The Madness of Sultan Tayyip

1 - He has gutted much of the educated middle class of Turkey in his frantic persecution of all those he thinks might not be loyal to him.

2 - He has sent the Turkish Army into Syria in what was first described as border defense against IS (a group he has long supported) and is now revealed (by him) to be an effort to reach central Syria and depose Bashar Assad.  It appears that Russia (and perhaps the US as well) have made it clear to him that this will not be permitted.

3. Through his relentless leadership purges he has so weakened the Turkish armed forces that the country is no longer a credible military partner in the NATO alliance.

4.  He has so provoked the EU that its weakling leaders have suspended negotiations for Turkish membership.  They did this after first having given Sultan Tayyip a 6.6 billion Euro bribe to stop sending refugees into the EU. 

5.  As a response to suspension of the process of Turkish accession to EU membership, Sultan Tayyip has now threatened to re-open the faucet of volkervanderung into the EU. 

6. He has positioned Turkish forces in the Mosul area in such a way as to be seen by the Iraqi government as having irredentist claims in northern Iraq.

Anything else?  pl

Comments

[LeaNder]

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

this line seems to convey better and better what the presently increasing dynamics feel like to me.

9/11 woke me up from my self-chosen political slumber, at least concerning superior matters of politics 'cum' foreign relations.

Let's pick the Iraq War. Iraq Chronology, ... Kuwait, Clinton, US: Iraq Liberation Act(1998?), the Iraqi Disarmament Crisis, UNSCOM/Hans Blix, "Mission Accomplished"... ISIS ...

*******
Concerning money and power. A couple of bankers were fired over here recently, I learned yesterday. Without being given a reason in their termination notice. Their not addressed wrongdoing was that they dealt with private Iranian customers.

Aware of politics, the one interviewed, who had worked for the bank more then 20 years, had asked his superiors if this was OK. They reassured him everything was fine. Then matters developed dramatically. His bank sent him to NY for interrogation. Apparently he was asked to sign some kind of contract. Which would have made him some type of informer. He compared it to Stasi methods. What they wanted to know was everything around the costumers he had dealt with. ...

There are other similar but comparatively minor cases, where US law interferes with European or German law according to which they wouldn't have done anything wrong, like selling Cuban coffee. Terminates access to your Paypal account. Until you stop selling Cuban Coffee.

Two random picks - control of banks post 2008:
http://klauskastner.blogspot.de/2016/11/ecb-supervises-tbtf-banks-really.html

Cuba?
http://klauskastner.blogspot.de/2016/11/alexis-fidel-augusto.html

All this happened under Obama. Why don't we simply exchange our laws with American law, would make matters easier for the average European merchant and banker.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Kurds in Iran had nothing to do with the Armenian massacre.

[Eric Newhill]

Sir,
Well, not when you put it that way.

[Eric Newhill]

wondook,

I only brought the whole thing up to suggest that there is a history in the cultures of the region that, IMO, hasn't changed much. The history was somewhat interrupted in the post WW1 era, but the current just went underground. It didn't dry up. Tayyip wants to resurface one of those powerful currents.

100 years doesn't mean much in that region - again my humble and not so enlightened opinion. Perhaps the Kurds can become a nation, but I doubt it. I am suspicious of tribes with flags attempting to become anything more than that.

[took rat]

I think that Russia is making moves to wrest the Bosporus Strait and Istanbul from Turkey and in the process finally give Russia a true, incontestable access to the Mediterranean and a warm-water port. Only the British Empire and then America have prevented this and now America has enabled Turkey to retain Constantinople. All things change and with America needing an ally against an increasingly bellicose China and the realization the Europe is a basket-case may lead America to trade off Turkey for the following reasons:

1) If you are going to take on China, then Russia is a necessary ally.
2) If you are serious about destroying ISIS and islamofascism, then Russia is a natural ally with the same goals.
3) If you want shift troops from Europe and refocus military resources then a friendly allied Russia allows you to do so.
4) Turkey has betrayed America and actively sabotaged its military efforts in the Middle East so it has proven itself to be a worthless ally and even an enemy.

Sleep well Erdogan as the world moves around you........