Dr. Bahaa Helmy Writes: Erdoğan's Doctrine and His Egyptian Complex

The doctrine of the Turkish president rests on the idea of the caliphate, regarding himself as the emir of the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood and the legitimate heir of the so-called Ottoman Empire. The Turkish president's Brotherhood convictions and ideas, which rest on expansionist and aggressive thinking to realize the ambitions of the Brotherhood, prevail; the Brotherhood recognizes neither geographical nor political borders nor the established systems in any country, and its delusions extend to ruling the peoples of the earth and imposing its control by the sword and by terrorism at the hands of armed militias of the group's members who are “believers” — as they believe — against any groups, sects, systems, peoples or national forces that believe in belonging to the land and the nation and act according to the values of tolerance and brotherhood. He builds his dreams, or rather his delusions, on the possibility of re-establishing a new Ottoman Brotherhood empire on the ruins of some Arab states, through his support for the chaos that swept some Arab countries and by plunging into the events that were called the Arab Spring. The Turkish president was previously accused of inciting religious hatred and of hostility to his state's system before he ran for the Turkish presidency, when he expressed his exclusionary principles by reciting a verse of poetry to the effect that “The minarets are our bayonets, the domes our helmets, the mosques our barracks and the believers our soldiers”, and he went back to repeating this saying in 2019, after his party lost the local elections, to court the armed militias, Brotherhood members and their supporters to stand with him. The ruling imprisoning the Turkish president and banning him from holding government office because of the aforementioned words was issued by the Turkish courts twenty years ago, at a time when the armed forces played a major role in running the system and in maintaining a distance between religion and government, and the army enjoyed standing and refinement in running the country's affairs in the face of the ideology of fanaticism. It was then that the Turkish president's complex about the national army appeared, similar to the internal complex rooted in the souls of the members of the terrorist group towards and against any national security forces, because the forces that enforce the law and protect the nation believe only in victory or martyrdom in the performance of duty and the protection of the people, the nation and the integrity of its territory. The national army represents a major obstacle and a nightmare for the thought and conscience of the Turkish president, and is a wall of defense against the ambitions and ideas of the Brotherhood organization, its affiliated militias and everything born from its womb, because the national army is made up of patriotic young men and men who “have been true to the covenant they made with God”. This contradicts the thought and philosophy of the Brotherhood organization and its plans to run the affairs of government in God's vast lands relying on their soldiers, whom the Turkish president described in his aforementioned saying as “believing soldiers”; and the believers, in the view and doctrine of the Brotherhood, are the members of the armed militias, the people of listening and obedience. Consequently, the Egyptian army and people who led the June revolution are the number one enemy of Erdoğan, his organization and everyone who funds it or belongs to it, which has made him mutter and repeat the name of President Sisi in all his domestic and foreign speeches. Because, quite simply, he shattered their dreams, demolished their delusions and cracked the foundations of their edifice; the Egyptian judiciary is exposing the traitors and spies among them; and the Brotherhood's attempt to sell the nation's land in what became known as the Deal of the Century, after they received more than 8 billion dollars as a down payment to destroy the dreams of a Palestinian state, has been revealed to all. So we should not be surprised at the orientations and actions of the Turkish president, which are driven by his complex about the Egyptian army and people, which has become a national model to be followed among national armies. The Turkish president is trying to leap over the domestic crises facing his policies by escaping beyond the borders, and history will record not only that he was unable to achieve his aims and the ambitions of his Brotherhood group, but that the doctrine of Erdoğan and his group was built on the brink of a crumbling bank that has collapsed with them.