Tag: Recep Tayyip Erdogan

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Turkey Threatens Christian Communities In Northern Syria In New Offensive

The return of Turkish backed militants to the Ain Issa in Rojava/Northern Syria/Western Kurdistan has put the region controlled by the Western backed Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) a Kurdish majority umbrella of US trained forces back into the forefront of Turkey’s war on the Kurdish population in Syrian Kurdistan.

It has been reported that the Turkish-Backed Free Syrian Army or TSFA for short with the help of the Turkish National Forces (TNF) began building up their forces and shelling SDF positions in the region in late November. This has continued into December.

Below is a video of an artillery attack on the Syriac city of Ayn Issa.

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Turkey has essentially broken the agreements it signed with the USA, Russia, and SDF.

The Russian News Agency TASS, reports: “According to Kurdish sources, the Turkish military command and the armed opposition are now discussing an operation to seize Ayn Issa. To that end, Turkey has already started to redeploy personnel, weapons and armored vehicles to its military base in Mardud.”

Reports from the ground confirm the above.

Ayn Issa sits on the strategic M4 highway that runs across Northern Syria and serves as the border between the TASF/TNF and the SDF and its allies. By making a move to take the road Turkey wants to cut the SDF from moving back and forth in Norther Syria, East of the Euphrates.

Erdogan’s Crusade Against the “Infidels”

From a religious angle, it is not surprising that Turkey, whose leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sees himself as a new type of Sultan and leader of the Islamic world would target Ayn Issa. The city and region is a Syriac Christian stronghold whose name literally mean “Jesus.”

Erdogan and his Turkish militias in Northern Syria have gone out of their way to flip what they originally claimed was a security mission into Rojava (otherwise known as Syrian Kurdistan) into a religious crusade.

Erdogan’s Syrian maneuver, is part of his wider export of Turkish power to other areas of the world.

A recent IBTimes report emphasizes Turkey’s expansion of interference in both the Azerbaijan-Armenia war and soon into Kashmir on the side of Pakistan against India.

Erdogan has done everything he can to not only to go after long time enemy the Kurds by committing acts of genocide in Northern Syria and his own country, but he has gone out of his way to inject a global religious crusade – essentially a Jihad, into other areas by tying together local conflicts into an Islamic Holy War.

Russia As a Buffer

In both the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict and Northern Syria, Russia has acted as a counter weight to Erdogan’s Jihadist plans. Putin sent forces and weapons to Armenian backed rebels in the conflict with Azerbaijan and often times pushes back agains the TNF and TASF in Northern Syria in order to protect the Kurds and Syriacs.

As of last night shelling had stopped with rumors that Russia is planning on setting up multiple outposts in the area and along the M4 highway.

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Regardless of Russia’s involvement, the fact remains, Middle East Christians and other indigenous groups like the Kurds are under constant threat of attack from Turkey and its Jihadist allies.

Persecution, an International Christian Magazine says the following:

“The complications of this situation showcase why many regional Christians often feel that their future is reliant upon geopolitics, particularly of the military nature. Their homelands are used by other nations to outmaneuver and out-strategize the other. Thus, regional Christians often feel that their own safety and security will never be accomplished if they remain home.”

Unfortunately, due to the unstable political climate in the USA, the remaining US troops in Syria have yet to take action.

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BIBI NETANYAHU TO ERDOGAN: “Don’t Preach to Us About Morality”

Turkey’s islamist and autocratic ruler President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has taken the lead in the current international onslaught against Israel for its defense from Hamas terrorists.

“Israel is wreaking state terror. Israel is a terror state,” Erdogan told Turkish students in London. “What Israel has done is a genocide. I condemn this humanitarian drama, the genocide, from whichever side it comes, Israel or America.”

In response to Israel’s defense on the Gaza border, Turkey has recalled its ambassadors from both Israel and the United States.

