The elections in Greece-Turkey and the risk of war – Rep. Konstantakopoulos
We are, without a doubt, at the most dangerous point in Greek-Turkish relations, at least since the Imian crisis (1996).
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from kosmodromio.gr
The climate that now prevails between Greece and Turkey is suitable either for a military incident, which can however have major consequences like that of Imia (which led us to the Holbrooke agreement, Madrid, Ocalan and the Annan Plan), or for generalized destructive conflict.
It is convenient because if, even by mistake, an aircraft is shot down or a ship is sunk on one side or the other, the side that will be under enormous political pressure, especially in a pre-election period, should respond militarily and escalate. This risks putting the two sides on a self-sustaining conflict path, and we do not know where and if the escalation will stop, even to the extent that the US does not currently have the total control over Turkey that it had in the past, while the international instability as well as the liquidity in the relations between Washington and Ankara has reached unprecedented heights.
The weapons available to Greece and Turkey today have much more destructive power than in the past. The cost of a generalized conflict will be far greater than the potential ‘winner’s gain’. Note that Greece has only to lose from a conflict, unless one is foolish enough to believe that we will take Polis or Smyrna or break up Turkey. Fortunately, there are not so many murles today.
It would also be good for anyone who wants to analyze the situation in our region to also remember the tragic situation of Greece, as a society and a state. The only ones who don’t think are its political and editorial staff, middle-class or middle-class social status and psychology, who just seem to be literally in their own world. Even in their private discussions, the general state of the country is almost never discussed, only who will win the next election.
But regardless of this factor, a general war between Greece and Turkey today has no winner. It will only have losers.
War: Under what conditions and for what purpose?
It is necessary at this point to clarify our point of view on the war.
Of course, Greece must go to war and use all the means at its disposal, if Turkey attempts to seize Thrace, Chios, Kastellorizos or the freedom of Cyprus. Because, if he doesn’t do it, it will completely cease to exist as a state and the Greek people will experience the greatest tragedy of their recent history.
As he had to go to war in 1974 to save Cyprus. If she had already decided to do him, nothing would happen on the island.
Of course, this is one thing and another for Greece to attack first, either because it allegedly has “information” from alleged “allies” that it will attack Turkey, as almost happened in 2018 (see also here).
Those who extol (and there are unfortunately not a few, especially in defense circles) Israel’s performance in the “preventive war” in the past, inadvertently transfer to Greek-Turkish the models of completely different states in completely different situations. After all, Israel has not used this method in the last thirty years against the Arabs, and the one war it fought directly against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 it lost. He made the Americans fight the wars in the Middle East, and he has been fighting them, tooth and nail, for almost two decades to push against Iran. The plan for all these wars was worked out by the Neoconservatives, under the direction and funding of Benjamin Netanyahu (see the pivotal report A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Kingdom), who had the intelligence (and the ability) to keep his country completely out of both conflicts and responsibility for them. Well done, as the Americans say.
A historical reminder
Since it is very important to remember what happened to us, we think it is good to recall two things about how we came to occupy half of Cyprus in 1974, the deportation of the Greek population from the North of the island and what Wing Commander Kouris called a fifty-year “cold ». war” between Greece and Turkey. A war that contributed, due to the way it was conducted by Athens and the character of the Greek oligarchy, to the escalation of corruption and entanglement in the political system and to the economic collapse of our country.
It has this significance because it is the same deeper factors, especially foreign dependence, the infirmity of our state, and the weaknesses of our social formation as a whole, which operate in our historical background, but each time producing different results, according to changing conditions .
There were two conditions for the double crime (Hundist coup and Turkish landing) to be implemented in Cyprus.
The first was to have a military dictatorship in Greece and that is why the Papadopoulos dictatorship took place in 1967, which was prepared by the removal of the ousted prime minister Georgios Papandreou in 1965 and the Apostasy. One of the first actions of the Papadopoulos junta was the withdrawal of the Greek division from Cyprus.
It should be noted that an Israeli official who visited Greece in 1955 to discuss the Cyprus issue with Greek politicians had the prophetic ability to predict since then, in the report he submitted to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that this issue can only be resolved when Greece is ruled by a government that will not give an account to the people.
The second condition was the suffocating control of the Greek army, from the rank of captain and above, by the Americans. A control that was proved to be true when Ioannidis realized that he was being laughed at and wanted to attack Turkey, only to find that no one obeyed him anymore. The dictator, brought up in the school of civil and post-civil Greece-protectorate, that is, in the school of KYP, CIA, Gladio and IDEA and unable to bear to renounce his teachers, those to whom he dedicated his whole life and whom he served faithfully, thinking he was thus serving Greece, he died without speaking of what happened. Because, as he said, “if I speak, all Greeks will become communists.”
From Cyprus to Exxon
We’ll say it again: We will certainly have to go to war to defend Greek territory and free Cyprus (which, criminally, the government did not include in the Greek-French defense agreement). Because we Greeks already have our backs against the wall, not only in Greek-Turkish, but in all “fronts”, the economy, society, ethics and culture, demography. We can’t stand another big defeat, we will disband. Nor can there be Greece without the Aegean or Cyprus.
But if we didn’t go to war to save the Greek Cypriots in 1974, it would surely be ridiculous, adventurous and suicidal to go to war now (as we almost did in 2020) over the Israeli “ghost pipeline” EastMed , which was never going to happen or claiming an EEZ up to the planet Mars, which no International Court would ever give us (and which we ourselves, in a peak of incoherence, indirectly granted to Turkey through the Dendia agreement with Egypt, which recognized only 70% influence in Crete). Or go to war to protect Exxon’s drilling or because some people want to mess with the Erdogan regime (mind you, not Turkey itself) by proxy.
And because a lot is being said about Exxon lately, this company has as much power as several states combined, but also a decisive influence on US politics. If we want to grant our deposits to this company, it is understood that the least one should ask is to take care of the defense of these holdings. Don’t worry the decision-makers, she has her way.