It has always been like this: small events starting the chain reaction. It was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the archduke of Austria-Hungary, which triggered the events unrolling to start World War I. It didn’t end with the death of an Archduke, but it set the priorities of stakeholders involved and world saw the deadliest of wars.
‘We die in Aleppo; You die here’, shouts the assassin as he shots fire on Russian Ambassador to Turkey earlier today. As the news updates keep coming, the new regional order might be in transition. As the ambassador breathes his last, the extent to which Russia can use this situation as a shocking event to devise its predictable policy towards region and actors is going to unravel soon. Naomi Klein’s idea of Shock Doctrine is interesting: Putin can use this event to sway the emotions of people to launch anything that’s not ordinary and peaceful.
Putin, the most influential person according to Forbes, is likely to react on this severely, but only time can unleash the outcomes of this. However, it poses pertinent questions to what Trump’s foreign policy is going to be like? Would he still like to work on the kind of isolationist foreign policy he has been talking about, making America great by completely focusing on regional and national issues.
As much as it exposes the brutalities being committed in Aleppo, or in other parts of the region; it also brings into attention the rapidly deteriorating situation of peace and order in Turkey. The last year attacks, then these shootings: all are telling a story of dwindling peace and what an unstable region can cause to stable and prosperous country.
Time will inform us of happenings and how regional order will take shape, but one thing is sure: the region is in turmoil, and political order is in transition and will take time. The Obama’s doctrine about withdrawing from Iraq and region, and going to Congress for intervention in Syria is also in question. The decade of decadence in middle east is not over yet, and a lot more can be unfortunately expected to happen in further episodes of this series.
In all of this, there’s an answer for war mongers and hate purporters: war or violence doesn’t bring any good to countries, or societies. The outcomes of wars are long lasting than the peace activities, and are likely to haunt the affected ones for rest of their lives. The peace of centuries can be vanquished in moments, and it doesn’t work the other way. Therefore, peace is the only viable option to survive and path to prosperity, and that too a sustained peace.