by Pepe Escobar – posted with permission
Once again it was Russia that just prevented the threatened ‘Muslim invasion’ of Europe advertised by Erdogan
At the start of their discussion marathon in Moscow on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with arguably the most extraordinary diplomatic gambit of the young 21st century.
Putin said: “At the beginning of our meeting, I would like to once again express my sincere condolences over the death of your servicemen in Syria. Unfortunately, as I have already told you during our phone call, nobody, including Syrian troops, had known their whereabouts.”
This is how a true world leader tells a regional leader, to his face, to please refrain from positioning his forces as jihadi supporters – incognito, in the middle of an explosive theater of war.
The Putin-Erdogan face-to-face discussion, with only interpreters allowed in the room, lasted three hours, before another hour with the respective delegations. In the end, it all came down to Putin selling an elegant way for Erdogan to save face – in the form of, what else, yet another ceasefire in Idlib, which started at midnight on Thursday, signed in Turkish, Russian and English – “all texts having equal legal force.”
Additionally, on March 15, joint Turkish-Russian patrolling will start along the M4 highway – implying endless mutating strands of al-Qaeda in Syria won’t be allowed to retake it.
If this all looks like déjà vu, that’s because it is. Quite a few official photos of the Moscow meeting prominently feature Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu – the other two heavyweights in the room apart from both Presidents. In the wake of Putin, Lavrov and Shoigu must have read the riot act to Erdogan in no uncertain terms. That’s enough: now behave, please – or else face dire consequences.
The second Ataturk
A predictable feature of the new ceasefire is that both Moscow and Ankara – part of the Astana peace process, alongside Tehran – remain committed to maintaining the “territorial integrity and sovereignty” of Syria. Once again, there’s no guarantee that Erdogan will abide.
It’s crucial to recap the basics. Turkey is deep in financial crisis. Ankara needs cash – badly. The lira is collapsing. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) is losing elections. Former prime minister and party leader Ahmet Davutoglu – who conceptualized neo-Ottomanism – has left the party and is carving his own political niche. The AKP is mired in an internal crisis.
Erdogan’s response has been to go on the offensive. That’s how he re-establishes his aura. Combine Idlib with his maritime pretensions around Cyprus and blackmail pressure on the EU via the inundation of Lesbos in Greece with refugees, and we have Erdogan’s trademark modus operandi in full swing.
In theory, the new ceasefire will force Erdogan to finally abandon all those myriad al Nusra/ISIS metastases – what the West calls “moderate rebels,” duly weaponized by Ankara. This is an absolute red line for Moscow – and also for Damascus. There will be no territory left behind for jihadis. Iraq is another story: ISIS is still lurking around Kirkuk and Mosul.
No NATO fanatic will ever admit it, but once again it was Russia that just prevented the threatened “Muslim invasion” of Europe advertised by Erdogan. Yet there was never any invasion in the first place, only a few thousand economic migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Sahel, not Syrians. There are no “one million” Syrian refugees on the verge of entering the EU.
The EU, proverbially, will keep blabbering. Brussels and most capitals still have not understood that Bashar al-Assad has been fighting al Nusra/ISIS all along. They simply don’t understand the correlation of forces on the ground. Their fallback position is always the scratched CD of “European values.” No wonder the EU is a secondary actor in the whole Syrian tragedy.
I received excellent feedback from progressive Turkish analysts as I attempted to connect Erdogan Khan’s motivations with Turkey’s history and the empires of he steppes.
Their argument, essentially, is that Erdogan is an internationalist, but in Islamic terms only. Since 2000 he has managed to create a climate of denying ancient Turkish nationalist motives. He does use Turkishness, but as one analyst stresses, “he has nothing to do with ancient Turks. He’s an Ikhwani. He doesn’t care about Kurds either, as long as they are his ‘good Islamists.’”
Another analyst points out that, “in modern Turkey, being ‘Turkish’ is not related to race, because most Turkish people are Anatolian, a mixed population.”
So, in a nutshell, what Erdogan cares about is Idlib, Aleppo, Damascus, Mecca and not Southwest Asia or Central Asia. He wants to be “the second Ataturk.” Yet nobody except Islamists sees him this way – and “sometimes he shows his anger because of this. His only aim is to beat Ataturk and create an Islamic opposite of Ataturk.” And creating that anti-Ataturk would be via neo-Ottomanism.
