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" "Get ready for Russia to cast itself as the protector, not only of the Alawites but also of other minorities such as Turcoman, Armenians and, more interestingly for Moscow, Orthodox Christians who have fled Islamist terror groups such as ISIS. Russia has always seen itself as the “Third Rome” and the last standard-bearer of Christianity against both Catholic “deviation” and Islamist menace. By controlling a new mini-state, as a “safe haven for minorities,” Russia could insist that if Syria returns to some normality it be reconstituted as a highly decentralized state. This is what Putin is also demanding in Georgia and Ukraine. The Syrian coast will become another Crimea, if not completely annexed, at least occupied. Unless stopped, the Putin treatment will not end in Syria. The two next candidates could be Moldova and Latvia, both of which have large Russian-speaking minorities.
Amir Taheri (born 9 June 1942) is an Iranian-born conservative author based in Europe. His writings focus on the Middle East affairs and topics related to Islamist terrorism, and have been the subject of many controversies involving fabrications in his writings.
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For centuries, Ottoman sultans dreamed of conquest in the name of Islam. When they failed on the battlefield they sought glory in building mosques. Eighty years after the Caliphate was abolished to make way for a Western-style republic, the tradition is being revived by Turkey’s current leaders. Led by the ebullient Recep Tayyip Erdogan and inspired by an ideological hodgepodge labeled “neo-Ottomanism,” they are using urban architecture to kill the European dream of secular Turks. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the republic, adopted the Latin alphabet, purged Turkish of Arabic words and brought mosques and religious endowments under state control. He also enlisted a team of French ethnologists to invent the myth of a Turkish nation related to Hungarians and Finns and stretching from Central Europe to Central Asia. For decades, Turkey’s Islamists tried to undo as much of Ataturk’s “reforms” as possible but failed because a majority of Turks would not vote for a party with an Islamist agenda. Erdogan solved that problem by uniting some 20 different Islamist groups into a new party that made no mention of Islam.