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Has Washington lured Erdogan into a Bear trap?
by F William Engdahl on 05 May 2021 0 Comment

After failing to block Turkey’s purchase of the advanced S-400 Russian air defense system, Washington diplomacy in recent months appeared to have managed to “flip” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to support of US interests in several critical countries from Libya to Armenia to Ukraine, even Afghanistan. With the Turkish economy on the brink of catastrophe as the Lira plunges, it looks more and more like cynical strategists in Washington could have merely lured the wily Erdogan into a deadly bear trap.

 

Turkish President Erdogan has been called a master at playing off all sides to his advantage, a political chameleon who has flipped from Washington and NATO of which Turkey is a vital member, to Russia and Iran and also China.

 

In 2016 he accused the CIA of being behind a coup attempt to assassinate him and bring the CIA-controlled networks of exiled Fethullah Gülen into power as Washington had had enough of Erdogan’s flips in allegiance. The coup failed and reports were that Russian intelligence intercepts were given Erdogan that saved his life. After that, relations with Moscow improved markedly. In November 2015 Russia had imposed a severe travel ban to Turkey of Russian tourists and a ban on Turkish food imports in retaliation for a Turkish jet shooting down a Russian jet inside Syrian territory, an act of war. The Russian sanctions hit the Turkish economy deeply.

 

Then Erdogan began a shift towards Moscow. In 2017 Turkey ignored repeated protests from Washington and NATO and agreed to buy the advanced Russian S-400 air defense missile system, said to be the most advanced in the world. The same time Russia began construction of the first of two Black Sea gas pipelines to Turkey, TurkStream in October 2016, further distancing Ankara and Washington.

 

2018 Lira Crisis

 

By 2018 relations between Washington and Ankara had become strained to put it mildly. The Big Three US credit rating agencies, Fitch, Moody’s and S&P all downgraded Turkey’s sovereign debt to “junk” status citing Erdogan’s recent hostile political moves. The result was a free-fall of the Lira forcing the Central Bank to sharply raise interest rates and strangle economic growth in the process. By August 2018 the US was also imposing economic sanctions on Turkey demanding the release of Andrew Brunson and other US citizens accused of espionage on behalf of the 2016 Gülen coup attempt.

 

Turkish steel and aluminum exports were hit with doubled US tariffs as inflation rose. A pledge by Erdogan ally and fellow Muslim Brotherhood backer, Qatar, to invest $15 billion in Turkey managed to calm the crisis and a subsequent visit of Erdogan to Beijing secured some added billions in Chinese aid. The Turkish foreign minister accused “foreign powers” of being behind the Lira crisis for political reasons.

 

After a shock loss of the key political stronghold of the Istanbul Mayoral post in 2019, Erdogan clearly has been attempting to improve his “usefulness” to the West, especially to Washington. He faces major national elections latest 2023 and could be in danger of losing his grip if the economy continues to fall. Both Donald Trump and now Joe Biden appeared to welcome the Turkish help especially when it hurt Russian interests. So in 2019 when Turkey lent materiel and military support to the Washington-backed government in Tripoli in their war with Russian backed forces of General Haftar, it averted a collapse of the corrupt Tripoli regime, to the approval of NATO. Indirectly, Erdogan went against Putin and Russia.

 

Similarly, in September 2020 during the outbreak of the “Armenian–Azerbaijani War,” Turkey supplied critical drones and military advisors to their Muslim ally Azerbaijan against Armenia, a member of Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union. It was another indirect Turkish strike against Russian strategic interests, this, very close to home.

 

In October 2020 following significant Azeri military advances in Nagorno-Karabakh, Erdogan praised Azerbaijan’s “great operation both to defend its own territories and to liberate the occupied Karabakh,” adding that Turkey stands with and will continue to stand with “friendly and brotherly Azerbaijan with all our means and all our heart.” Putin was reportedly not amused.