In response to Erdogan’s comments Prime Minister Netanyahu responded by stating: “Erdogan is among Hamas’s biggest supporters and there is no doubt that he well understands terrorism and slaughter. I suggest that he not preach morality to us.”

Beyond supporting Hamas, it was Erdogan’s Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) that not only overran the Kurdish majority Afrin canton in Syria over a month ago, but killed thousands of what he called Kurdish terrorists.  Most reports indicated that many of those killed were civilians.  Of course as I noted in an article at the time, Erdogan selectively uses the word terrorist interchangeably when referring to groups of people he doesn’t like.




Netanyahu had said something similar in response to another outrageous Erdogan comment back in April: “Erdogan is not used to people responding to him, but he should start getting used to it. Anyone who occupies northern Cyprus, invades the Kurdish strip and slaughters citizens in Afrin, should not lecture us about values and ethics.”

I wrote the following in connection to the Prime Minister’s response: “The continuing realignment in the Middle East has begun to create chaos with a number of actors scrambling to pick sides. Donald Trump has clearly decided to pull the USA out of the mess, but that has only created more of a mess. Bibi’s statement about the Kurds and Cyprus is a hint of the role that Israel appears ready and willing to take on. This of course pits the Jewish state on a collision course with Turkey who has delusions of returning to the golden age of the Ottoman Empire.”

Since April Israel has strengthened its eastern Mediteranean alliance with both Cyprus and Greece with a direct visit to Cyprus by Bibi to strengthen Israel’s partnership on building the EastMed Pipeline last week.

The event was not lost on Erdogan, who stands to lose big on enhanced ties between Cyprus, Greece, and Israel. In fact Erdogan cited an east Meditereanean security threat due to Cyprus’ activities in the eastern Meditereanean.  Like anything else Erdogan doesn’t like, it becomes a dangerous security threat or essentially a false pretext to pick a fight.

Israel must continue to take the mantle of leadership it has been given and lead and remain undaunted in the face of faux moralists who twist the truth to suit their geopolitical needs. This is why Prime Minister Netanyahu quoted the prophet Zecharia at the embassy opening: “Jerusalem is the City of Truth.”

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CHAOS GROWING: Turkey Risking War Against the US and Russia

Some people are gamblers and others are just downright insane.  Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the President of Turkey appears to be shifting from political gambler to a completely insane autocrat.  Turkey’s current invasion of the autonomous Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin has not only unnerved the United States, who is the main backer of the the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), but Russia’s Putin as well.  Given the neo Cold War relationship between Russia and the USA, Erdogan has actually accomplished an astounding feet.

Due to the SDF’s American training and advanced weaponry, Turkey has found its operation harder than originally expected.  Most leaders would stop after watching a number of their tanks get blown up in the first hours of combat, but this has made Erdogan more set on invading the Kurdish areas of Northern Syria.  He claims that he will move South into Idlib as well as moving forces into the Kurdish heartland of Manbij which hosts a sizeble American base.

Courtesy of Syria War Map

“We will rid Manbij of terrorists, as it was promised to us, and our battles will continue until no terrorist is left until our border with Iraq,” Mr Erdogan said this past Friday.

This maneuver alone brings Erdogan close to a direct confrontation with US soldiers who according to reports have not planned on moving aside for Turkey’s assault.

As far as the possibility of the US pulling its forces from the Manbig, General Joseph Votel, head of the United States Central Command, Speaking on CNN, said that withdrawing US forces from the strategically important city is “not something we are looking into.”

Yet Erdogan insists he is in the right as his Turkish forces are simply destroying “terrorists.”  The question is whether Erdogan will actually make a move against US forces in Manbij.  For the US, there has been no question that its position in the area is not only just, but necessary.

“Turkey knows where our forces are in Manbij, and what they are doing there, and why they are there –to prevent any kind of escalation between the groups who are in that area,” Dillon told Rudaw TV. “The Coalition will continue to support our Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against ISIS. We have said this all along, and we have said this with the Kurdish elements of the SDF. We will provide them equipment as necessary to defeat ISIS.”

