After half a year of aspirations, blood and sacrifices, it would not be fair to lead the Arab Spring and its revolutions toward the guillotine of rash judgments, through the selection of “defeat” as the great victor. This defeat is the counterrevolution being led even by the media outlets and “experts” on the affairs, status, setbacks and catastrophes, hibernation and awakening of the nation. After half a year of uprisings, it is not enough to take to the streets or defy the tanks with bare chests. One could also say that the reaping of this spring's fruits tomorrow is an illusion haunting the revolution youth. And since neither politics and illusions nor wishes and reality go together, the concerns prevailing over the influential states in the region - as they are following the bitter chapter of this spring - must be monitored, along with the concerns of the West which has not yet turned the Security Council into a charitable association to tend to the affairs and rights of the Arab populations. Was Italy not mobilized due to fears from the “bomb” of the refugees fleeing the hell of Gaddafi's brigades? Did German Chancellor Angela Merkel not link freedom in the Arab world to securing job opportunities for the Arab youth in their own countries? In the seventh month of the Arab spring, the regimes whose popularities have dropped will not produce freedoms as a generous donation to those occupying the streets and squares of change. The region is prone to witness additional confrontations with the unknown - which is also unknown to the West itself – and with the prevalence of imbalance. Concerns, even fears, are dominating the entities, along with concerns surrounding the eruption of “sudden” wars, in the presence of pending questions such as: Will the counterrevolution in Egypt be extinguished by a new understanding between the military council and the revolution youth coalition which is renewing its unity to strengthen dialogue? What has recently prompted the Gulf Cooperation Council states to worry about Iran, and made them renew their condemnation of its “blunt provocations” and conspiracies against the security of the six GCC member states? Why is Ankara mobilizing and summoning its ambassadors and describing the formation of the new Lebanese government as being an undermining of Lebanese “balance” that could pave the way before the increase of Iranian influence in the region? …Why is Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who dedicated his party's great victory in the elections to Beirut, Damascus, Gaza and the region, afraid that Tehran might “exploit” the Syrian predicament to achieve hegemony over Lebanon, as a prelude for the absorption of the shock it received following the Gulf unified response toward the events in Bahrain? On the beat of the scene witnessed inside the “Syrian camps” in Turkey, would it be an exaggeration to feel concerned about the repetition of the Iraqi scenario and the West's sponsorship of the Kurdish “safe zone” in northern Iraq, after hundreds of thousands among these Kurds were forced to flee behind the Turkish border? Does Erdoğan's Turkey have more time and hope in convincing the rule in Syria to launch the train of reforms and distance the arms of the security bodies from the streets and the demonstrators as the only way to salvage Syria from internationalization and foreign interference, and maybe even from the misleading advice to uphold the “security solution”? To Ankara, the fear of seeing the region slide toward “sectarian” divisions has come to surpass the weapons used by some who are trying to allude to scenarios of “conspiracy” as being behind the uprising on the street. And while Erdoğan's party (the Justice and Development Party) is not excluding the “worst possibilities” as it is erecting the tents for the Syrian refugees, those who believe that Ankara is ascribing this “conspiracy” to specific sides in Iran are probably not mistaken, as the latter might try to compensate for the “Syrian card” if they ever lose hope in the ability of the regime in Damascus to contain the anger. …And in the Arab spring, it would be difficult to imagine seeing Turkey relinquish its role, at a time when Iran continues to give the revolutions lessons in freedoms and instigates governments to resort to its expertise in muzzling the youth! As for the Turkish-Iranian duel which Ankara avoided in Iraq, it is probably as close as Erdoğan's Turkey is to Beirut or Damascus.