 

The relations between Turkey and Armenia are hostile and go back to the First World War when Ottoman Turkey was charged with exterminating more than 1.5 million Armenians in an ethnic cleansing. Turkey to the present day vehemently rejects accepting responsibility for genocide against Armenians who after 1920 became part of the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991.

 

Now, as recently as April 10, as the Biden White House escalated pressure on Ukraine to act militarily to recapture the breakaway Donbass region as well as Crimea, which is today part of Russia, Erdogan invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Turkey for talks on military cooperation. In Istanbul after the talks, Erdogan announced that the two presidents had signed a 20-point strategic agreement that included Turkish support for Ukraine demands to return Donbass to Kiev as well as Crimea, the base for the Russian Black Sea Naval fleet.

 

Following the CIA-backed coup in Ukraine in March 2014 Crimeans held a referendum in which citizens overwhelmingly voted to join Russia, something NATO was not happy about to put it mildly. In addition, Erdogan announced on April 10 that Turkey supported Ukraine’s bid to join NATO, an explosive issue as it would be a direct strategic threat to Moscow.

 

Already in January 2020 Turkey and Ukraine signed major military trade deals including an agreement that Ukraine supply Turkey with $600 million of cruise missile engines. Ukraine also supplies the Turkish military with engines for its drones that evade US sanctions on Turkey over the S-400. More recently Turkey has been reselling its Bayraktar TB2 combat drones to Ukraine’s military which plans to use them against the Donbass fighters. In brief, Erdogan has been doing many things to back US actions against Russia in recent months.

 

Genocide Mystery?

 

This makes it all the more curious that US President Biden on April 25 became the first US President to go against NATO ally Turkey and accuse it of genocide against the Armenians in 1915. Since Turkey joined NATO the subject of Armenian genocide has been taboo as Ankara has repeatedly made clear. Why, just when Erdogan is playing a key support role in the US Administration’s anti-Russia agenda, did Biden or his advisers find it necessary to come out blaming Ottoman Turkey for a genocide against Armenians that took place 106 years ago?

 

Given the reemergence of the Lira crisis since Erdogan fired the head of the Central Bank last month, replacing him with a party ally, Turkey has become vulnerable even more than in 2018. At this point it seems Washington has the wily Erdogan in a bear trap. If his new Central Bank chief now moves to cut interest rates to spur the economy amid the Lira crisis, tens of billions of Western investment funds could exit Turkey and plunge the economy into its worst crisis since 2018, likely even worse, prior to the 2023 national elections.

 

For years Turkish companies have turned to dollar debt markets where interest rates were far lower than the Turkish rates. The Lira fall makes it far more costly to repay in dollars, especially as the economy is hit by the corona crisis and tourism has again been blocked by Moscow until June, claiming covid risk but clearly related to Erdogan’s recent Ukraine moves.

 

Erdogan has lost little time in reacting to the affront. Turkish protests have begun outside the strategic NATO Incirlik Air Base demanding US troops leave.

 

On April 24, a day after Washington notified Erdogan of its planned Armenian genocide statement, Erdogan launched military actions in Iraq and Syria. The Turkish military announced that its Operation Claw-Lightning had resumed, aimed to “completely end” the terror threat on Turkey’s southern border to Syria. It involved airstrikes at positions of the PKK Kurdish forces which the US backs against Damascus. Turkey claims the PKK Kurds are terrorists threatening Turkey.

 

At the same time the Turkish forces fortified their established position in Greater Idlib where there are now thousands of troops as well as heavy weapons, including battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, artillery, rocket launchers, surveillance systems, jammers and air-defense systems. Since 2018, the Turkish Idlib presence was supposedly to jointly monitor with Russia a mutual de-escalation on the Syrian territory.