As if this was not enough, Erdogan’s move South to Idlib brings Russia into the mix.  The following set of Tweets from Jenan Moussa, reporter for Arabic Al Aan TV gives over another one of Erdogan’s toughtless maneuvers.

With Russia appearing not to decide to move out of the way for Erdogan’s scheme to rebuild the Ottoman Empire, the die is cast for a very explosive expansion of the Syrian war.

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Erdogan is the Real Terrorist in Syria, Not the Kurds

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan launched a brutal assault on the Kurdish majority Syrian region of Afrin on Saturday.  Dubbed “Operation Olive Branch,” the Turkish government insists it is cleaning out the area of Kurdish “Terrorists.”

Afrin is controlled by the Kurdish dominated SDF and trained and armed by the US government to defeat ISIS and offer an alternative leadership to the Assad regime.  Erdogan has a nasty habit of claiming and suspecting every Kurd of being a terrorist.

The truth is, Erdogan and his own family funded and aided ISIS for the past few years in order to sow chaos in Syria and Iraq.  The project worked until more and more countries figured out that Turkey itself was behind the rise of the Sunni Jihadists.  Why would Erdogan fund ISIS?  Turkey has always wanted to regain its former stature and what better way to do that than createenough chaos that it would be forced to go in and stablize it. Now that Erdogan and the Turkish government has been forced out of that strategy by Russia, Iran, and even the US, it has decided to use the chaos to go after a new terrorist entity…the Kurds.

For Erdogan everyone else is the terrorist.  However, in the first 24 hours of his attacking Afrin, over 20 civilians have been killed with most being chilldren, including 8 members of the same family.  Keep in mind, Erdogan has ordered the Turkish army into Afrin, the SDF has not entered into Turkey. So who is the real terrorist?

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Portents of quagmires in Syria

Putin, Rouhani and Erdogan are right that, as of now, they are the victors in Syria. But let us not empower them by believing them invincible.

Is the war in Syria won? The images broadcast this week from Sochi, the Russian vacation town on the Black Sea coast, were pictures of victory – for the bad guys.

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin stood beside his Syrian client, President Bashar Assad, who licked Putin’s boots, as well he should have.

Assad owes his regime and his life to Putin.

The next day, Putin was joined by his allies – the presidents of Iran and Turkey.

Hassan Rouhani and Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the pilgrimage to Sochi to stand at Putin’s side and declare victory in the war and dedicate themselves to the cause of “peace and reconciliation” in post-war Syria.

To achieve their lofty goals of peace and reconciliation, Putin and his partners declared that, in the near future, Sochi will be the sight of a peace conference where all the relevant factions in Syria will be represented. The parley they described is set to take place parallel to – and one assumes at the expense of – the sixth round of Syrian reconciliation talks scheduled to take place under UN auspices next week in Geneva.

Several Israeli commentators viewed Putin’s Sochi talks precisely as he wished them to.

Ehud Yaari, Reshet/Keshet’s veteran Arab affairs commentator declared: The US is finished in the Middle East! The capital of the Middle East is now located in Sochi, he proclaimed in back-to-back newscasts.

In certain respects, Yaari is right. Things are looking good these days for the axis of evil.

Wednesday was a particularly good day for Iran. Not only did Rouhani do his victory dance with Putin and Erdogan, but as they were showering themselves in triumph in Sochi, Iran’s Lebanese puppet, Saad Hariri, was returning to Beirut after his misadventures in Saudi Arabia.

As expected, Hariri canceled the resignation he announced dramatically a week-and-a-half earlier in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, after accusing Iran and its Hezbollah army of controlling Lebanon.

On the surface, Hariri’s return is a boon for Iran. If he had remained in Saudi Arabia, Iran would have lost its fig leaf.

Hariri’s duty as prime minister is to snow the West into believing that his government and the Lebanese Armed Forces are a counterweight to Iran and Hezbollah, even though they are controlled by Iran and Hezbollah.

