Duran Kalkan, member of the KCK Executive Council, analyzed the current changes in the balance of power in the Middle East as a result of a process that has been going on for 35 years.

Kalkan wrote about the different interests of the hegemonic powers in the Third World War and what this means for the struggle for freedom of the peoples.

Here is the first part of Kalkan's in-depth analysis:

While the enemy’s total fascist, genocidal attacks continue, so does our struggle for freedom with full intensity on all fronts. We, as a freedom movement and the people, are resisting this total fascist, genocidal war. The resistance and struggle for freedom are deepening and spreading.

Rêber Apo [Leader Abdullah Öcalan] likens the period we are in to the last period of the First World War. While some compare it to the beginning of the war and try to understand it that way, Rêber Apo evaluates it the other way round. He compares it more to the end of the world war in 1918. This is an essential assessment that enables us to better understand the state of war in the current period. It helps to understand the general situation created by the Third World War that has started since the Gulf crisis in the Middle East. It is a war that has been going on for thirty-five years now, and through this analysis, it shows how extensive and violent this war has become here in the region, especially since the AKP-MHP attacks that entered a new phase on July 24, 2015. There may be a massive change.

It is necessary to understand and evaluate the recent developments comprehensively. After the First World War, when capitalism gained a global hegemonic structure, the nation-state structure was implemented in the Middle East. They brought this about by dismantling the Ottoman Empire. At that time, it was the nation-state structures that were in the interest of the capitalist modernity system, and at the center of this was the opening of the Europe-India trade route. The road project was planned as the Berlin-Baghdad-Basra Railway. When the German-Ottoman alliance was formed at the end of the negotiations over it, the Ottoman administration of Abdulhamid II gave the trade route to Germany. Britain, on the other hand, in agreement with France and Russia, seized Ottoman territories starting from Africa and the Gulf and declared war on the Ottomans, thus frustrating the road project. If this road project had not been blocked at that time, Germany would have taken over the trade up to the Gulf. Thus, Germany would have become influential in the India-Asia trade. However, India was a colony of Britain. The capture of India and Asia’s resources by Europe was the main issue of the struggle, and this struggle is still going on today.

Current developments have made the process understandable. It has revealed the kind of change that was initiated with the Gulf crisis and the war in the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union. And what kind of ‘New World Order’ the US put on the agenda after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We defined this war as the conflict between the supranational monopoly capitalist system and the nation-state status quo. Nation-state status quo and the rigidity of borders weakened the movement of capital and thus reduced exploitation. The nation-state system created by capitalist modernity in the First World War was now inimical to the increased exploitation of globalizing monopoly capital. The Third World War began as an attack by global monopoly capital to change it. It aimed to shatter the status quo of nation-states created in the Middle East and to rebuild the India-Europe energy and trade route. On this basis, there has been a war for already thirty-five years since 1990.

In the Gulf War, the US deployed 150,000 troops to the Middle East, centered in Saudi Arabia. It aimed to control the Gulf all the way to Israel. On the one hand, it was attacking the nation-state status quo in the form of Saddam Hussein’s regime from the very center, and on the other hand, it was putting the Gulf under military control. Thus making the Gulf open for new energy routes. Saddam Hussein was surrounded in Baghdad in 1991, and later on, in 2003, Baghdad was occupied, and Saddam Hussein was eliminated.

After the 2001 Twin Tower attacks, the US military invasion of first Afghanistan and then Iraq developed, capturing Kabul and then Baghdad. In fact, Saddam Hussein’s regime could have collapsed already in 1991, but it did not do so until 2003. This also needs to be assessed correctly. This was due to the fact that the US sovereignty was still weak. In other words, the US still did not have enough influence in the Middle East to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime. It was afraid that if it did so, other powers would take advantage of the vacuum and make progress. There was Iran in the east and the PKK in the north. Both forces could have become much more effective in Iraq if Saddam Hussein’s regime had fallen in Baghdad at that time, because the US was weak and the US-based forces were still absent in Iraq.

