The wily Erdogan's civil war gambit pays off

After failing to win a majority in the general election of 7 June, the wily Erdogan was faced with a stark choice; form a coalition government with one of the opposition parties, or plunge the country into another election campaign. Erdogan chose the latter course.

Then he stole a crucial chapter out of Netanyahu's playbook.

Bibi has long known that there's nothing the voting public likes more than a tough guy at the top in turbulent times. And, if perchance the times are insufficiently turbulent... well, the guy at the top is perfectly placed to ratchet up the turbulence, is he not? A well-timed provocation or two, and whoopsie!... the obliging "terrorists" are only too happy to unleash Armageddon...

Enter the strongman!

Unlike Netanyahu, Erdogan was triply blessed with terror threats. At the time of the 7 June election, a two-year peace with one of those threats was holding, the war on the Gulenists was, at least at the moment, muted, and Erdogan was actively nurturing the third terrorist threat, the Islamic State.

Post 7 June, Erdogan cranked the turbulence knob to eleven. He declared the truce with the Kurds over, declared war on Islamic State (who conveniently obliged him with two deadly terror attacks on Kurdish groups in Turkey) and declared all out war on the "parallel state" of the "terroristic"  Gulenist network.

To impress upon the electorate the importance of a strongman at the top, Erdogan pushed his country to the very brink of civil war.

And it's worked!

Alas, it may not have worked well enough. While today's election delivered enough votes for single party rule, it did not deliver enough to allow the AKP to make unilateral changes to the constitution.

You know what that means... between now and the next election, the turbulence will need to be cranked even higher.

Dire times for Turkey.

So you think Stephen Harper runs a nasty election campaign?

He's got nothing on our erstwhile NATO ally, the wily Erdogan.

Big Steve has shown he's not averse to a bit of hate-mongering and a little race-baiting to give his political fortunes a boost ahead of the next election. But that's nothing!

Erdogan has literally set his country on fire in hopes that his AKP will win a majority in the November 1 election, effectively making him the fire chief in charge of extinguishing the inferno he has unleashed.

That's ballsy!

What could go wrong?...

Hmm...

The current conflagration has its roots in the election of last June, where for the first time in recent memory the AKP failed to win a majority. None of that namby-pamby coalition government nonsense for Edorgan... no siree, he wants the whole enchilada!

So he calls a new election for November. Then he rips a few pages out of Netanyahu's playbook.

How best to convince the electorate that they need a strongman at the helm in these dangerous times?

Why, make these dangerous times exponentially more dangerous, of course!

Conveniently, a suicide bombing in the Turkish city of Suruc came along in the nick of time. Next day ISIS took credit, and voila!

The Turks were off to the war on terror against ISIS!

Except they weren't. Even though the 30 Turkish citizens who died in the Suruc bombing were Kurds, Erdogan's war on terror has focused not on ISIS, but on Kurdish sovereignty groups!

That's an unfortunate fact which leads many to conclude that the wily Erdogan has been in cahoots with ISIS all along.

See, Big Steve's not such a bad guy after all.

Slow-motion coup unfolding in Turkey

When we looked in on Fethullah Gulen a year ago we speculated that American security services were grooming him for something special.

Recent goings on in Turkey draw into focus what that "something special" might be. Gulen is to be nothing less than the Washington-endorsed unifier of Islam and saviour of the Muslim people.

The wily Erdogan is now fighting for his political life. There are enough Gulen allies throughout his government that they know where the bodies are buried (sadly, this may soon prove to be more than a metaphor). Corruption allegations against Erdogan's inner circle will be a high bar for him to clear. What will most likely happen is that in his heavy-handed way Erdogan will over-react against his perceived enemies, public confidence in his government will erode, and Gulen-linked challengers for the leadership will emerge.

All of which seems quite an achievement for a pious man of peace who makes his home in the Pennsylvania hills an hour and a half west of New York City. When you read his "sermons"  they remind you of nothing so much as typical New Age self-helpy claptrap that could come from any crystal rubber working to cultivate a following.

It's not hard to see why his message of working hard in this life to get your reward in the next would appeal to the American authorities. If you get enough Muslim folks believing that, chants of "death to America" will be a thing of the past. His attitude towards big business is also welcome. Indeed, the humble man of God has a global business empire of his very own that spans banking, insurance, construction and much more. Unlike his philosophy for individuals, his businesses seem to operate with a view to making a profit in this world, not the next.

So the next few months will be interesting indeed for Turkish politics. Look for pro-Gulen candidates to emerge in time for the elections. Gulen himself will not directly dirty his hands in Turkish politics; he will stay put in Pennsylvania.

After all, he has bigger kebabs to fry; he has been anointed to unify ALL Muslims, not just the Turks.