Oct 8, 2014

“The US green belt project” is a notion that Turkish intellectuals, especially leftists, keep harping on when it comes to political Islam. What they mean by it is the US support for certain Islamist groups and regimes against the Soviet threat during the Cold War, mainly the mujahedeen who resisted the Red Army’s invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. In stark contrast to the negative image of today’s jihadists, the United States saw the mujahedeen as “freedom fighters” battling Soviet oppression and lent them support. ("Rambo III" is worth watching as Hollywood’s rendition of the said perception.)

That era, however, came to an end with the Soviet Union’s withdrawal and the ensuing disintegration of Afghanistan. The mujahedeen believed they on their own had led the great USSR to collapse, and some got the idea they could bring the other superpower to its knees as well. This is how the ground for al-Qaeda was laid.

In short, US policy in the 1980s, which focused exclusively on the USSR, or the “evil empire” as President Ronald Reagan called it, backfired in the ensuing years. Washington failed to calculate that the mujahedeen it beefed up could one day turn against it. It was a typical case of “unintended consequences,” a rule often overlooked in politics.

Yet, conspiracy-prone minds tend to believe “unintended consequences” are actually intended and even diligently planned. That’s why Turkish conspiracy theorists obsessed with the “green belt project” insist seeing al-Qaeda as an “American puppet.”

Now, let’s turn to Turkey, for the issue is closely related to Turkey as well. How? The outcome the United States faced in Afghanistan has befallen Turkey in Syria. Some of the mujahedeen Turkey backed as “freedom fighters” against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s “evil empire” have devolved into an “unintended consequence” of a major threat.