There are a variety of rumours. One of them has it that Hillary Clinton, in her autobiography “Hard Choices”, has admitted that ISIL was actually created by the US administration itself. In fact, just as there exists no autobiography in a real sense (loads of politicians who think they are on the way up - like Sarıgül did recently here - get a group of professional writers to write so-called “autobiographies”), there is no striking revelation. What Clinton expressed was the view (commonly enough expressed in the USA) that, because they did not arm the “moderate opposition” in Syria, they failed to stem the rise of “radicals” like ISIL. Whether this view is correct is another matter. However, this view is clearly far removed from being a “confession” that ISIL was set up by the USA. Even if we did not know what she had written in the book, we would still have been able to “decipher” (to use a term loved by conspiracy theorists) the rumour’s inconsistency by applying “simple logic”. Can it reasonably be expected that the first step of a politician who is preparing to contest the coming presidential election would be to “reveal” in her “autobiography” that she has commissioned that she is also part of ISIL? Is such a thing possible? Can Clinton court the votes of the US electorate after penning these words? Certainly, lack of consistency has never been a hindrance to the spreading of a conspiracy theory. For instance, this scenario has become so popular in Lebanon that the US Beirut Embassy had to issue a denial in the matter.
Another rumour has it that Edward Snowden, who is accused of revealing secret National Security Agency documents to the public, said in an interview that the USA and Israel had set up ISIL, or even that the organisation’s leader Baghdadi, who of late has been styling himself “Caliph”, had been trained by MOSSAD. It is unknown where the said interview was given, where it was published and whether Snowden indeed uttered these words. Although the rumour is of Iranian origin, even the editor of the Kayhan newspaper close to the Iranian government, Hossein Shariatmadari, has stated that this report is “odd”. In spite of this uncertainty, the Snowden-ISIL scenario has taken hold and has become a “fact” to which frequent reference is made.
As we have said, there are a variety of rumours. This is not the interesting thing, for sure. ISIL’s astonishing military successes scored in Syria and especially Iraq and the organisation’s vile acts have caught everybody off guard to the extent that the spreading of self-propagating theories which purport to explain everything at a single stroke makes perfect sense. What does not make sense is for (blatant) conspiracy theories of this kind to find such ready acceptance even on the left. In an environment in which our intellectual life has become paralysed through a whole host of conspiracy theories emanating from the various charlatans surrounding Erdoğan, it will be a grave error for the left for whatever purpose to join this bandwagon, because what conspiracy theories have in common is that, on the one hand, they explain complex social processes with simple formulae, and, on the other, stress how helpless and weak ordinary people are in the face of the projects of the secret forces that control the world. Essentially, even if conspiracy theories appear to be “opposition”, most of the time they depoliticise the masses by propagating hopelessness and political apathy.
Let us return to ISIL. The various rumours and conspiracy theories about the rise of this murderous organisation serve either to downplay the danger or, conversely, exaggerate it. To reduce ISIL to a foreign policy manoeuvre by the USA or Israel (or the Saudi monarchy or Turkey) leads to the illusion that the danger can be easily be dispelled with a counter-manoeuvre (US air strikes?). Or, the danger may be deemed to be the product of such a massive conspiracy whose secret can never be fathomed that fighting it becomes a task beyond the capability of us mere mortals.
The fact is that ISIL (or IS) is a real danger in our midst. The proclamation of the Caliphate has even made IS into a new centre of attraction for the global jihad movement. The consequences of being neighbours of the “Caliphate” will be very serious for all of us. If the AKP government is not hell bent on changing Turkey’s place in the international system, it will whether it likes it or not have to oppose ISIL in some way. If the “Caliphate” acquires permanence, then the “apostate” Republic of Turkey will certainly become a target. Then, the murky relations established by the Republic of Turkey with ISIL so as to block the Kurds’ way into Rojava will undoubtedly have a “boomerang effect” like that with the Pakistan-Taliban. Then, information that there are hundreds of militants originating from Turkey in ISIL’s ranks points to the potential for the organisation to spread into Turkish society and, if nothing else, to secure the active engagement of certain elements.
The picture is not at all pretty. We may have to be “neighbours” with ISIL for a long time. If this relationship of “neighbourhood” continues, we may end up longing for the days when we spoke of ISIL solely as being a “foreign affairs” matter. ISIL has far more real and enduring roots than any intrigue or conspirative manoeuvre. Failure to inquire as to the material-social base of ISIL’s sudden and astonishing development, i.e. putting our heads in the sand and imagining that we can rid ourselves of this matter with a few political curses, is nothing but an exercise in self-deception. As we have said, the picture is not at all pretty. We must have the courage to look straight at that picture.
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