Three reasons why Turkey misunderstands ISIS
Turkey's creative conspiracy theorists cannot seem to grasp that ISIS is an extremist Islamist actor with genuinely held beliefs and self-defined goals.
When the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) captured Mosul on June 10, kidnapping more than 80 Turks, Turkey woke up. The militant jihadist group, which was hardly a matter of concern in the media before this incident, became a national preoccupation. Despite this focus, however, there exists an ideological blind spot that, I believe, should be addressed to develop a more factual understanding of the world, in Turkey as well as beyond.
The blind spot is simply this: Many Turkish opinion leaders, especially those in the pro-government media, cannot accept ISIS, or its ilk, as extremist Islamist actors with genuinely held beliefs and self-defined goals. Rather they take it for granted that these terror groups are merely the pawns of a great game designed by none other than the Western powers.
For example, Abdulkadir Selvi, a senior journalist who has been quite vocal in the press and on television generally espousing a pro-government stance, wrote a piece last week titled "Who is ISIS working for?" This was his answer: "Al-Qaeda was a useful instrument for the US. To put it in an analogy, ISIS was born from al-Qaeda's relationship with [the] CIA. The West gave its manners to al-Qaeda and now it designs our region through the hands of ISIS." In short, al-Qaeda and its offshoot ISIS are both creations of the US Central Intelligence Agency and serve American interests.
Writing in the same pro-government daily, Yeni Şafak, the prominent columnist Yusuf Kaplan took a similar position. His culprit, however, was not the United States, but the United Kingdom. He wrote, "There is no such thing as ISIS. There is rather a heinous power called England … al-Qaeda was an instrument of the Americans, whereas ISIS is an instrument of the English."