 

Mending Arab Fences

 

More surprising, Erdogan has swiftly moved to mend fences with his Arab neighbors. On April 26, Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said that Turkey was looking to rectify relations with Saudi Arabia where bilateral trade dropped a whopping 98% since an official Saudi boycott of Turkish goods in 2020 over what Saudis called hostile Turkish acts, a reference to Erdogan’s provocative, very public accusations that the Saudis brutally assassinated Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in October 2018, as well as Turkish support for Qatar amid a Saudi boycott. Before 2013 Riyadh had been a major financial backer of Erdogan who was then a key actor in the war against Assad in Syria. The new regime in Washington so far has been quite cold to Saudi Arabia, a big shift from Trump’s time.

 

At the same time Ankara is seeking to rebuild ties with Egyptian President al-Sisi that have been strained since the Egyptian military ousted Morsi and backed al-Sisi in a 2013 counter-coup to the Muslim Brotherhood’s US-backed Arab Spring. Were Erdogan to succeed in regaining the support of the Arab Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, Turkish military support for the Gulf could well alter Middle East geopolitics to the disadvantage of Washington. Over the past two years Turkey has emerged as a major surprise military force through deployment of its battle-proven Bayraktar TB2 drones owned by the family of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law, Selcuk Bayraktar. They have been decisive in Libya, in Nagorno-Karabakh and Syria.

 

What comes next in the turbulent rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan is more uncertain that at any time in his near twenty-year hold on power, first as Prime Minister and now as President. With national elections slated for 2023, if the economy continues to tank, all bets are off. The Biden “genocide” declaration suggests that Washington may try to push him over the edge well before 2023. However, the outcome is far from clear at this juncture and very much depends on Erdogan’s ability to force effective new alliances.

 

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. Courtesy

https://journal-neo.org/2021/04/29/has-washington-lured-erdogan-into-a-bear-trap/ 
User Comments Post a Comment
Muslim league 1906, then Hindu Mahasabha’s demand for Hindu nation and the Khilafat Movement of 1921 were the part of British policy to divide India.
Hindus could only vote for Hindus, Muslims for Muslims
The division of India was only a compromise to rule over India on the name of so called Hindu religion with illusory fear of conversion.

It is history which you have accepted about Muslim arrival and conversion, and the origin of Islam in Arabian country. In this reference it is important to note that invaders were against idol worship and came for looting India and to spread Islam. Accordingly they have converted the weaker sections in large and destroyed temples. India was not united, hence they got the opportunity to rule over India. Most of the invaders turned back leaving their representative as rulers and converted followers. Their sacrifice, administration reforms and wars were confined to their interest of ruling. They have failed to convert Indians at large in masses, due to indigenous caste system and Dharma-duty, they have called indigenous Indians to Hindu and India as Hindustan. In the mean time the converted Muslims were absorbed as a caste in the Indian caste system and both the so called Hindu and Muslim cooperated with the Moughal rulers to rule over India, up to 1857, which we call as slavery of India. and Muslim rule. Without the cooperation of converted Muslim and so called indigenous Hindu it was not possible to rule over India for such a ling period for Moughal kings.

India was not having any organized religion under caste system, and spiritual freedom, the invaders have considered it as polytheistic Hindu religion as compared to their monotheistic religion. It has been grasped by Akbar, and he has started "Din A Elahi" and Dara has written 'Allopnishad' to establish cooperation among indigenous Indians and converted Muslims.

When Aurengjeb faced the difficulty in ruling over India,' he has imposed 'Jajiya kar' on Hindu and created the conflict of Krishna Janmbhumi and implemented divide and rule policy. Up to 1857 no body was successful in creating rift between Hindu and Muslim at a large, both were fighting for the kings simultaneously.

With the arrival of East India company and British rule over India, the Britisher have imposed Christianity and missionary churches to convert Indians into Christian faith. They have observed the cultural integrity among Indians, and faced the revolution of 1857 as Muslim and Hindu to gather. To break this unity, they have created the conflict of Ram Janm Bhumi and Babri Masjid first time, other wise so called Hindu and Muslim were going there for worship and Namaz simultaneously as per their faith.

