The Ramifications of Turkey's Failed Coup

Sarasota, July 24, 2016

The really important news over the past few weeks, as far as Israel and the Middle East are concerned, has nothing to do with the just finished Republican conference or the just starting Democratic one, or the gut-wrenching violence against police and citizens in our cities. And it has little to do with almost daily Islamist Jihadist terrorism attacks in Europe, Israel, the US and around the world. Those are certainly important and newsworthy...though not, at least at this stage, in a potentially present and future changing dimension.

No. In my opinion that classification belongs to the failed "coup" against the elected government of president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey.

It is also the most under-reported major news story, at least here in the US. This is probably because of the difficulty of news writers to understand and explain, in coherent 15 second soundbites, what was going on...especially with so many other things happening at the same time.

Historical Background:  

• The Turkish Ottoman Empire (1299-1922) was a Sunni Islamic Caliphate, or "Islamic State", with the sultan also holding the title of "Caliph".
• Under the leadership of Turkish War of Independence victor general Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Sultanate was abolished on November 1, 1922, and the last sultan, Mehmed VI left the country two weeks later.
• The new Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNA) officially declared the Republic of Turkey on October 29, 1923, claiming: "The Republic of Turkey is a democratic, secular and social state governed by the rule of law, which has the principle of separation of powers."
• The Caliphate was constitutionally abolished on March 3, 1924.
• The new constitution Ataturk pushed through was geared to assure that no religion, especially Islam, would have any political influence in "secular" Turkey.
• Parties that promoted a religious agenda could not run in elections.
• The newly purged Turkish military was designated guardian of the secular state, with sweeping powers to arrest, put on trial and even outlaw Islamist movements and politicians. This, of course, did not sit well with Islamic traditionalists.
• Several times, the military has stepped in to arrest and outlaw "Islamist" party leaders, including in 1998 when it outlawed and dismantled the pro-Islamist Welfare Party (RP), which Erdogan was a member of.
• Erdogan served10 months in prison for inciting religious intolerance, after which he claimed to abandon "openly" Islamist politics and established the "moderate" conservative AKP party in 2001. AKP won a landslide victory in the 2002 general election, with the party's co-founder Abdullah Gul becoming Prime Minister, until his government annulled Erdogan's ban from political office.
• Erdogan subsequently became Prime Minister in 2003.
• Over the past years there have been several rounds of purges in the Turkish military, with staunch secularists officers being removed, retired or put on trial for "treason", and being replaced by Islamic sympathetic ones.
• Erdogan denies wanting to impose Islamic values, saying he is committed to secularism. But he supports Turks' right to express their religious beliefs more "openly".
• Some supporters nickname him "Sultan" - a fond reference to the Ottoman Empire...
• Under Erdogan, in 2013 Turkey lifted rules banning women from wearing headscarves in the country's state institutions - with the exception of the judiciary, military and police - ending a decades-old Ataturk restriction.
• Critics also pointed to Erdogan's failed bid to criminalize adultery, and his attempts to introduce "alcohol-free zones", as evidence of his alleged Islamist intentions.

Which brings me to the failed "Coup" and its ramifications for Israel, The Middle East and the US.

Assuming this was a real coup (I have my doubts...), it was carried out by a small group of officers and soldiers who were alarmed by the direction Erdogan is taking the country in several areas:

1. The systematic erosion of Ataturk's strict secularist policies.
2. The disappearing chance of Turkey joining the EU.
3. The multiple arrests without trial of anti-Erdogan politicians, journalists and activists.
4. The frequent suspensions of civil rights by imposing "Emergency Law" after terrorist attacks.
5. The changes in the military command personnel.
6. The massive, ongoing influx of unscreened Syrian and Iraqi refugees.
7. The perceived anemic responses to ISIS and PKK (Kurdish Workers Party) terrorist attacks.
8. Growing relations with the anti-American Muslim Brotherhood.

The coup failed. According to official reports, most of its perpetrators were either killed, or arrested, tortured...and then killed.

In the first hours some 6,000 officials plus the same number of military personnel, mainly officers including Karima Komash, a female F16 pilot, 12 generals, 1 Admiral, 56 captains, 170 pilot cadets, and more were immediately arrested, many charged with treason. As of this writing, since the "coup":

• 21,700 Education Dept. civil servants have been fired
• 21,000 teachers have lost their posts
• 8,000 policemen and women fired.
• 2,745 judges and prosecutors suspended
• 1,577 University deacons suspended
• 1,500 finance ministry officials fired
• 262 military judges and prosecutors suspended
• 257 workers in the prime minister's office fired 

The facts that these lists were ready, and that the security teams needed for the arrests were in place, lead me to believe that the whole thing was staged - by Erdogan.

It reminds me of the Reichstag fire in 1933 which was used by the Nazi Party as proof that communists were plotting against the German government, and was pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany.

Erdogan's popularity had been waning, while he was trying to assume more direct, dictatorial powers, 

1. The "coup" has now made him a "national hero".
2. He claimed that a rebel pilot in an F-16 had his plane targeted but did not fire. Why?
3. The "state of emergency" gives Erdogan and his cabinet new powers to implement laws without parliamentary approval. It also allows Ankara to censor media broadcasts, search citizens, impose curfews and restrict gatherings both public and private.

But should we really care if Erdogan and his Islamist colleagues in AKP continue to establish the next Turkish/Sunni Sultanate/Caliphate by methodically eroding Kamal Ataturk's secular reforms?

You bet! We should care VERY MUCH because:

1. Turkey is the largest non-Arab Sunni-majority state in the region.
2. Its military is consistently ranked among the ten strongest in the world.
3. It is a member of NATO and, most concerning...:

A total of ninety (90!!!) B61 thermo-nuclear bombs are stored in Turkey at the Incirlik Air Base, 40 of which are allocated for use by the Turkish Air Force.

The medium and long-term ramifications of the failed coup against Erdogan are, at least at the moment, the establishment of a large, Sunni Islamist Turkish superpower with nuclear weapons, facing an Iranian Anti-Sunni Shiite superpower with nuclear weapons (thanks to the "Deal"), both hating each other and together hating Israel, which reportedly is also a nuclear superpower.

All this when the only visible and respected "responsible adult" currently in the Middle East is Vladimir Putin...

Now what could possibly go wrong?!?