Tag Archives: Turkey

Erdogan or Erdo-gone in Turkey? by Tom Luongo

Posted on March 5, 2020 | Leave a comment

Erdogan is playing such a weak hand he may be forced from the game. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

“Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad”
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “Prometheus”

It looks like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is headed for the political gallows a lot quicker than I ever thought.

His offensive in Idlib has bogged down. And a day before he’s scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow Erdogan Turkish parliament degrades quickly as opposition speaks out against his Syria campaign.

This prompted a fistfight.

It’s clear Erdogan’s support at home is deteriorating quickly. And his push into Syria is a grave miscalculation as I’ve noted in other posts (here and here).

I spoke with Sputnik Radio’s newest show, Political Misfits, on this making the point that Erdogan is still convinced he can fill the vacuum left by a retreating U.S. to become the regional overlord in a new Middle East.

Yes, really, he’s that delusional.

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Erdogan’s Attempts to Blackmail Europe are Doomed to Fail, by Con Coughlin

Posted on March 5, 2020 | 1 comment

The rest of Europe is fed up with Turkish president Erdogan’s delusions of grandeur and rebuilding the Ottoman empire. From Con Coughlin at gatestoneinstitute.org:

  • If the current crisis facing Turkey is entirely of Mr Erdogan’s own making, that has not prevented the Turkish president from trying to deflect attention away from his own mishandling of the conflict by seeking to provoke a new migrant crisis in Europe.
  • When Turkey took the controversial decision last year to purchase Russia’s state-of-the-art S-400 anti-aircraft missile system, Mr Erdogan calculated that it would herald new era of friendly cooperation with Ankara’s long-standing rival in Moscow even if, by pressing ahead with the deal, the Turks risked jeopardising their relationship with NATO, which bitterly opposed the deal.
  • Russians now find themselves in a direct confrontation with Turkish forces in Idlib province, where the Turks are trying to protect a number of Islamist militias committed to overthrowing the Assad regime… [A]s the recent escalation in fighting has demonstrated, the Russians’ main priority is to support the Assad regime.
  • Mr Erdogan is also about to discover that there has been a hardening of attitudes among European leaders about dealing with unwanted migrants since the Turkish leader last used his blackmail tactics five years ago…. These days, senior politicians in Mrs Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democrats take a more hard-nosed approach to the migrant issue, with one senior party member warning the migrants this week, “There is no point coming to Germany. We cannot take you in.”
If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes he can bully European leaders by provoking a fresh migrant crisis in southern Europe, then he would be well-advised to think again. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)

If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan believes he can bully European leaders by provoking a fresh migrant crisis in southern Europe, then he would be well-advised to think again.

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Erdogan’s Dance of Death With NATO, by Daniel Lazare

Posted on March 4, 2020 | 1 comment

Erdogan is doing his best to get NATO to come to his aid in Syria (he’s playing the refugee card). Never underestimate the intelligence of generals and politicians; he may succeed. From Daniel Lazare at antiwar.com:

In order to understand why the war in Syria’s northwest Idlib province is likely to spread, it may be helpful to think back to the dark days of early World War II.

Britain was alone and on the ropes. Plenty of countries wished it well. But with France, Denmark, the Low Countries, Norway, and Poland all under the Nazi boot, no one was willing to step forward with anything along the lines of practical aid. The future looked grim, which is why murmurs in favor of a negotiated settlement were growing harder and harder to ignore.

But then the United States and Soviet Union entered the war, and suddenly Britain had the world’s two greatest industrial powers on its side. Grumbling ceased. Hitler was also eager for allies, yet the only ones he could come up with were Italy, Hungary, Romania, and Finland, third-rate powers all. All would fall by the wayside as the slaughter intensified while Britain, the US, and the USSR would go from strength to strength.

It’s not only how many guns and soldiers you have, in other words, but how many allies – and who those allies are.

Now flash forward to Syria eighty years later. Damascus is diplomatically isolated thanks to the unremitting hostility of the US. But, militarily, it’s the opposite. Not only does it enjoy the support of Hezbollah and Iraq-based militias loyal to Iran, but it’s also found an all-important ally in post-Soviet Russia. Before Vladimir Putin intervened in September 2015, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was visibly weakening under a jihadist onslaught financed by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the other Arab gulf oil monarchies. Afterwards, the situation stabilized and then – to Turkey’s fury since it also backed jihad – slowly turned in Assad’s favor.