Crack independent historian Dr Can Erimtan, whom I had the pleasure to meet when he still lived in Istanbul (he’s now in self-exile), offers a sweeping Eurasianist background to Erdogan’s dreams. Well, Vladimir Putin has just offered the second Ataturk some breathing room. All bets are off on whether the new ceasefire will metastasize into a funeral pyre.
You mean he is trying to save Erdoğan from himself. That’s a tall order. Sorry, forgot a word there.
Erdoğan really dreams of being a second Yavuz Sultan Selim.
It’s true that Ataturk is the opposite of Erdoğan, but notably for his genuine peace with his neighbors foreign policy, not Erdoğan’s faux “zero problems with our neighbors”, which quickly morphed into problems with all Turkey’s neighbors.
After the Turkish independence war, Ataturk made a deliberate attempt to seek peace with all Turkey’s wartime enemies, including Greece, and this effort succeeded in his lifetime. In this way, Ataturk is very like Putin, Xi and Assad, as well as the late Chavez and now Maduro
It surely is most extraordinary that, in the year 2020, a nation like Turkey can be allowed openly to invade its neighbour Syria and attack that nation’s armed forces with its own army and air force.
The UN Charter clearly states that such an invasion is utterly illegal and unjustifiable unless it has been ordered by the UN Security Council (it hasn’t and won’t be) or the invaded country (Syria) has previously attacked Turkey (it hasn’t and won’t).
The paper-thin excuse is that, somehow, a state of anarchy or civil war in Syria somehow threatens Turkey, so the Turkish government is justified in invading Syria to reimpose order and peace. Yet the invasion has done the exact opposite.
Of course all this dishonest has one source: Washington. Since 1945 the USA, the world’s richest and most powerful nation, has consistently, systematically and eliberately ignored the authority of the UN and all international courts, and attacked or invaded sovereign states scores of times – inflicting literally more than 10 million deaths, even more injuries, driving millions from their homes and sometimes their countries, destroying legitimate democratic governments and smashing the infrastructure of whole peoples.
Yet somehow all of this has been deemed acceptable by the great and the good, the governments of the West, the MSM and the chattering classes.
Clearly Mr Shoigu’s medicine is the only effective remedy.
A fish rots from the head down and the fish-head of the region is The Jewish State.
The Yinon Plan, and Wesley Clark’s (a crypto) “Seven nations in seven years boast” arfe proof, if more proof were needed since Israel has ripped off all its layers of masking in these last two Trump years.
Enlightening piece. I wondered at the hyper-reactivity of the ego in question. It does make sense though, especially considering the pseudo religious distortions of some of the ‘behind the scenes’ power brokers of the west, all magically intertwined with some example of empire or other, of course (tailored no doubt to whichever chosen agent being manipulated at whatever time).
It is still all about expanding territorial boundaries as an equate to a leader’s ego ambitions, is it not? How about “one people, one planet, share the earth” as a sane new narrative?
The expected cosmopolitan flaw in your argument is the assertion; “one people.”
It is bad enough that the the formerly sovereign states (sort of) of the Anglo-Zionist Empire (AUS/NZ/US/UK/CAN) are now reduced to the status of ‘eyes’ as in The Five Eyes + Israel.
Why would anyone not notice that Russia and President Putin, and all their allies, are already calling for a ‘multi-polar’ world comprised of sovereign states and, by extension, peoples?
Platon, get ready for perpetual war, conflict and mass murder – same old.
Anyone remind me what is hapening on rhe northern border of Syria- Turkey…..kinda coloured light blue on the various maps recently published????? Does TAF occupy in some sense of the word….have some kind of a presence….joint patrols with Russia…USA occupying/ patrolling independantly and confronting Russia…..whatever?
Ta.
”No NATO fanatic will ever admit it, but once again it was Russia that just prevented the threatened ’Muslim invasion’ of Europe advertised by Erdogan.”
Amusingly, the Weltanschau of today’s NATO fanatics have disposed of the Islamophobia which was all the rage just a generation ago. They might not feel too happy about the Anglozionazis openly joining hands with Islamofascist regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, but this is in full accordance with Nussiminen’s law which stipulates:
So the Western petty bourgeoisie sees how NATO in general and its member state Turkey in particular create and subsequently direct refugee torrents right into Whitey’s Heimat. On this basis, Islamophobia is evidently a non-starter. Really, if Islamofascists are all right in the eyes of the Ziofascists, the Islamophobes had better not be too upfront about their grievances, lest they yearn for the ultimate insult of being accused of closet anti-something, LOL.
