Blog

Most people may think that Erdogan emerged more powerful than ever after the coup, but Michalis Ignatiou has a different opinion and analyzes why we saw the beginning of the sultan's fall on Friday.
Turkish President Erdogan may have survived yet another attempt to overthrow him, clearly the biggest and most dangerous, but all evidence indicates that this is a Pyrrhic victory that will sooner or later lead to his end.
Besides, the dramatic contradictions of the "Erdogan regime", which have been evident for some time now both in Turkey's domestic and international relations, indicated that the final rupture would soon occur. What we have just seen in the context of the coup is only the first act of the drama, the beginning of the end for Erdogan.
If one wants to understand the path to this point, one should turn not so much to Turkey itself but to the international and regional centers with which “Sultan” Erdogan had come into immediate conflict over a multitude of issues, and mainly over his Islamist beliefs, his anti-Kurdish fervor, and his family’s profiteering, which prompted him to support the Islamists of ISIS: Washington, Moscow, Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Cairo, Jerusalem, all these capitals have been breathing down his neck against him for quite some time now. And he may have recently attempted to mend his relations with Russia and Israel, but the general picture remained and remains the same. The same conditions and the same factors that incited and abetted the coup plotters will continue to conspire – and now even more actively – for the final overthrow of the Sultan…
Which sultan, literally living in his own world, calls the “democratic people” to his side, after having first abolished most democratic freedoms, and especially freedom of speech. And then he has the nerve to ask the international community to protect the so-called “democratic legitimacy”… Of course, international leaders pretend to side with “democratic legitimacy”, wanting to avoid further irritating the “beast”, but all of them, without exception, privately confess the “wish” to get rid of the Sultan. John Kerry, in fact, in his initial statements from Moscow, only did he not congratulate the coup plotters….
The developments that were being erased were already visible from the arrival of the NATO fleet in the Aegean, a move that was not aimed so much at controlling the flow of illegal immigrants as at controlling the paranoid duo of Erdogan and Davutoglu. In a relevant analysis on February 13, we had characteristically noted: “…as things are going now, with the upcoming creation of a Kurdish state with an outlet to the Mediterranean, both of them are guaranteed the gallows in a central square of Istanbul or Ankara, and indeed within the year.” And the fox, Davutoglu, listened in time to the “messages of History” and is snorting, but Erdogan, a megalomaniac, an archomaniac schizophrenic to the fullest, is haughtily drawing the road to the end, which there is no doubt will be tragic…
All eyes on the Putin-Kerry meeting in Moscow
Significant parts of the international background to the coup appear to have taken place not in Ankara and Istanbul, but in Moscow, where, rather coincidentally, President Putin's meeting with State Department chief John Kerry was scheduled for late Thursday evening. The official menu of the meeting included the plan for joint US-Russian military action against Raqqa, the capital of the Islamists in Syria... The future of President Assad was said to be on the agenda, but the Syrian president denied it in the most categorical way, saying loudly in an interview that Mr. Putin and Mr. Lavrov "never asked him to resign..." Certainly, the role of Turkey, but also the Kurdish issue, was at the center of the talks, since there is no comprehensive solution to the problems of the region without resolving them.
One thing is beyond doubt, that on Thursday evening both the Russian and American intelligence services were fully aware of the upcoming coup and the two countries were monitoring developments closely and probably in close cooperation... For relevant experts, it is not possible to conceive of a definitive solution to the "Middle East" and a "joint fight against Islamic terrorism" with a US-Russian agreement, with Erdogan in power in Turkey... Now that the coup has failed, only one path remains for the "international actors", its overthrow with more direct moves...
Towards the definitive overthrow of the Sultan
There are many indications that Erdogan's final overthrow is imminent, and some even existed before the coup:
1) The aforementioned multiple conflicts and rivalries with all the major and regional powers (Iran, Israel, Egypt), in the final phase of the collapse of the ridiculous policy of "zero problems".
2) The Sultan's refusal to cooperate effectively in the fight against the Islamists, whom he nurtured and continues – now slightly covered up – to nurture and strengthen.
3) The frictions around the strategically important Incirlik base for the anti-Islamist struggle (which, it should be noted, hosts American nuclear weapons under the supervision of 1,500 American soldiers). The frictions between Turkey and Germany reached their peak just a few days ago, with Germany threatening to transfer its warplanes elsewhere. And yesterday, just a few hours ago, similar frictions between Turkey and the US crossed the limits, as the Turkish authorities banned flights in the area and ... cut off the power to the base (!!), trapping the American soldiers in a hostage situation ... There is a fear / scenario of a literal US military intervention, if the Incirlik nuclear weapons are in danger (!!).. At the very least, there is a very good pretext for such a thing ...
4) The intense contacts of the West and especially the Americans with the Kurds of Iraq and Syria. We are in the final phase – probably only a few weeks – before the final blow against the Islamic State on the ground with the recapture of Mosul and the occupation of the Islamist capital Raqqa. The problem that concerns the US and Russian leadership – as well as the other international “players” – is not these upcoming events, which are obvious that they will happen, but the settlement of the “next day”, most obviously with the redrawing of the borders of the Middle East. This is precisely where the key to interpreting the events lies, as with Erdogan in power this “redrawing” will be delayed or at least will not have its definitive content…
The final moves in the chess game...
Given the failure of the coup, international powers have limited options before them. The first of these is to continue playing the well-known “theater of the absurd” with Sultan Erdogan until someone or some people get him out of the way by any means… This option is not a good one at all as Islamic attacks worldwide follow one another and not only are thousands of innocent lives at risk of being lost to the barbarity of Islamic fanatics, but also huge political “investments” and “careers” (see mainly Hillary, Hollande and Merkel) are literally hanging by a thread…
The second option that international powers have is to "ride" the political developments themselves (i.e. to use the creation of Kurdistan - initially as autonomous or semi-autonomous state entities) to overthrow the Sultan.. Already, the Prime Minister of Turkey Yildirim, referred a few days ago, half-jokingly, half-seriously, to specific "movements to change the Turkish borders"... The US has developed direct relations with the Kurdish YPD in Syria and has almost complete control of Iraqi Kurdistan. But they will not be able to move forward without the consent of Russia, which traditionally maintains excellent relations with the PKK in Turkish Kurdistan... Recently, even the Kurds of Iran, who number a few million souls, have taken up arms...
Erdogan prevailed in the coup but will not survive the creation of an independent Kurdistan, and indeed within the borders of Turkey... Such an eventuality will irrevocably bring him to the gallows, and indeed by the hands of those who now glorify him. What exactly Turkey will look like the day after his fall is a crossword puzzle for very strong solvers...
As for the Greek positions, if we prevent the well-known Turkish tendency to export crises to the West, they rather augur positively. The most important thing is that in any scenario of developments, Hellenism (Greece and Cyprus) becomes once again in its three thousand year history the bulwark of the West in the fight against the insidiousness from the East. John Kerry's statement, where for the first time an American official used the term "invasion" (instead of "intervention") to describe the events of 1974, was not at all accidental and we hope that it acquires the meaning it deserves, namely the reversal of the results of the barbaric invasion and occupation of Cyprus...
Text source: mignatiou.com