Until his trip to Riyadh, Hariri had been doing a good job.

Hariri’s lobbying efforts won Lebanon billions of dollars in US military and civilian aid. Congress would never have agreed to appropriate the assistance if Hariri hadn’t been so persuasive.

But it is far from clear that Hariri will be much of a fig leaf after he let the Iranian/Hezbollah cat out of the bag in Riyadh.

A rising chorus of US lawmakers are demanding an immediate end to US assistance to the LAF. And Hariri’s return to Beirut didn’t dim those voices.

In August, Hariri visited President Donald Trump at the White House. Trump praised Lebanon as “an ally” in the war on terrorism. He increased US aid to the LAF and deployed US special forces to Lebanon where they fought at the side of the LAF under effective Hezbollah command.

It’s hard to imagine Trump welcoming Hariri back to the White House anytime soon.

As for Erdogan, he arrived in Sochi a spent force.

Erdogan is perhaps the biggest loser of the war in Syria. He was the principal sponsor of the anti-Assad opposition that morphed into Islamic State. Erdogan’s cooperation owes mainly to his lack of better options. The US stopped supporting his campaign in Syria two years ago.

Since the failed military coup against him in July 2016, Erdogan has become ever more hostile to the US. This hostility informed his recently concluded deal with Putin to purchase Russia’s S-400 anti-aircraft system. The S-400 threatens every fighter craft in the US arsenal. US officials have responded to his move by seriously considering the possibility of canceling the sale of 100 F-35s to Turkey.

Turkish expulsion from NATO – once a taboo subject – is now regularly discussed in Washington policy circles.

The main reason Erdogan has sided with Putin in Syria is because the US has sided with Syria’s Kurds. Erdogan views the Syrian Kurds as a threat to the stability of his regime. He expects Putin to support his determination to destroy Kurdish autonomy in Syria.

If Putin fails to meet his expectations, Erdogan may abandon his new friends. Or he may stick with them and just become ever more dependent on Putin.

Whatever the case, he won’t be empowered by his membership in Pax Putin.

And this brings us to Putin and Russia.

Certainly it is true that the Sochi summitry has cemented Putin’s position as savior of Mother Russia.

A mere generation ago, Russia was a washed up, fifth-rate power. At the end of the Cold War, the world belonged to America. Today, world leaders beat a path to Putin’s door.

But not everything is roses and sunshine.

Russia’s alliance with Iran and Turkey is predicated on Russia remaining in Syria – come what may.

And what is coming is not likely to be pretty.

While Putin, Erdogan and Rouhani were congratulating themselves in Sochi, another conference was happening in Riyadh. There, leaders of the anti-Assad militia were meeting to discuss their next moves ahead of the UN-sponsored talks next week in Geneva.

True, the forces represented in Saudi Arabia aren’t as powerful as the Iranians, Hezbollah and Russia. But they have guns. And they are disgruntled. And if any number of governments want to give them more guns, they will have more guns and bullets. And they will shoot them at the people keeping Assad in power.

Commentators declaring the dawn of a Russian-controlled Middle East where the US is dead to rites ignore another basic fact. There are a lot of US forces in Syria.

In late October, US Major General James Jarrard, commander of the US’s anti-ISIS task force in Iraq and Syria, “accidentally” told reporters that there are 4,000 US troops in Syria. When reporters pounced on his statement, Jarrard quickly backtracked and said he made a mistake.

There are only 500 US forces in Syria.

Whoopsie daisy.

On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that the administration does not intend to withdraw US forces from Syria now that the mission against ISIS is largely complete.

US forces in Syria are concentrated in Syrian Kurdistan. If the US protects the Kurdish autonomous areas along the border with Iraq, Erdogan will again lose a big bet in Syria. His alliance with Putin will have brought him nothing but a deterioration of his ties with the US and instability at home as Turkish Kurds expand their ties to the autonomous Syrian brethren.