The United States fought the Gulf War with the alliances it had forged in the world and in the Middle East, and it also relied on the military and technical power it brought to Saudi Arabia. In a period of twelve years, it waited to develop its own influence, to prevent its opponents from taking advantage of the vacuum that would be created in the event of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, and developed its influence in the Arab sphere against Iran. At the same time, it also developed the international conspiracy against the PKK.

What it feared most in the event of the fall of Baghdad was that the PKK would become an effective force in Iraq. This is certain. The Kurdish question, or the struggle over Kurdistan, has such a connection with the Third World War. The Kurdish question was created as a consequence during and after the First World War.

The Third World War is a direct continuation of this war, intertwined with the Kurdish question and the freedom movement that developed in Kurdistan. This is a situation that needs to be understood correctly. In fact, as soon as the US overthrew Saddam Hussein’s regime, the basic decision of the administration they formed in Southern Kurdistan and the so-called ‘Operation Hammer Force’ that formed it was that the PKK would not enter southern Kurdistan. And so with the international conspiracy of October 9, 1998, they directly attacked Rêber Apo.

Until 2010, the US waged a war of influence mainly around the Gulf. It invaded Iraq, and on the other side established relations with Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Afterwards, the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ marked an important point. The main aspects of the Arab Spring were the struggle of societies against nationalist dictatorships. Because there was a fierce contradiction and conflict. The global capital system wanted to take advantage of this for its own interests, and Turkey was directly involved in this process. As the US developed its attacks in the Middle East, it gradually turned towards defining the ‘New World Order’ strategy. With the so-called ‘Greater Middle East Project,’ they actually gave Turkey a very big and crucial role. Back then, Tayyip Erdogan even said that he was the co-chair of the ‘Greater Middle East Project.’ He wanted to benefit the most from the process of mobilization of the masses in the Arab Spring. The way was paved for the forces organized in Egypt and Syria, and they quickly mobilized. With the pioneering and support of the US, they formed parties in many areas and came to power. They won the elections in Egypt and organized as the FSA against the regime in Syria. Until 2015, the US and Turkey had such an alliance.

But then, the alliance was broken, particularly because of the situation in Egypt. Taking advantage of the situation, Tayyip Erdogan wanted to turn the ‘Greater Middle East Project’ into the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, spread it everywhere and take power everywhere. The US was alarmed by this, since it was the US that had created the Muslim Brotherhood. Back then, they had created it in Egypt to fight against the influence of the Soviet Union. With the same aim, they had organized Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The struggle of the US-led system against the Soviet Union was at the basis of these organizations. The ‘Green Belt Project’ was a big strategy to prevent the Soviet Union from reaching the seas. Thus, organizations were established in all shapes and forms in many countries to serve this purpose. And Turkey was included in NATO for this purpose. As the southeasternmost tip of NATO, the Turkish Republic played an active role in organizing and executing the ‘Green Belt Project’.

The system of capitalist modernity was frightened that the Muslim Brotherhood would take advantage of the opportunities and become influential throughout all of the Middle East. They wanted to benefit from the attacks of the global capital system, which also targeted the status quo. The system, together with the Turkish Republic, severed their work, although not completely.

And now, since October 7, they are concentrating on the Eastern Mediterranean. From 1990 to 2010, the attacks were concentrated on the Gulf and its surroundings, and after 2010, when Syria came to the agenda, it always approached the Eastern Mediterranean. Reaching as far as Lebanon and bordering Israel, Iran had created a ‘Shiite Crescent.’ That is why Qasem Soleimani was eliminated.

As a result, a new period was entered with the Gaza War on October 7th. It aims to make the Eastern Mediterranean suitable for the energy and trade route, to clear the way, to seize it, and to ensure Israel’s security. The US has brought its navy to the Eastern Mediterranean. Just as it brought 150,000 troops to Saudi Arabia by land after the invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, this time it brought its naval forces to the Eastern Mediterranean. It has become the strongest military force there and carried out direct military attacks through Israel. Hamas started this war, but Tayyip Erdogan’s guidance is certain. This is something we already pointed out at the beginning, and it was later confirmed by many circles, but Tayyip Erdogan and his cohorts in Turkey are still trying to cover it up. He is being used like an agent provocateur.