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The Syria Deception, Understanding the geopolitical and psychological war against Syria. From Swiss Propaganda Research

Posted on March 4, 2020 | 1 comment

The US and its European lap dogs have wanted to get rid of the Syrian government since the 1940s. From Swiss Propaganda Research at swprs.org:

What is the Syria war about?

Contrary to the depiction in Western media, the Syria war is not a civil war. This is because the initiators, financiers and a large part of the anti-government fighters come from abroad.

Nor is the Syria war a religious war, for Syria was and still is one of the most secular countries in the region, and the Syrian army – like its direct opponents – is itself mainly composed of Sunnis.

But the Syria war is also not a pipeline war, as some critics suspected, because the allegedly competing gas pipeline projects never existed to begin with, as even the Syrian president confirmed.

Instead, the Syria war is a war of conquest and regime change, which developed into a geopolitical proxy war between NATO states on one side – especially the US, Great Britain and France – and Russia, Iran, and China on the other side.

In fact, already since the 1940s the US has repeatedly attempted to install a pro-Western government in Syria, such as in 1949, 1956, 1957, after 1980 and after 2003, but without success so far. This makes Syria – since the fall of Libya – the last Mediterranean country independent of NATO.

Thus, in the course of the „Arab Spring“ of 2011, NATO and its allies, especially Israel and the Gulf States, decided to try again. To this end, politically and economically motivated protests in Syria were leveraged and were quickly escalated into an armed conflict.

NATO’s original strategy of 2011 was based on the Afghanistan war of the 1980s and aimed at conquering Syria mainly through positively portrayed Islamist militias (so-called „rebels“). This did not succeed, however, because the militias lacked an air force and anti-aircraft missiles.

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Will Idlib be Putin’s Folly or Erdogan’s Rubicon? by Tom Luongo

Posted on March 2, 2020 | 1 comment

The best bet is that Idlib ends up being deluded Erdogan’s Rubicon. Putin doesn’t have too many follies to his credit. From Tom Luongo at tomlungo.me:

It’s been a dramatic few days in Syria. The Syrian Army pushed across Idlib Province to retake major strongholds of Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists who have controlled the region for years thanks to support from Turkey.

This provoked a major escalation from Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Major offensives by the jihadists, backed by Turkish armor and air power, pushed back the Syrian army from the outskirts of Idlib city and took back the town of Saraqib at the confluence of the M4 and M5 highways which are of major strategic importance.

That counterattack occurred while the Syrian Army had moved south to claim vast territory northeast of the Russian air base at Latakia.

Erdogan has been threatening for weeks for the Syrian army to halt its advance or face the brunt of the Turkish Army. He made good on those threats, but only after taking advantage of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s temperance.

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Quick update on the Turkey vs Syria, Russia and Iran, by the Saker

Posted on March 2, 2020 | 2 comments

Erdogan continues to play his weak hand in Syria. From the Saker at thesaker.is:

Quick update on the Turkey vs Syria, Russia and Iran

Dear friends,

Just a quick update: as I predicted, the Syrian forces have retaken most of the strategically crucial town of Saraqib.   Russia has confirmed that Russian military police units have already entered the town.

This crucial town was lost by the Syrians, largely due to the very effective use of attack drones by the Turks which the Syrians clearly did not anticipate.  However, after an initial streak of painful losses, the Syrian air defenses, probably assisted by Russian experts, have now adapted and retaken the control of the airspace over Idlib and scores of Turkish drones have now been shot down.

By the way, there was a hilarious incident when the Turkish-backed Takfiris declared that they had shot down a Su-24.  After it became clear that what they really shot down was a Turkish drone, the Takfiris declared that it was a Syrian or Russian drone.  Problem: on the wreckage you can easily see Turkish markings 🙂

In other news, it appears that there will be no four-way meeting in Istanbul, but that Erdogan will travel directly to Moscow to meet with Putin.  Most observers believe that Erdogan is desperate and that he will beg Putin to agree to some kind of deal.

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NATO: From Covert Sponsor to Artillery for Terrorists in Syria, by Finian Cunningham

Posted on February 29, 2020 | 1 comment

The US can’t allow its terrorist proxies in Syria to be defeated or it will lose its all important “presence” in that nation. From Finian Cunningham at strategic-culture.org:

NATO member Turkey was recently caught out providing artillery support for terror groups in Syria’s Idlib province; now leader of the NATO alliance, the United States, is hinting at Russia and Syria holding dialogue with the terrorists to curb the upsurge in conflict.

