Page 4 - TURKRptNov19
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1.0 Executive summary
Erdogan’s Syria attraction has ended. He invaded some parts of Syria and he is talking about building some cities there for Syrian immigrants although that sounds like a dream. His latest military adventure in Syria has brought Erdogan in a global demonisation rite that he has definitely not expected. However, he still feels safe under the wings of the Putin-Trump duo. Sure, he is sinking deeper into his hole but still manages to keep his head over the water. If there is a collapse, he may pull Turkey down together with him and his cronies.
Does the disquiet over Erdogan mean Ankara’s ambition to achieve net foreign inflows is now only pie in the sky?
Will Erdogan cling on in the fashion of his Venezuelan bestie Nicholas Maduro or is he destined to be overthrown with snap polls? Two possibilities definitely worth chewing over. Turkey’s next elections are not scheduled until 2023 but we had a bet, following the Istanbul revote in June, that it will not pass longer than one year until the next elections. We remain adhered to it.
The next attraction field in Syria is supposed to be Idlib, where recently the US forces killed the Islamic State leader a few kilometers near the Turkish border. There are some shy murmurs on what the Islamic State leader was doing that much close to the Turkish border in a region officially under control of Erdogan based on the Sochi agreement signed among Turkey-Russia-Iran.
There have been sufficient evidence on Erdogan’s businesses with the Islamic State (simply write Powertrans on Wikipedia) since the beginning (and currently for years) but do not forget Erdogan is just a figurant in the magnificent plan of carrying all jihadists from all-over the world to overthrow Assad. That plan was launched in 2011 when Hillary Clinton, not a neocon, was the US Secretary of State.
The current world order is collapsing and it is still unknown what will replace it. The world and the region where Turkey lays is subject to some unexpected developments during the collapse of neoliberalism/globalism. (See discussions under the headline “CONFERENCE CALL: Decline of the West and rise of the rest”, Section 2.4)
The House of Representatives has passed some resolutions to advise the US President to sanction Turkey, but requires Trump’s approval even if it passes through the Republican-held Senate. The US establishment is also digging into the inexplicably strong personal bond between Erdogan and Trump. Currently, they are mainly focused on Trump’s Ukraine scandal at the impeachment noise. They seem desperate in their efforts to stop Trump’s victory in November 2020 but some Erdogan-related scandals may create real troubles at home for the Turkish populist this time as he could not find what he expected from his Syria offensive and he is still losing ground at a quickening pace in parallel with deepening economic troubles.
Europe, including the UK, is also desperate and they have neither teeth nor will to create some real trouble for Erdogan ahead of noisy public relations activities. Erdogan bribes them with arms purchases (read the stories of “discussing/limiting/suspending arms sales to Turkey” as the list of Erdogan’s arms suppliers) and he threats them with sending Syrian immigrants.
Official data and Erdogan’s propaganda machine, which also dominates mainstream global news services and analysts for a while (See latest outlook
4 TURKEY Country Report November 2019 www.intellinews.com
