Debating War and Peace
The debate in the United States today echoes Turkey in 2003
Soon after the Israelis launched their attack on Iran last Friday, then the world's attention turned to the US. The argument has been that in order for Israel's attack to be complete, it needs to hit the Iranian nuclear reactors in Fordow, and only the United States has the capabilities to do so.
And within a day or so, attention really crystallized around the details of the task. The nuclear enrichment site in Fordow was "buried deep in the mountains" and encased in 90 meters of granite/concrete (I’ve read both), and if Trump made the call to bomb it, he'd be a ordering a fleet of B-2 bombers (those huge triangular things) that would take off from Whitman Air Force Base in Missouri, each carrying two Massive Ordinance Penetrators (MOP) bombs, the 30,000 pound GBU-57/B in particular. Several of these GPS-guided bombs dropped on the same spot (I imagine a big fat “X” drawn on concrete) would eventually punch into the facility and blow up Iran's infamous centrifuges.
I think those details alone had a pull to them. It sounded like something from a Tom Cruise movie. And since it was something only America could do, you might be inclined to think that it ought to do it.
I’d say around Thursday night, things began to shift. A very broad coalition we might call the the anti-neocons emerged. This included leftists and liberals, but much more significantly, conservatives and core MAGA influencers who had purchase with the Trump White House. The pivotal moment was Tucker Carlson's interview with Ted Cruz, because it laid bare how ignorant some of the American elites are on Iran, and how cagey they are about their support for Israel. People like Sohrab Ahmari laid out how complicated Iran is, and an American strike would likely mean another forever war. People started talking about Iraq how many trillions of dollars (I've heard 2-3) it cost, and how it led to ISIS. Steve Bannon has been talking about the war dead in Arlington Cemetery, and is clearly outraged by what he sees as Netanyahu’s ploy to pull the United States into another forever war.
And now America is very much on edge. Yes, the Fordow choice might be artificial, and there might be other options Trump might ask for, but for now, the binary choice has had an interesting impact on the discussion.
American commentary over the past wekks feels very real in a way that we’re no longer used to. There's a sense that writing and tweeting and discussing these things public might just help push things in one direction or another.
It feels a bit like the lead-up to the March 1, 2003 vote in the Turkish parliament on whether or not to allow the US military to use Turkish soil to invade Iraq. Everyone knew that the vote was going to be extremely close. The parties were voting their conscience, and the brand-new AK Party government was fairly divided on the topic.
My uncle, Fehmi Koru, who was at the time a very influential journalist in AK Party circles, campaigned day and night against allowing the Americans in, and he succeeded. If only three more MPs had voted “yes,” the motion would have passed. I often found that my uncle was especially proud of his work in February 2003.
I think that’s partly because a lot of the time as an "opinion-maker," you just joust other people without much consequence, but sometimes history really sharpens up, and there's two roads that emerge before a nation, and the discussion is to tight that every word you say matters. It’s in those days that you mobilize every fiber of your being and push as hard as you can in the direction you want.
This, of course, is the kind of thing you can only experience in free societies and under democratic government. We ostensibly live under such conditions all the time, but really they only manifest themselves in rare moments. In 2003, the AK party had been in power not even for four months. It was an anti-establishment party, but also wanted to have a strong relationship with the Americans. Whatever decision they took, they made sure that they could defend it to their constituents, especially since significant parts of the opposition CHP were also voting against the motion.
America in 2025 is also going through something like regime change, and though there is no public vote on joining Israel’s war against Iran, there is a sense that Trump is highly sensitive to popular opinion. While establishment politicians are creatures of the elite, Trump is, for better or worse, a self-made celebrity who seems to care very deeply about being popular. I think the policy community senses that, and it’s why they’re coming out very strongly on both sides to make their cases.
I’m not sure who’ll win though. I obviously don’t have a high opinion of Trump. During the election and soon afterwards, I expected him to move away from core MAGA positions and be coopted by other interests, such as that of Israel, Christian nationalists, big corporations, and big technology. I thought this made him a danger to Turkey in the long run as well. If he manages to make peace here though, I might have to partly reconsider my position.
I am really curious how erdogan justified his decision to his islamists voter base .