As Syria’s endgame closes, the protagonists and their proxies are coming more clearly into focus. NATO’s covert shadowy connection with the jihadist insurgents it has sponsored for regime change is being flushed out as the Syrian army and its Russian ally home in on the last stand of the terror groups.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this week ruled out any mediation with Tahrir Hayat al Sham (HTS), the main terrorist network holding out in Idlib in northwest Syria. Lavrov was referring to comments made earlier by US envoy James Jeffrey who suggested that HTS was “not a terrorist organization any more” and therefore might be included in negotiations for de-escalation.

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Putin keen to cool Turkish hawk down, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on February 23, 2020 | Leave a comment

Turkey is playing a weak hand in Syria and it’s up to Vladimir Putin to see that Erdogan quietly folds. From Pepe Escobar at asiatimes.com:

Idlib is Erdogan’s last stand, but the fighting goes way beyond Syria – it’s shaping as another NATO-Russia proxy war

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan reviews a guard of honour as he arrives at a meeting in Kutahya, Turkey, on January 20, 2018. Photo: Kayhan Ozer / Presidential Palace / Handout via Reuters
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan reviews a guard of honour as he arrives at a meeting in Kutahya, Turkey, in January 2018. File photo: Kayhan Ozer / Presidential Palace

That pesky “Assad regime” simply won’t go away. The new Western narrative on Syria is that the regime is about to “massacre” over 900,000 people fleeing the not really de-escalated zones across the countryside in Idlib and Aleppo provinces.

Context, as always, is absent. The fleeing masses – essentially conservative Sunnis – had been living in these areas under the yoke of myriad incarnations of al-Qaeda in Syria. Either they supported them, did their best to basically survive, or now know for sure the offensive by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is for real, and all jihadi holes, protected or not by human shields, will be bombed.

The most relevant story, once again, is what Sultan Erdogan wants. Ankara and Moscow – partners in the Astana Process that theoretically would pave the way for peace in Syria – are at a crossroads. There were lengthy talks earlier this week, and a crucial phone call between Erdogan and Putin on Friday night. The stalemate prevails – they appear to have only agreed to “intensify contacts”.

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Erdogan’s Excellent Syrian Adventure, by Daniel Lazare

Posted on February 19, 2020 | 1 comment

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyiv Erdogan has bit off more than he can chew in Syria. From Daniel Lazare at antiwar.com:

What’s a political strongman to do when his economy is weak and another round of financial turbulence is on the way? When political support is languishing and a series of budget-busting construction projects has people shaking their head in dismay?

The answer is obvious: he invades another country in order to distract attention and give his poll numbers a boost. Better yet, he invades two countries and then travels to a third in order to make highly bellicose comments about a forth. Then while the press back home buzzes with excitement, he folds his hands and prays that somehow it will all work out.

That’s the situation that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan finds himself in now that various foreign adventures are going to pot. Turkey has been in economic crisis since 2018 when excessive indebtedness sent the currency plunging while Erdogan’s political standing has been on the wane ever since center-leftists seized control of the Istanbul city government last June.

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It’s time to reclaim Syria’s road to recovery, by Pablo Escobar

Posted on February 17, 2020 | Leave a comment

Two has two very unattractive options in Syria. From Pablo Escobar at asiatimes.com:

Erdogan de facto supports al-Qaeda remnants while facing either humiliating retreat from or total war against Syria

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, neo-Ottoman extraordinaire, is not exactly inclined to commit seppuku, the Japanese act of ritual suicide.

But if not through the perspective of neo-Ottomanism, how to explain the fact he is de facto supporting al-Qaeda remnants in Syria while facing two unsavory options – a humiliating retreat from or total war against the Syrian Arab Army?

Everything about the slowly evolving, messy chessboard in Idlib hinges on highways: the imperative for the government in Damascus to control both the M5 highway between Damascus and Aleppo and the M4 highway between Latakia and Aleppo. Fully reclaiming these two crucial axes will finally turbo-charge the ailing Syrian economy.

Very few players nowadays remember the all-important Sochi memorandum of understanding signed between Russia and Turkey in September 2018.

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