by Ghassan Kadi

The story of refugees flocking into Europe, and the avalanche of repercussions that followed, remains to be a conundrum that many involved individuals, including some seasoned analysts, are at pains to unravel.

Any denial that those refugees had brought with them very bad elements is a denial of a truth that is so loud and clear. And when some highly competent authors wrote about this and were attacked and called Fascists and racists, those who made those accusations must be living in a dungeon that lives by rules that do not exist anywhere on this planet. Not that I wish any harm to anyone, but I would just wonder what would those critics do or say if it was their own sisters, girlfriends, daughters and mothers getting ganged raped in the streets!

Many theories have been put forward to explain what is really happening in Europe, but with all due respect to many authors whom I greatly respect and admire, I find that none of those theories add up in a manner that is convincing and complete.

Apart from politics and political analysis, the influx of refugees was either a natural consequence of many wars and economic difficulties that have adversely affected millions of people, or it was something that has been orchestrated by an invisible plotter.

The former possibility seems remote because even though the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya have indeed disadvantaged millions of people, one would expect a steady trickle of refugees, not a sudden human tsunami.

This points towards the direction of having an invisible hand behind this, but whose hand is it?

Unless theories that attempt to explain what is happening are able to connect the dots in a manner that explains what made all of those refugees move in such huge numbers all at the same time, who is the plotter behind this, and what benefits the plotter gets out of it, then that theory is incomplete and therefore inaccurate. This of course excludes that other possibility and that is case of a plot-gone-wrong. Of course such a possibility cannot be zeroed out, but once again we are back to square one; who was the original plotter and how did his plot fail?

Many are quick to accuse the USA and the CIA for anything that goes wrong at any time and everywhere. I am the last person to defend “The Empire”, but we should not be blinded to facts and rationality. I can see how the USA can benefit from partially destabilizing Europe in order to keep it under the American yoke of submission especially in regard to the anti-Russian stand. But I cannot see how the USA can benefit from the influx of thousands, and possibly tens of thousands, of Jihadists infiltrating into Europe and threatening its peace and wellbeing! Any such accusations are totally absurd and do not make any sense at all.

Then there are those accusing Merkel, and she is not a saint to be defended either. However, for Merkel to welcome in migrants knowing that Jihadists were hiding within them is not something that anyone would expect a German leader to do no matter how corrupt or stupid he/she is. With all of her downfalls, Angela Merkel would not deliberately welcome in Jihadists. Let us be rational.

Other theories have accused George Soros, Nuland, NATO, and even the EU itself. But in all of those instances, the pieces of the puzzle do not fit in a manner that shows a clear beneficiary in all of this. So is this a plot that has gone wrong? Perhaps not, or at least not yet.

Thus far, the only beneficiaries out of this whole kerfuffle are the European ultra-right wing parties, and we haven’t seen anything yet. European elections in the next few years will clearly see a huge surge in their support, and this will only be a normal reaction to the trauma that Europe is now suffering from and the fear and xenophobia it is creating. That said, we cannot in our wildest of imagination think that it was the far right in Europe that has plotted, orchestrated and executed this whole ordeal.

This really leaves us with Turkey, or should we say Erdogan.

Perhaps we will never know what is really happening in Europe, but an analysis of all of the events surely and clearly points at one and only one potential plotter and beneficiary, and this is none other than Erdogan.

To understand this, we must rewind the clock here and go back to the early days of the Ottoman Empire.

After the Ottomans established their rule in Asia Minor (Anatolia), their next step was to control the Bosphorus and to put a foot on European soil. This eventuated in 1453 with the fall of Constantinople (renamed Istanbul). This was followed by the capture of the Balkans and most of Eastern Europe. The Ottomans wanted to avenge Europe for the Crusader era in a big sweeping manner and move into Europe and declare the whole of Europe an Ottoman territory.

On the Southern front, it was rather easy for the Ottomans to move to conquer Syria and Mesopotamia. The Arab/Muslim World was at the beginning of its nadir that it hasn’t yet pulled out of, and the ill-organized Levantine troops could not face the well-organized Ottoman invaders and the battle of Marj Dabek in 1516 was decisively won by the invading Turks. Soon after, the Ottomans took control of Mecca, the trophy of all Muslim conquerors, given that whoever is in control of Mecca becomes inadvertently in control of Islam and Muslims.

Not too many years later, in 1529 to be exact, the Ottomans made their first attempt to capture Vienna. The second attempt was made in 1683, and both attempts failed. Land topography was paramount those days when troops were powered by horses and mules, and the location of Vienna would have created a passage for Ottoman troops to easily move into the rest of Western Europe, but this was not to happen.