”The EU, proverbially, will keep blabbering. Brussels and most capitals still have not understood that Bashar al-Assad has been fighting al Nusra/ISIS all along.”
I don’t think the Euro-cretins give a hoot about Assad except for the fact that he is — and how! — an insurmountable hindrance to Zionazi designs and ditto conspiracies.
”The EU, proverbially, will keep blabbering. Brussels and most capitals still have not understood that Bashar al-Assad has been fighting al Nusra/ISIS all along.”
I am afraid that the EU has understood that all to well since this all began.
The problem is that, in a metapahysical sense at the very least, the EU has now become al Nusra/ISIS.
It is the Jihadis of the EU, as the battle is lost, who are coming “home” to roost.
Escobar’s article “Empire of Steppes” is an interesting one, specially from historical point of view.
Long history of central Asia for four thousand years has registered incessant flow of tribes from east toward west. Some historian has depicted this flow as the great goat path. Those tribes were on move all the time, with no sedentary living. The tribe men tied himself to a goat, when sleeping, otherwise once woke up the herd was moved without him. The goat was grass path finder.
In occasions sedentary civilizations were weaker, tribes invaded and plundered civilized societies
We can see clearly the fight and resistance of sedentary civilization against tribal flow from east and north in Avesta text ( there was no Turkic tribes that time).
Around 6 to 7 century Turkic tribes appears in east-north. Soon after that, Islam appeared in west, and change everything profoundly. Islam is a deconstruction of history, of faith, of mind and way of thinking, living style, know-how, science, warship, body, social hierarchy, classes, casts.
Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad constructed a new power monument based on Islamic values, over the ruins of Sassanian empire. Sassanian empire had some confrontation with Turkic tribes in eastern borders. But Abbasid empire, soon, changed rule of engagements with Turks. Abbasid was in need of non Persian militant to contain Persians. Arab tribes had not enough population to create a powerful army to fight and contain Persians. Further more Arab tribes were too de-constructive ( exactly like Daesh today). That was the historical marriage of Islam and Turks. Abbasid used Turkic people in army all the time. Turkic tribes could, with simple shamanic tribal and ancestral beliefs, converted to Islam, easily. They were loyal militant in army. Further more Abbasid diplomatic institutions, all the time, encouraged Turkic tribes to invade Persian sedentary local governments. Turkic dynasties appeared in Iran, however all of them had short life span. As the prominent historian, Ibn Khaldon, has calculated, turkic triable empires life span was three generation, let say some 75 years or less than a centruy. That is the maturity of tribal solidarity power with Islamic de-constructive power modifier.
The last Abbasid diplomatic mission encouraged mongol to invade Iran.
Non of the above historical parameter has contributed to Erdoghan phenomena. Even the Gray wolves and other pan-turkism has a very vague relevance to the history.
Ottoman empire is the only Turkic dynasty lasted 5 century. That was a different phenomena in history.
Very interesting argument.
“Turkic dynasties appeared in Iran, however all of them had short life span. As the prominent historian, Ibn Khaldon, has calculated, turkic triable empires life span was three generation, let say some 75 years or less than a centruy.”
The Turkic Kingdom of Khazaria, which after its 9th C. conversion became Ashkenazi “Jews,” lasted somewhat longer, but that was early on. The 7th – 9th C.saw much less natural competition floating around the Silk Road. In fact the Road may have taken a detour to avoid the Khazars who were notorious raiders, plunderers, bandits and mercenaries.
The Ashcanazi Jew tyranny (AKA Bolsheviks) which ran the attempted Genocide of Russians between 1917 and approximately 2000 (with some brief respites) fits the three generation model closely.
So does, thank Jahweh I guess, the State of Israel whose sell-by date is certainly up but which goes on by inertia.
Using the above formula, I estimate that the Christians and Muslims of the US will be free of their newly-minted `Jewish` Tyranny by the year 2100.
Thanks for your comment. My knowledge of Khazaris is so little, so my reply may be very primitive here. I guess, Khazari state inception was around 640, and their marriage with Judaism was around 750, almost at the third generation that marriage happened, soon they made a military alliance with Abbasid. That means the Khazar Turkic tribal solidarity power at third generation was depleted, afterward they would not survive except change the way of life and accept superior powers ( military, judicial, culture, rule of law etc) .
You can see today Al-Saudi tribal engine almost exhausted and they are not smart enough to face reality of forces ( internal as well as external forces), they are doomed.