The US and Israel prepared for the attack on Gaza; they just needed a justification. This justification was Hamas’ attack on October 7th. The US attacks in the Middle East have always had similar justifications. For example, on August 2, Saddam invaded Kuwait, which led to the Gulf War. On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda hit the Twin Towers, which led to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It has always continued on such grounds. They provoked Putin again, which became the reason for the war in Ukraine. The Hamas attacks also created the grounds for Israel to attack Gaza. There are those who argue that Hamas was directed by Mossad – they also argue that Mossad founded Hamas in order to weaken the PLO, based on some information they supposedly received from the US. Rêber Apo also evaluates it in this way. Hamas was not an uncontrolled, completely anti-Israeli force, but they still made Tayyip Erdogan pull the rope. This became a justification, and they destroyed Gaza. The Gaza war is of great significance. Historically, Jerusalem and Gaza go parallel. Historically it is said: ‘The activity in Jerusalem passes through Gaza.’ Gradually, there is a project aiming at the complete elimination of society in Palestine. Now they allow them to remain as a community for a while, but later they may not allow them; they may gradually eliminate them. They are doing it step by step; they cannot do it all without a doubt.

After Gaza it was Lebanon’s turn. It was obvious that this was going to happen. Turkey provoked Iran and Hezbollah into war with Israel. Turkey’s calculation was that if Israel goes to war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran will also go to war directly, because they first spread the rumor that Hamas is an Iranian organization, and they wanted to get a result from there, but Iran did not claim Hamas. Because it is not like that; Hamas is an organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Iran is a Shiite organization. Yes, Iran may have supported other Islamic groups, but the AKP’s relationship with Hamas is much stronger than Iran’s. Their relationship is sectarian, that is, ideological.

Accordingly, they could not draw Iran into the conflict. At least not to the desired extent. Turkey was calculating that if Iran enters the war and resists a little, the two powers of Israel and Iran will balance each other; both would be dependent on Turkey. It planned to maintain relations with both sides, and in this way it wanted to ensure its own effectiveness in the Middle East based on this conflict. As it will be remembered, Turgut Ozal’s whole gimmick in Turkey was the Iran-Iraq war. Without the Iran-Iraq war, there would have been no Ozalism in Turkey. It is said that Ozal was a genius that developed the economy, but this is not the case. Turgut Ozel sold all the dregs of Turkey from the Iran-Iraq war to both Iraq and Iran, because neither of them could trade with anyone else. They couldn’t buy anything from anywhere else, and that reality enabled Turgut Ozal to stay in power for so long. Supposedly he brought economic prosperity to Turkey, but the true reason is as I have stated.

Now, Tayyip Erdogan hoped and calculated that the Iran-Israel war would lead to a similar situation, but this was not the case. Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah were not tactically and stylistically like the attack on Gaza. They hit their technical system and broke their communication. Already in advance it had gathered enough information through its network of agents within Hezbollah. It dealt a serious blow to Hezbollah in a very short time. It was not what Turkey expected. It was not a situation that weakened Israel and led to a prolonged Iran-Israel war. On the contrary, Hezbollah became very weak; thus, Iran’s arm was broken, and Israel gained the strongest possible position. As a result, instead of confrontation, Iran has turned towards reconciliation; it has no strength left for confrontation. This situation has created a panic in Turkey. One needs to be aware of this. The situation of the Hezbollah, both weakened Iran and seriously shook and frightened the AKP. It did not turn out as they had calculated. The AKP even had to fear that Iran would be neutralized and that Israel would be completely paved the way for in the region. Since October 1, Devlet Bahceli’s initiatives have all stemmed from this.

Fear and anxiety, and the impact of the blow Hezbollah suffered in Turkey, led to this search.