If the European Union had acquired a similar insight and executed the accession process without any interruption, Turkey most likely would ­ not have needed the Ergenekon case.

Recently I read that the Chief of Staff of the Military of Libya was Colonel Abu-Bakr Yunis Jaber, which made me wonder whether there are no higher-ranking officials in the military in Libya. I checked this and saw that the rank of general has not been used in the country since the military coup of 1969. Can you imagine the trauma Libya has been going through? Let us imagine it together.

A while ago I was briefed by an experienced diplomat about how it was being a Middle Easterner. He said: "In this geography, you get off to a flying start. Things appear as if they are righteous, correct and on track at the beginning. But then things definitely prove unpleasant." The rank of general exists on paper in Libya. The army was established under the British command. After seizing power in 1969, young Gaddafi took the rank of colonel; therefore, nobody was granted higher ranks afterwards. I guess they were thinking, "We cannot have a higher rank than our leader." Later, to remedy this, the National Congress of the Arab Socialist Union decided to promote Gaddafi to general, but this failed since Gaddafi thanked them and maintained that he would like to retain the title of colonel.

In consequence, the Libyan army has not had a general since 1969. I guess we must consider it normal that in a country where football stars cannot come to the fore and be popular with their names, generals are prevented from wandering about and showing off their epaulettes. So, imagine that you were born in the 1970s in such a country surrounded by the fire of the revolution. Wouldn't you think that the highest rank in an army was colonel? Wouldn't you consider the abnormal as normal? You would. We have to consider the trauma through which Libya is currently going in this respect. We thus have to assess from this perspective why the process will last longer.

But is Turkey any different from Libya? Don't get upset, think. Recall the debates we have been having over the last decade. The old-normal is dysfunctional in all realms from the Kurdish issue to the Armenian issue, from Cyprus to Iraq. A new-normal is being shaped. Was it as easy as it is today to debate these issues in the past? No. Then, are we not still going through the trauma Libya is yet to see? Yes, we are. This is the first point.

İsmet İnönü did what Gorbachev had done in the Soviet Union and Klerk had done in South Africa much earlier. His only mistake was that he could not read the choice of the public correctly and failed to step aside. Indeed,  he entered the elections in the new system to contribute to the democratization of the regime, and was defeated. His biggest defeat was at the same time his biggest victory. He did not do what Gaddafi has done. Therefore, the transformation progressed smoothly. However, it took five decades and a couple of military coups for us to come to this point. Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and the others have a difficult path to follow. This is the second point.

The third point is associated with the answer to the question, "Can oil be the fortune of Libya?" Will the transformation process be smoother if Libya is considered a Bosnia with oil reserves? Can an external intervention accelerate the transformation process? It might. If the European Union had acquired a similar insight and executed the accession process without any interruption, Turkey most likely would ­ not have needed the Ergenekon case and the legal system would not have been pushed so hard with detentions without charges. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

The scenarios foreseeing hikes in oil prices must be assessed from this perspective.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 11.03.2011