The February 7, 2013 and the December 17, 2013 plots (against the government) have shown to the politics and the society the possible cost to be incurred if the Gulen Movement maintain today the strategy they have adopted under the conditions of the Old Turkey.

Rule of law has been one of the leading topics of discussion since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. The founders of the secular republic which was built on the ruins of the Ottoman State, attempted to ground it in a hybrid model of politics and law, in every sense of the word.

There had also been numerous corruption investigations into municipalities – governed both by the AK Party and other political parties. Why didn’t those investigations attract as much attention as the Dec. 17 investigation?

The biggest struggle of Turkish politics today takes place between those who have lived the 1990s and those who have gone through the 2010s. Not only are their visions of the future but also their perceptions of power are in conflict.

Only time will tell whether a desire for such change will emerge in the political in Iran, and if it does, whether it will be achieved. Similarly, the answer to the question “Does the West prefer a normalized Iran in the region” is yet to become clear.

The most striking characteristic of the last five years is the “Erdoğan momentum” that has developed a constituent politics and created significant structural turning points when impasses occur.

Barzani, particularly for the last month, made his stance against PYD known. Not to mention, Barzani has been seizing on to a deep strategic alliance with Turkey in the recent years.

Turkey will suffer from normalization pains just a while longer. Issues stemming from Kemalism will continue to plague our daily lives until the articles that regulate state-religion, military-civilian and state-citizen relations in the Constitution are amended.

Both what the future democratization efforts entail and how expedient they will be depend, not on Erdoğan administration, but on the opposition. Unless the opposition makes a move soon, democratization in Turkey will have to come gradually in “mini democratization packages”.

In the multi-phased peace process, we face an entity that keeps employing unreasonable provocations in the “withdrawal” phase, the first leg of a road map on which their leader proceeds through consensus.

In the last few years, the “Kurdish alienation” has deepened more with the cunning of the PKK-PYD and the support of the Arab nationalism that has risen in the region with the occupation of Iraq.

Why do the protestors, a significant majority of whom voted for the CHP, feel under represented? Why should the CHP constituency feel less represented than before?

An examination of Turkey and the Arab Spring protests via the main slogans and goals along with a cursory analysis of their political histories is enough to point out their difference in nature.

It is certain that the character assassination targeting PM Erdoğan through the Gezi Park protests does not expect to reach a conclusion right now. The aim of the character assassination is to obliterate Erdoğan’s decision-making capacity by 2015. At this point, Erdoğan’s leadership test begins.