I do not agree to apply Ibn Khaldun formula to the state of Israel and USSR. Ibn Khaldun discussed in details about his observations and theorizing his concept. His theory is based on nomad tribal internal potential force. While USSR and Israel were not originated from nomads. These were/are clear examples of financial oligarchy of imperialism.
arata: » Around 6 to 7 century Turkic tribes appears in east-north. … Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad constructed a new power monument based on Islamic values, over the ruins of Sassanian empire. … Arab tribes had not enough population to create a powerful army to fight and contain Persians. «
Just a remark concerning these dark ages. German chronology researcher Heribert Illig has argued that about 300 years have been inserted into European chronology, years that have never taken place, invented years, invented time, existing only on parchment, not in the archeological record. According to Illig, invented timespan runs from 614 to 911, tentatively. Which means that Charlemagne, the central figure of the European Middle Age, has never lived. He is a fictionary king and emperor.
The argument is a complex one as it involves chronology, astronomy, solar/lunar calendars, Easter calculus, architecture and ancient construction technology, metallurgy, numismatics, archeology and many other things that are detailed in his books, of which I have so far read only two.
German establishment expert historians of the early Middle Age have been unable to destroy Illig’s argument twenty years ago when there was a lot of interest in the topic due to the advent of the year 2000, and have subsequently chosen to stifle the debate, using silence as a weapon.
The point of relevance here is that the possibility of artificial timespans – fictionary time, fake time – should be taken into account when trying to make sense of ancient history with its ups and downs, its tall stories of battle and conquest, empire and glory, and then decay and invasions, by Mongols or Vikings, Turks or Hungarians.
Chronology is not at all such a rock solid thing as we are taught. In ancient times, there was a variety of both calendars and eras at work concurrently in different regions, the handling of which was expert knowledge and did not concern the populace.
For instance, what is the real story of Arabo-Islamic Expansion? Did Arab nomads really accomplish all that? Or was a more advanced urban civilization the driving force? Was it military conquest or mental/spiritual conquest?
@Lumi
Thanks for your interesting comments.
Heribert Illig is not the first, but he is last one who brought into light the chronological defects of western history and calendar. Before him number of historian shed some light to the forgeries of history, among them you can see Joan Hardouin a French Jesuit, around 1700, who believed that most of the art and literature from ancient Greek and Rome were 13 century forgeries. Then a Russian mathematician Anatoly Fomenko, around 1980, expanded Hardouin’s claim, by using math and statistical algo to prove more forgeries of Greek, Egyptian, Chinese and Arab phantom histories. Taha Hussein the famous Egyptian writer of 20 century is another one, who challenged Islamic Arab history and forgeries of Arab pre-Islamic poetries and holy book which caused him danger of life. I know there are more historian who are aware of forgeries of history, but their voices are suppressed by main stream academy. There are plenty of obvious forgeries in archaeologist works in Mesopotamia in 19 century. Regretfully non-forgery facts in ancient middle east and India is rare.
Regrading your last paragraph:
“what is the real story of Arabo-Islamic Expansion? Did Arab nomads really accomplish all that? Or was a more advanced urban civilization the driving force? Was it military conquest or mental/spiritual conquest?”
History of middle east is not history of empires, that is a misleading method. Middle east is the crossroad of history, the merging crucible of nomads. Islam is the last era of middle east. Islam did not pull down the Sassanian empire but the empire collapsed. Why Sassanian empire collapsed? It was too old, dysfunctional, un-able to manage nomad flow in the crossroad. So, the floodgate shattered. Two centuries of flood flow settled with Islam. Almost two centuries of early Islam has no written history, everything is oral history! Almost no concrete material, no written document, no coin, no parchment no papyrus evidence for the first century. Second century was era of deliberate forgery. No wonder commercially available industrial paper invented, because demand was so high for forgery.
Early Islam conquest is not true. Prophet Mohammad tribal troops was did not exceed few hundreds, less than one thousand. Hijaz population was not exceeding ten thousand. How they could manage to assemble a troop to attack Syria, Hemyar, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt?
But Islam embedded into the faith the right of nomad movement. Nomad was unlimited resource of warrior, self maintained, low cost ( while Sassanian army was too expensive, un-maintainable, un-susstenable). That is the secret of power of Islam. Arabic language was the holy language, but Arab nomad had limited population, accordingly had limited resources. On the other hand there was an unlimited nomad resources. Africans nomads merged to Islam conquered from Egypt to Andalusia ( Spain), Turk nomads in the east, over centuries, continuously moved into Islam and conquered up to India.