Angry, unreconciled, well-armed rebel forces and autonomous Kurds are far from the biggest threat to Putin’s victory in Syria. The biggest threat to his triumph is Syria itself.

Thanks in large part to Putin and his allies, Syria, today, is one vast ruin.

According to UN assessments, reconstruction costs for the country will run anywhere from $200 billion-$350b.

Does Putin intend to finance Syrian reconstruction? How about Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or Erdogan or China? Of course not.

And, if Syria remains a ruin, Syria will not be pacified; and, if Syria isn’t pacified, it will continue to bleed.

The media made a big deal about Putin’s phone call to Trump after his meeting with Assad. Some commentators viewed the call as proof Putin is calling the shots in the Middle East. Others saw the opposite – that Putin doesn’t dare move too far ahead of the Americans.

But those views are likely both wrong.

Putin’s record indicates that he cares about two things: reasserting Russia’s great power status and money. For his victory in Syria to avoid becoming a Pyrrhic one, he needs lots of American money to finance Syrian reconstruction.

This brings us to the US, and what Washington wants to do in Syria and the wider Middle East.

So far, the Americans have made every possible mistake in Syria and Iraq.

Then president Barack Obama allowed Assad to commit a genocide of Syria’s Sunnis and foment the refugee crisis in Europe. He allowed Iran and Hezbollah to take over Syria and Iraq. He allowed Erdogan to organize an anti-Assad rebel force dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, which over time morphed into ISIS. He allowed the Russians to use the war as a means to reassert their position in the Middle East 33 years after the Soviets were humiliated and expelled from the Levant.

For his part, Trump has maintained Obama’s Syria policies in relation to Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and Assad. He expanded US military assistance to the LAF. He permitted Iranian militias controlled by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to cooperate with US-trained Iraqi forces in seizing Kirkuk from Kurdish forces. In so doing, Trump betrayed the Kurds, the US’s only reliable allies in Iraq.

If the Americans wish to maintain their record of failure, they have many options for doing so. They can abandon the Syrian Kurds. They can help Putin by underwriting Syrian reconstruction.

They can continue to arm the Hezbollah-controlled LAF. But the Americans do have an option to succeed, as well.

If Trump keeps US forces in Syrian Kurdistan, and if he refuses to help pay for Syrian reconstruction so long as Assad remains in power and Iranian and Hezbollah forces remain on the ground and if the US ends its civilian and military assistance to Lebanon, the US and its allies will be strengthened, and Russia and its allies will be weakened.

If the Americans do not interfere as Syrian “freedom fighters” defend against Iranian or Russian “aggression,” it won’t matter what terms the Iranians give Putin for gas, or oil or nuclear deals. He will seek a way out of Syria.

On May 1, 2003, then president George W. Bush landed a S-3 Viking fighter craft on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln dressed in a flight suit. Before an audience of cheering troops and against the backdrop of a banner that read “Mission Accomplished,” Bush declared: “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”

A month later, the real Iraq war started.

In the years that followed, probably not a day went by when Bush didn’t regret his victory dance on the USS Lincoln.

Putin, Rouhani and (to a much smaller degree) Erdogan are right that, as of now, they are the victors in Syria. But let us not empower them by believing them invincible. Their victory against ISIS – achieved with massive US assistance – is certainly an achievement. But it isn’t the end of the story. If the Americans do not save them, the situation on the ground augers quagmire, not triumph, for their axis and for their separate regimes.

Originally Posted on the Jerusalem Post.

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Will Turkey’s Showdown in Afrin Split NATO?

Turkey has always had a complex relationship with the rest of its NATO partners, ut during the current Erdogan period it has grown exceedingly problematic.  With the weakening of US positions across he Middle East and Trump’s reliance on reliable indigenous allies to shoulder the ground burden against ISIS and Iran, Turkey sees its position falter.

The US has spent the past two years strengthening the Kurdish YPG dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Northern Syria by offering training, weapons, and logistics. The YPG/SDF are spread across five cantons that buttress Syria’s border with Turkey.

