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Failed coup in Turkey – a few initial thoughts
The
Saker
17
July, 2016
When
I first heard that a coup was in progress in Turkey my first thought
was that it was the USA’s way to punish Erdogan for his sudden
apology to Russia. Yes, sure, I realized that there were many
other possible explanations, but that was the one I was hoping for.
I even told my family that if this was a US-backed coup and if
Erdogan or his supporters said so, there would be hell to pay for the
USA. Less than 24 hour later my hopes were fulfilled:
Erdogan
was undeterred and he went on to publicly
declare ““Dear
President Obama, I told you this before, arrest Fethullah Gulen or
return him to Turkey. You didn’t listen. I call you on you again,
after the coup attempt – extradite this man from Pennsylvania to
Turkey. If we are strategic partners, do what is necessary,” Erdogan
said. He also explicitly called any nation supporting Gulen “an
open enemy of Turkey.”
Now
we need to remember that Erdogan has a history of zigs followed by
zags, so I would not put it past him to warmly embrace Obama in the
near future, but I find that unlikely. Why? Simply
because there is a lot of indirect evidence that the USA was, indeed,
behind this coup. Consider this:
The
coup involved a very large number of people. We can get a sense
of the magnitude of this coup by looking at the huge purge now taking
place in Turkey. According to various sources it includes no
less than 6’000
people,
many senior officers (including 5
generals and 29 colonels), 2’745
judges and prosecutors.
So the first thing we need to ask ourselves is how likely is it that
the USA did not know what was being prepared by the coup plotters?
I submit that in a country essentially at war, where US forces which
are involved in combat operations in nearby Syria and Iraq are
deployed and where the US reportedly keeps 50
tactical nuclear weapons,
the notion that the USA did not see this coming is far fetched.
Turkey is a NATO member state, which in practical terms means that
the US has full control over the Turkish military, and we know thanks
to Sibel Edmonds that the Turkish deep state has very close ties to
the US deep state – and we are to believe that nobody in the USA
saw this coming?
Furthermore,
when Erdogan says that the
USA did not hurry to condemn the coup,
he is absolutely correct. In fact, it was rather amusing for me
to see that all the western media was indicating that the coup had
succeeded, while the Iranians and Russians reported that the coup had
failed. If that was case of wishful thinking on both sides,
what does it tell us about the wishes?
Now
let’s look at the cui
bono angle.
Some, including
Fethullah Gulen,
have suggested that this coup was an a false flag operation by
Erdogan himself. And it is true that he
declared that
this coup was a “”gift
from God… because this will be a reason to cleanse our army“.
But the reality is that this coup is a huge embarrassment for Erdogan
who had already purged the Turkish armed forces many times over and
who could not take the risk of having a planned “false flag” turn
into the real thing: even General Bekir Ercan Van, the commander of
Turkey’s Incirlik airbase, has
been detained by
Turkish authorities accused of complicity in the attempted coup.
So not only did this coup show that Erdogan was hated at the very top
level of the Turkish armed forces, but the failure of the coup has
now resulted in a huge purge which will tremendously weaken the
Turkish armed forces who are involved not only in Syria but also in a
bloody civil war against the Kurds. So the notion that Erdogan
triggered this coup himself appears very far fetched to me.
Then,
of course, there is Russia. And while I wholeheartedly agree
that Russia will immensely benefit from this failed coup, I also am
convinced that the Russians never had anywhere near the means needed
to trigger a coup in Turkey. Neither the Kemalists nor the
supporters of Gulen are pro-Russian and Russia simply does not have
the kind of access in this major NATO country to trigger military
coups.
As
for the USA, had the coup succeeded, they could have placed a
compliant, and probably far more reliable, military leader at the
helm of power in Turkey. Now that the coup failed and now that
Erdogan appears to be furious at the USA, the USA is the big loser in
this outcome. But had the coup succeeded?
Keep
in mind that the war in 08.08.08 and the case of the US “multiple
personality disorder” over Syria have shown that there is no
unified US foreign policy. There is a White House foreign
policy, there is a CIA foreign policy, then there is a Foggy Bottom
foreign policy and a Pentagon foreign policy. We even know that
there is a separate Neocon foreign policy. Any one of
them coup have pushed the coup plotters to take action just like the
Neocons pushed Saakashvili to attacked South Ossetia.
Now
that the coup has failed, however, the situation has the potential to
strongly turned in Russia’s favor and even though the Russians will
never trust Erdogan, they are also fully aware of the objective
advantages Russian can reap from the current situation. The
ultimate success would be to trigger a withdrawal of Turkey from
NATO, but I personally doubt that this is possible. A more
realistic goal could be to accept that Turkey will nominally remain
in NATO, but that at least in Syria Erdogan will accept the
Russian-created reality on the ground. The fact that Lavrov
and Kerry have agreed to a joint long-term ceasefire whose
exact terms are to remain secret indicates to me that the Russians
forced the US into concessions which the latter don’t want to be
made public (and not the other way around because Moscow holds all
the cards now and Kerry has therefore no means to put pressure on
Russia). In other words, now that even the USA has basically
caved in, at least temporarily, the Turks have no reasons left to try
to impose anything on Syria.
The
current situation holds a tremendous potential for developments
favorable to Russia. I hope that the Russians will apply some
creative thinking and make maximal use of this new situation to
create a fait
accompli on
the ground in Syria. The best option for Russia would be to
have a reliable and predictable partner in Turkey. Alas, this
is not going to happen. The next best option is to have a weak
Turkey wasting most of its resources and energy dealing with internal
crises. This seems to be what will happen in the foreseeable
future. By any measure, this is a good thing for Russia, Syria
and, really, the entire region.
The
Saker
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