14:59 Russia Requests Closed Meeting of UNSC on Friday to Inform Partners on Agreements With Turkey on Idlib – Sources
“Russia [has] requested a meeting to brief the Security Council on the agreements reached with Turkey on Idlib”, the source said.
According to the UN Security Council schedule, the meeting will take place at 12:15 p.m. (17:15 GMT).
18:38 Security Council Fails to Adopt Statement Backing Russia-Turkey Agreements on Idlib – Nebenzia
“We briefed the Security Council on the agreements reached yesterday in Moscow. Members of the Security Council to various extents took note and welcomed the agreement”, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia told reporters. “We wanted to give a joint statement for the press, but due to the position of one delegation, it was not possible”.
19:09 US Blocks UNSC Joint Statement Endorsing Russia-Turkey Agreement on Syria – Source
The United States blocked the UN Security Council’s press statement endorsing the Russia-Turkey agreements on Syria, a diplomatic source said on Friday.
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/202003061078492264-live-updates-conflict-abates-in-syrias-idlib-amid-ceasefire/
This is just horrible and a serious problem.
MAJOR: Al Nusra deploys to front line in Donbass
Reinforcements from the ranks of terrorist groups in the Middle East arrived at the Kiev militants on the front line with the Lugansk People’s Republic, according to the Office of the People’s Police of the LPR.
Leave that to Kadyrov and the Chechens. They know to a T how to deal with Takfiris and Ukronazis.
Was watching the little BBC America half-hour news segment this morning on TV. They ran a story in which a “reporter” interviewed some “Syrian women” who were allegedly waiting at the border to be admitted to Greece. The women were completely covered by black bags, only visible through eye slits.
I cannot watch the BBC without smirking. In ’14 or ’15, they ripped off some video footage by Graham Phillips and repurposed it as ‘Russian aggression’. In it, there was a place in the Donbass under shelling attack — the people were swearing at Poroshenko, I could make out the name although I do not understand the language (watched it on Graham’s twitter account back then). The Beeb just shamelessly deleted the soundtrack and the voiceover babbled on about Russian tanks…
Anywho, in this morning’s video, these anonymous bag-women were going on about how they just didn’t know what to do now that they were being kicked out of Turkey. I’m pretty sure the whole thing was scripted and edited together in a studio. (of course in the story, they fail to mention that Turkey is a NATO member and presumptive ally of Europe)
Thanks, Saker, for this site with your analyses, also thanks to Pepe, and to commenters Larchmonter and Auslander. It is refreshing to hear a few facts now and then.
Oh and almost forgot — a million thanks to the mods!. I love you guys n’ gals, even if you don’t always wave my babblings through.
I can only imagine, having seen the unfiltered internet on a few occasions, and this site has to be one of the toughest ones to manage.
The women were . . . what?! Yeah, sounds pretty fake–I’ve never heard of any Syrian women dressing like that, it’s not at all a Syrian kind of thing. Maybe somewhere in some town taken over by headchoppers they made the women dress like that, for two weeks before they got their asses kicked, but they wouldn’t keep doing it after they became refugees.
I disagree in Italy women start wearing black, in Greece they don’t go outside the house after puberty un-escorted, you just don’t see young women roaming. By the time you get to Turkey you frequently see women in black and entire body covered.
You get down to Syria and it would all depend upon how ‘muslim’ they are, and especially how conservative their branch of muslim is-is, but its quite obvious to me as a traveler, who has crawled from Ireland through MENA on through Africa, that women start changing at Italy, even though they call them ‘christians’ in say Italy-Greece, they wear black most of the time.
The only time I see Greek women 12-30 truly free is in say ‘Athens’ which is just a big city, but you get in the small villages, and you might as well be in a small muslim village, same in Muslim parts of Africa, you just don’t see young women, and if you didn’t you wouldn’t know cuz they’re all covered up
On trains in Italy & Greece I have frequently seen western women mauled by gangs of young men who think that a woman showing any part of her body is a common whore. Thus if I were a woman traveling alone anywhere south of Milan I would cover my body.
EU is a secondary actor? I do expect them to become a giant Disneyland attached to Eurasia around mid-century unless destroyed by indiscriminate immigration before that.
I expect the Euro-trash, absent immigration, to die out. LGBTQ has its limits, after all.