Turkey has always dealt poorly with the 20 million Kurds within their country, but has grown excessively weary about the Kurdish self-determination movements growing in Syria and Iraq.  Both of these movements are being funded more or less by the US, France, and Germany; all of whom double as fellow NATO members to Turkey.

Erdogan has grown despondent about the US role in building a future Kurdistan.

“We are greatly disappointed by the United States not keeping its promises. Many issues that we could have resolved easily…were pushed to a dead-end,” Erdogan said this past week.

Erdogan’s opposition to the US backing of the YPG in Syria is now seen as a threat to the NATO alliance itself. This makes Turkey’s assault on Kurdish positions in Afrin ground zero to see how Trump views Turkey’s future roll in NATO.  Afterall, the prevailing wisdom is that Turkey was behind much of the early growth of ISIS and used the chaos to push back on growing Kurdish autonomy.  With the narrative flipped, Turkey sees Afrin as an important litmus test on how far America will actually go to defend their proxy in Northern Syria.

“We need to cleanse Afrin of the structure there called the YPG terrorist organization,” Erdogan said.

Comparing the YPG to the notorious PKK, a long time enemy dof Turkey, might play well inside Turkey, but it does nothing to heal the divide between Turkey and the West.

Syrian Kurds and Turkey Exchange Fire Over Afrin

Turkish and Kurdish forces exchanged fire across the Afrin-Idlib border on Monday, according to several reports. No casualties have been reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed there was an exchange of fire between the sides. The organization stated that the YPG targeted Dar Ta izzah town and Turkey retaliated by launching fire into YPG-controlled Afrin canton.

The Observatory has also been reporting a steady increase of Turkish armored vehicles and soldiers entering the Afrin and Idlib areas as a preparation for a final assault on the Kurdish positions in Afrin. If Afrin were to fall to Turkey it would be the second Kurdish stronghold to fall to either Iran or Turkey in the past one and half months.

With the SDF offering the most stable option for a post war Syria, the US may have to forego its faltering relationship with Islamist Turkey in order to shore up a far more dependable ally it has found with the Kurds. If this happens, it may spell th end of Turkey’s membership in NATO.

 

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Erdogan Restructuring Turkish Military, Ending Its Historic Independence

President Erdogan, continuing to utilize the failed coup attempt of 18 days ago, has ended the historic division between the army and government that has existed for nearly a century.

Wiping the last visages  military independence, Erdogan’s government made statutory decree as par of the three-month emergence decree that the prime minister, chief of General Staff, the deputy prime ministers, justice minister, foreign minister, interior minister, defense minister and force commanders would join to the Supreme Military Council.

This injection of “civilian” governance into the military would be fine in any other country, but in Turkey the Supreme Military Council was designed to remain separate in order to ensure that Turkey would remain secular in its institutions.  In a strange sense it is the military that was built to hold up democracy.

Turkey’s war academies, military high schools, and high schools that train non-commissioned officers have been closed.

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Erdogan Holds Europe Hostage as he Accuses the EU of Not Honoring Refugee Deal

Syrian Refugees

As was reported previously, the real fun is about to begin for Europe.  As the refugee crisis continues to turn worse in Western Europe, Erdogan has begun to use it to extract more and more money from European coffers. If the EU does not do what Erdogan says, he will unleash the hordes of Syrian refugees and migrants looking for a way into Europe that are now in Turkey.

“Ask them [the EU]. Did you pay? But Turkey still hosts 3 million people. What would Europe do if we let these people go to Europe?” Erdogan asked, according to EU Observer.

Essentially, Erdogan is confirming, that unless the EU pays 3 billion Euros that was promised in the deal, he will allow these Syrian refugees to overrun Europe.