Back to the present.

What many observers fail to see and remember is that Erdogan is both an Islamist and a nationalist, but first and foremost an Islamist. That said, Islamism and Nationalism in Turkey take a peculiar twist; they come hand-in-gloves. To Turkish Islamists, the Ottoman Empire provided the perfect model; a vast Muslim empire headed by Turkey.

Ideally for them, this empire should be restored and expanded as much as possible breaking old barriers that the Ottoman predecessors were unable to surpass.

The pain of the humiliating defeat virtually at the gates of Vienna in 1683 is still alive in the hearts and minds of Islamist-Nationalist-Turkish zealots, and no one embodies those passions more than his “eminence” himself; President Erdogan.

So leaving Syria behind for a moment, Erdogan feels he has a score to settle with the Christian infidel Europe.

Plan A for Erdogan was to keep the refugees in Turkey, dislocate Syrian Kurds from northern Syria, and then relocate the refugees in the newly-created Kurd-free buffer zone and thereby separating the rest of Syrian and Iraqi Kurds from Turkish Kurds and putting an end to their hopes of forming a state that can eventually encroach into Turkish territory.

His plot was refused by Turkey’s best allies; the USA, NATO and the EU. This left a very bad taste in Erdogan’s mouth, and with the EU having the soft underbelly in this triangle of allies that stabbed Erdogan in the back, it was revenge time for Erdogan; and the best revenge he could think of was to send those hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees into Europe. After all, they became useless for him in light of the latest developments and especially after the Russian intervention.

In the EU itself, left-wingers and humanitarians, well-meaning as they may be, often live in total darkness of all sorts of wheeling and dealing that go on around them. They stood up and coerced their governments to welcome in refugees, and Erdogan knew they would, and he banked on this too.

On the other hand, Merkel might have been tempted by the idea of bringing in a massive cheap labour force that is badly needed for German manufacturing industries, and feeling supported by the calls of the home-grown humanitarians, she considered that a mandate strong enough to enable her to take daring steps.

If there was a plot-gone-wrong, it was that of Merkel and the EU in general. Their plot however was restricted to killing two birds with one stone; bringing in cheap labour, all the while cloaking themselves with the guise of caring for refugees. The EU plot could not have been to inundate Europe with Jihadi terrorists and rapists.

Only Syria and Russia understand Erdogan’s mind and what agendas he is hiding, and this is why they know where to hit him where it hurts the most, and right now, Syrian troops, supported by Russian air power, are moving on the ground and approaching Turkish borders in both of the Lattakia and Aleppo provinces.

The West on the other hand is, generally speaking, often short-sighted and even stupid. What adds to the short-sightedness and stupidity of its politicians is that section of humanitarians who are noisy and who do not know the difference between a true refugee in need and a rascals taking advantage of their lofty principles.

Thus far, it is all plot-gone-wrong for Erdogan in Syria, but his contingency plan B in Europe, if there is one indeed, is going pretty well. However, there is a big twist here. In the case of the “War On Syria” there were thousands of Syrians and their friends who knew exactly what the enemies of Syria were up to. They took upon themselves to stand up to tell the rest of the world the true untold story of Syria. Europeans and their supporters on the other hand seem to be none-the-wiser and totally unaware of the new Turkish plot. They have no idea at all that the Sultan is revamping old Islamist-Nationalist Turkish dreams. This spells grave danger.

It is possible that EU leaders are waking up, but we cannot be sure. The bribe funds given to Erdogan on the surface seem to have no justification at all. If anything, they look like rewarding bad behavior, but it is possible that those payments are made for Erdogan to stop further human flow , because he is the one in control of who leaves for Europe, when and how many.

Erdogan would not care if those Islamists flocking into Europe are pro-Saudi Wahhabists or whether they are under his control or not. As a matter of fact, he seems to have learnt from the mistake of Bandar Bin Sultan who was delusional enough to think that he could control what became ISIS. Erdogan simply wants to flood Europe with Muslims, radical Sunni Muslims of any persuasion.

I stand to be corrected, but I cannot see any other explanation of the truth of the sudden rush of Muslim refugees into Europe, who would or could plot such a rush, and who would benefit from it other than Erdogan.

To be fair to Erdogan, his dreams are not any better or worse than the dreams of an American hegemony, or any other national, racial, religious, sectarian empire-building dreams. It’s the sad story of human greed that can be blind and boundless. One would wonder if humanity would ever learn.