{"id":28673,"date":"2016-09-15T06:00:48","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T20:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=28673"},"modified":"2016-09-14T14:30:21","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T04:30:21","slug":"erdogans-tragic-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/erdogans-tragic-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Erdogan’s tragic choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ever since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won his first general election in late 2002, he\u2019s been obsessed with the idea that power would be wrested from him through a coup. He had good reason to worry even then. Turkey\u2019s ultra-secularist establishment, ensconced in the upper echelons of the judiciary and the military at the time, made no secret of its antipathy toward Erdogan and his political allies.<\/p>\n

Erdogan himself had been jailed for reciting religion-laced poetry, which prevented him from taking office immediately when his Justice and Development Party (AKP) assumed office in November 2002. In 2007, the military issued a statement opposing the AKP\u2019s candidate for president\u2014then largely a figurehead. And in 2008, the party narrowly escaped being shut down by the country\u2019s top court for \u2018anti-secular activities\u2019.<\/p>\n

The old guard\u2019s efforts largely backfired and served only to augment Erdogan\u2019s popularity. His strengthening grip on power might have mollified him and led to a less confrontational political style. Instead, in the ensuing years, his then-allies the G\u00fclenists\u2014followers of the cleric-in-exile Fethullah G\u00fclen\u2014managed to whip Erdogan\u2019s obsession into paranoia.<\/p>\n

From 2008 to 2013, G\u00fclenists in the police, judiciary, and media concocted a series of fictitious conspiracies<\/a> and plots against Erdogan, each more gory than the last. They ran sensational show trials<\/a> targeting military officers, journalists, NGOs, professors, and Kurdish politicians. Erdogan may not have believed all of the charges\u2014a military chief with whom he had worked closely was among those jailed\u2014but the prosecutions served their purpose. They fed Erdogan\u2019s fear of being toppled, and eliminated the remaining vestiges of the secularist regime from the military and civilian bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

The G\u00fclenists had another motive as well. They were able to place their own sympathisers in the senior ranks vacated by the military officers targeted by their sham trials. The G\u00fclenists had spent decades infiltrating the military; but the commanding heights had remained out of reach. This was their opportunity. The ultimate irony of July\u2019s failed coup<\/a> is that it was engineered not by Turkey\u2019s secularists, but by the G\u00fclenist officers Erdogan had allowed to be promoted in their stead.<\/p>\n

By the end of 2013, Erdogan\u2019s alliance with the G\u00fclenists had turned into open warfare. With the common enemy\u2014the secularist old guard\u2014defeated, there was little to hold the alliance together. Erdogan had begun closing G\u00fclenist schools and businesses and purging them from the state bureaucracy. A major purge of the military was on the way, which apparently prompted<\/a> G\u00fclenist officers to move pre-emptively.<\/p>\n

In any case, the coup attempt has fully validated Erdogan\u2019s paranoia, which helps explain why the crackdown on G\u00fclenists and other government opponents has been so ruthless and extensive. In addition to the discharge of nearly 4,000 officers, 85,000 public officials have been dismissed<\/a> from their jobs since 15 July, and 17,000 have been jailed. Scores of journalists have been detained, including many with no links to the G\u00fclen movement. Any semblance of the rule of law and due process has disappeared.<\/p>\n

A great leader would\u2018ve responded differently. The failed putsch created a rare opportunity for national unity. All political parties, including the Kurdish People\u2019s Democratic Party (HDP), condemned the coup attempt, as did the vast majority of ordinary people, regardless of their political orientation. Erdogan could have used the opportunity to rise beyond Islamist, liberal, secularist, and Kurdish identities to establish a new political consensus around democratic norms. He had a chance to become a democratic unifier.<\/p>\n

Instead, he has chosen to deepen Turkey\u2019s divisions and erode the rule of law even more. The dismissal and jailing of opponents has gone far beyond<\/a> those who may have had a role in the putsch. Marxist academics, Kurdish journalists, and liberal commentators have been swept up alongside G\u00fclenists. Erdogan continues to treat the HDP as a pariah. And, far from contemplating peace with the Kurdish rebels, he seems to relish the resumption of war with them.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this is a winning strategy. Keeping the country on high alert against perceived enemies and inflaming nationalist-religious passions serves to keep Erdogan\u2019s base mobilised. And it neutralises the two main opposition parties; both are highly nationalistic and therefore constitute reliable allies in the war against the Kurdish rebels.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Erdogan\u2019s offensive against G\u00fclen and his movement seems driven more by political opportunism than by a desire to bring the coup\u2019s organisers to justice. Erdogan and his ministers have endlessly griped about the United States\u2019 reluctance to extradite G\u00fclen to Turkey. Yet, nearly two months after the coup, Turkey hasn\u2019t formally submitted to the US any evidence of G\u00fclen\u2019s culpability. Anti-American rhetoric plays well in Turkey, and Erdogan isn\u2019t beneath exploiting it.<\/p>\n

In his testimony to the prosecutors investigating the coup, the army\u2019s top general has said that the putschists who took him hostage offered <\/a>to put him in contact that night with G\u00fclen. This remains the strongest evidence that G\u00fclen himself was directly involved. A leader intent on convincing the world of G\u00fclen\u2019s culpability would\u2019ve paraded his military chief in front of the media to elaborate on what happened that night. Yet the general hasn\u2019t been asked\u2014or allowed\u2014to speak in public, fueling speculation about his own role in the attempted coup.<\/p>\n

And so Turkey\u2019s never-ending cycle of victimisation\u2014of Islamists, communists, secularists, Kurds perennially, and now the G\u00fclenists\u2014has gained velocity. Erdogan\u2019s making the same tragic mistake he made in 2009\u20132010: using his vast popularity to undermine democracy and the rule of law rather than restoring them\u2014and thus rendering moderation and political reconciliation all the more difficult in the future.<\/p>\n

Erdogan\u2019s twice had the chance to be a great leader. At considerable cost to his legacy\u2014and even greater cost to Turkey\u2014he spurned it both times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won his first general election in late 2002, he\u2019s been obsessed with the idea that power would be wrested from him through a coup. He had good reason …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":535,"featured_media":28674,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[266,1766,747],"class_list":["post-28673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-coup-detat","tag-erdogan","tag-turkey"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nErdogan's tragic choice | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/erdogans-tragic-choice\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Erdogan's tragic choice | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ever since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won his first general election in late 2002, he\u2019s been obsessed with the idea that power would be wrested from him through a coup. 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