The EU agreement with Turkey was meant to hault refugees from reaching Turkey’s neighbor Greece thus entering the EU’s Schengen zone. The Schengen zone is where free cross-border travel is permitted.  Part of the agreement was the EU’s agreement to accelerate Turkey’s EU accession process.

The amount given so far to Turkey is one percent of the total that the EU pledged to give to Turkey in exchange for greater help in blocking the westward flow of refugees, mostly Syrians, from entering the heart of Europe.

Essentially Erdogan’s whole goal is to extract from Europe more and  more money, by holding the catastrophic threat of millions of refugees inside Europe over their heads.  With the recent attacks in Germany and France, most EU members will opt to cave.  If they do, don’t expect Erdogan to kep quiet for long. Afterall, the goal is to create the same sort of chaos in Europe as Erdogan and Turkey has in Syria and Iraq.  Their assumption is that they not only will be able to take advantage of it, but control the chaos.  The problem is they believed the same thing in supporting ISIS, but now their creation has grown a mind of its own.

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Recep Tayyip Erdogan, False Flag Coup, and the Rise of the New Sultanate

There are times when rulers reach a zenith in their power.  Some of them fall away and others find a way to reverse course and rise again.  The failed coup in Turkey over the weekend marks the lowest point Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It also marks that moment that Erdogan shifts Turkey from a secular democracy to a neo-sultanate once and for all.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has used the failed coup to do what he has always wanted to do.  He has wasted no time in purging the Turkish courts and military of secular members and tightening his grip on the country.

The real question though is why did this coup involve only junior members of the military? If it had such support how could it fail so miserably?

There are many answers, but one likely possibility is that Erdogan himself could have staged the coup in order to give credence to his wanton desire to take full control over Turkey. If this seems far fetched, Erdogan has been accused of false flag attacks before. One such incident was uncovered last year and reported at Shoebot.com: “Twitter whistleblower Fuat Avni claimed on Monday that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has ordered the intelligence agency head to stage a false assassination plot against his son Bilal Erdoğan in order to blame the Gülen movement.”

Others have reported that Erdogan himself has been quite open on the need to use a false flag operation to make an excuse for sending troops into Syria.

The coup attempt in the last 24 hours has been very weak, lending fuel that this was indeed a false flag attack.

Erdogan has always been quite clear in seeing his role as one of a reinstated sultan, presiding over an expansive rebuilt Ottoman Empire.  Since he has become president, Erdogan has increasingly solidified control, while expanding Islamic influence throughout the Republic of Turkey. No one should forget that it was Recep Tayyip Erdogan who made the following statement: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers…”

Russia Will Not Wait

If it becomes clear that Erdogan is in fact strengthening his grip in a far more complete way than he already has, Russia will not hesitate to make moves to check Turkey in order to ensure Erdogan can do little harm to Putin’s influence in the region.

In the coming weeks the rapprochement moves that had been underway between the two countries may very well become frozen if Putin feels the need to put the Turkish ruler back in his place.

Israel will Stay Neutral

Despite reconciliation between Israel and Turkey, the last thing Israel wants is a newly emboldened Erdogan.  If Erdogan is really about to transform Turkey into a sultanate, Israel will think twice before restarting weapons sales to its military.  With Russia and Israel building a closer friendship the two will be in coordination. This means that Israel is quietly positioning itself in opposition to NATO’s strategy in regards to both Russia and Turkey.

The USA is Backed Into a Corner

Obama quickly mumbled support for Erdogan.  This, even as Erdogan is holding troops USA troops hostage until the United States extradites Muhammed Fethullah Gülen, the Turkish preacher Erdogan claims is behind the coup.

 

 

It is too early to see what Obama will do, but most probably nothing. Afterall, Turkey is a NATO ally and is needed as a forward base to bomb ISIS. Look for Gulen to be extradited or this to be settled quietly behind the scenes.

Erdogan has always been focused on spearheading political Islam at a regional level.  The question isn’t whether he wants to be a sort of neo-sultan, but how. I think we have just seen the first steps in Erdogan’s strategy.