Excellent news in a very well-written submission; thank you, Saker.
The EU, proverbially, will keep blabbering. Brussels and most capitals still have not understood that Bashar al-Assad has been fighting al Nusra/ISIS all along. They simply don’t understand the correlation of forces on the ground.
On the contrary I think the EU understands only to well what is going on and what the stakes are. Europe and its Petainist/Quisling regimes will do and say whatever their American masters dictate. The EU is an American occupied/controlled zone; a geostrategic bloc serving as a secondary tier of the Anglo-Zionist NATO empire, with the US and Israel being the first tier. Eurasia is thus bottled up ion its western frontiers and at its eastern end by other occupied regimes such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
These states are not sovereign and are governed by a set of imposed colonial administrators who , to all intents and purposes, appear to resemble American-trained ventriloquist dummies who have duly imbibed the AZ patter in addition to their much vaunted ‘values’.
The Americans–and their AngloNazi Sphere allies–know damn well that they only way they can maintain America’s current Rules-Based International Dictatorship is to prevent Eurasian integration.
Hence, the Anglo-Americans need some crazy country led by a crazy ruler with a crazy ideology to blow it all up (like what they did to promote Nazi Germany and Adolph Hitler in the run-up to World War 2).
Enter: Recep Erdogan and his fellow pan-Turkic fascists with their fantasies of a neo-Ottoman caliphate.
For the Americans, Turkey=a geopolitical Suicide Bomber against Eurasia.
The question is: how to disarm this Turkish suicide bomber without getting blown up yourself?
Super article. Passing it on to my CIA acquaintances, though I suspect they crib from Pepe all the time in order to have more flirt-time at the water-cooler in Faggy Bottom (Langley, Virginia).
One comment: I believe that the Anatolian Turks are a branch of what Arthur Koestler first outed in his IED for Israel, ‘The Thirteenth Tribe’, namely, the Turkic Khazar origins of Askenazi “Jews”.
From the MoonofAlabama site:
”Best thing for me from the Moscow meeting between Erdogan and Putin was the subservient stature of the Turkish delegation in front of Putin and standing under the statue of Catherine the Great who defeated the Turks several times during the XVIII century.”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/images10/idlebmeet.jpg
Haha it was.
Why should Putin save Erdogan? Erdogan is a danger to the planet and should not have been saved by Putin in 2016. If Putin had not saved Erdogan then by now the terrorist invasion of Syria would have been long over.
@ Biswapriya
…. ” … Why should putin save erdogan ? … ” …
Yes. Why?
Putin saved erdogans life when cia tried to kill erdogan couple of years ago.
And erdogan knows it ,
and must remember it and respect putin and listen to putin suggestions.
On the other hand , if putin let cia kill erdogan , cia would post some cia puppet , and situation would be ten times worse and uncontolable by putin.
So , for a time , Putin can control such bad erdogan ,
but could putin control some worse , worse cia puppet replacement ?
Those joint Russian-Turkish highway patrols in Idlib province should be interesting training exercises ……….for future extension along OBOR where Turks are welcomed to share peace-keeping deployments…as well as share in its economic benefits.
Erdogan is not forever, nor is any leader that puts his armed forces and people in harm’s way, seemingly in perpetuity.
Hopefully a majority of Turkish servicemen deployed alongside Russian ones will enjoy the joint deployment and grasp the better alternative of peace and development compared to the alternative “glory” of suffering or dying for Erdogan’s not very practical caliphate dreams……….and that sentiment will prevail back in Anatolia…..as well.
Empire (large OR small……real or illusionary…..) is neither built …….nor deconstructed…. in a day.
To compartmentalise Erdoğan is to entirely miss the point. Yes, he is an Islamist, but before all else he is a pragmatist. Watching his progress over the last ten years is to see him rebuilding coalitions. Thus, soon after becoming President, he courted the liberals, giving the Kurds untold rights and allowing the publication of the Communist Manifesto. Turkey has long been dominated by the army, and Erdogan was determined not to go the way of Menderes. Gezi Park brought this to skidding halt when we saw Grey Wolves and “progressives” from the CHP joining forces against him. We then had him playing the Islamic card until the Gülenist purge took place, and finally we had the 2015 coup attempt. After each event, despite the fiery rhetoric, he played a cool hand. Now, his intervention in Syria underlines his role as the Islamic globalist. His nationalist rhetoric keeps the MHP onside, while the army, at last, feel themselves at the centre of things again.