatever the US does, it does deliberately and calculatedly. By this logic, the release of the WikiLeaks classified documents was intentional: most Middle Easterners would have great difficulty believing otherwise.

Among many foreign leaders mentioned in these documents is Turkish Prime Minister Prime Minister Erdoğan. Before the leaks, Erdoğan seemed to be able to get away with doing everything he could to undermine Israel and the United States both in the Middle East and throughout the world.

From a Turkish point of point of view, there are two explanations for America's apparent acquiesce: Either America displayed weakness by letting Erdogan get away with this, or it intentionally let him do this because it fit into some American plan, which, as the Turks say, was developed "behind the curtain," with a hidden American hand intentionally directing this policy.

But from this perspective, all that changed when the US government "intentionally" released classified documents regarding Erdoğan, his government, and Iran. Among the leaked documents is one in which the US Embassy writes about rumors that Erdoğan has multiple Swiss bank accounts in which he has more the $1 billion. As the Turks see it, Erdoğan must have been stunned by this revelation. Many believe that the US released this document in order to embarrass and humiliate him.

America had shown its power. Erdoğan therefore had no choice other than it submit to its dictates. How best to do that? A large number of Middle Easterners believe the Jews run America and the world. By this logic, now that America has thrown down the gauntlet, the best way for Erdoğan to redeem himself is to find a way to ingratiate hmself to the Americans and Israelis. This, accordingly, would help him come down off of a branch onto which he dangerously had stepped.

The opportunity presented itself very quickly. When Israel proved unable to handle the huge fire that was blazing in its Carmel Mountains, Erdoğan jumped at the opportunity to send two Turkish planes to help the Israelis put out the fire. This humanitarian gesture would surely signal to the Americans and world Jewry that he was not as bad as they thought he was. This gesture, they reasoned, would help Erdoğan back into the good graces of the Americans and the Jews, who together, "behind the curtain," run the world.

Moreover, given past history, it is very likely that Erdoğan and his cohorts also have a lurking fear that America and the Jews might have other tricks up their sleeves, and most certainly fear this Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu handled this situation adeptly: by personally calling Erdoğan and thanking him for sending the planes, he got credit for decency in the eyes of the world, and the Turkish nation in particular. Netanyahu also personally went and shook the hands of the Turkish pilots who came to Israel's rescue. Pictures of the Israeli Prime Minister were printed in newspapers and shown on Turkish television stations throughout Turkey. These pictures and the personal call to their Prime Minister touch deep cords in Turkey: showing warmth, hospitality, and gratitude are major characteristics in Turkish society. Netanyahu's actions demonstrated to the Turks that he is an extremely decent man, not the "killer" that Erdoğan and his colleagues have claimed the past few years.

Where does this leads us? Since the WikiLeaks and the fire in northern Israel, there has been a flurry of diplomatic activity behind the scenes between the Israelis and the Turks – seeking ways to patch up their differences. We should consequently not be surprised if Turkish-Israeli relations markedly improve in the coming months. By "intentionally" leaking documents about Erdoğan and those around him, the US has, from a Middle Eastern point of view, warned him that he had better find a way to step in line; that if he does not, the other shoe might drop.

Another unintended consequence of the Wikileaks could easily be an improvement of US-Turkish relations. As an incentive from the American side, this might be the reason, many Turks believe, that the Americans also leaked a document according to which Armenia was facilitating weapons transfers to Iran, which used these weapons to kill American soldiers in Iraq.

This logic, to people who have worked and lived in the Middle East, makes perfect sense.

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Bahareh Hedayat is a human rights activist who has spent over six years in an Iranian prison for "insulting" Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and for "actions against national security, propagation of falsehoods, mutiny and illegal congregation." Hedayat is the longest serving female prisoner of conscience in Iran.

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