As per their organized religion they have demarcated indigenous Indians as Hindu religion and Muslim religion to promote Christianity with divide and rule policy. The Britishers have established Muslim League 1906, and later on supported Hindu Mahasabha as two political parties to fight elections with limited democratic setup in India. It has created conflict and chaos in society. To oppose it the congress has adopted secularism to oppose religious fundamentalism, which was used during french revolution to oppose the authority of church in Europe.

The discovery of scientifically developed Indus Valley and its unknown script by Sir John Marshal has given further clues for divide and rule policy with shrewd politics, and they have imposed Aryan invasion theory to justify their arrival in India. and Muslim rule over India.

With shrewd cunning politics the British ruler has imposed that Hindu and Muslim are two races, which can not leave together, and ultimately divided India and Indians forever on the name of the so called Hindu religion. With communal riots to rule over India on the name of religion, We have ourselves proved that we can not leave together, and independent India has adopted the same parliamentary democracy, which enhance the communal conflict and chaos in the society.

The History written by the European scholars and the British Encyclopedia are motivated by British emperor, The British History of India is also the same.

no body was in a position to challenge their concept of Hindu religion and Aryan invasion theory, all were bound to accept the same. It was opposed and grasped by Sri Aurobindo, Netaji Subhash, and Moulana Abdul Kalam Azad only. They have given reaction in their own way, but were not successful in a scenario of lust to rule over the country.

The freedom at midnight of 15th August 1947 was a compromise with British Government to rule over the India and Pakistan on the name of so called religious superstition. To safeguard the interests of the converted Christians and Muslims, they have prepared the constitution in 1935, it was accepted by the Indian Government with few modifications.

Now we are free to fight with each other and to blame each other for brutality or to impose the brutality on the Government. The motto of the politicians is only to rule over the country with divide and rule policy, we are only the soldiers. They have nothing to with country's glory. For them every thing pertaining to India is Hindu religion, and to safeguard the interests of Christians and Muslim on the name of minority is their inherited duty from their British lord.

Our foundation of freedom is on the false fake ground of Hindu religion and Aryan invasion. The Indian subcontinent is original home land of Vedic Indians ,and Aryan means well cultured, it is not a race or culture, it has enlightened the world in past and India was World leader - Guru once in the history, to devalue the Indian Glory of past, the Britisher have given Aryan invasion and Hindu religion.

They were well acquainted with the past glory of India, by which the Vedic culture was all over the world and the scientifically developed Indus Valley cities were its testimony and confirmation. The concept of Zero, Dharma and Creator God have spread from India,it came back to India with the concept of one God and religious superstition.

The original concept of the creator was a scientific invention of India, and not a illusion or hallucination with the discovery of DNA in ancient era has given the concept of rebirth and death in the nature. It has been accepted as reincarnation or Kayamat in the religious scriptures.

The British emperor has divided Indian subcontinent and Indians to glorify the Britain and leaved Indians to fight forever. The Indian leaders have compromised with a lust to rule over India.

After the violence of 1947 with independence, the British Govt, has instructed to the president Jinnah and pt, Nehru to check the communal riots, and to follow the instructions they have given assurance to public for safety to check the migration of Muslim from India, and Hindu from Pakistan.

But the platform on which Hindu and Muslim are standing on the same ground is religious superstition, and fundamentalism forever. As a slave of British ruler, we were having no answer and not in a position to give answer. and now as a mental slave with lust of desire to rule over each other, we are unable to think and give answer to our British Lord, and suffering from ego of freedom.

With regards

Dr.C.P.Trivedi

Dr.C.P.Trivedi
January 30, 2013
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Gandhi was not sure about dividing India on the grounds of religious separatism as he believed himself as secular and irreligious. The majority Hindus’ perception of Gandhi had overwhelmed on many occasions whenever he wanted to bring the conflict to an amicable settlement. His dream of united India remained as dream despite his calculated efforts and concerns over the future of people of both the religions. More specifically, he was worried much about the frequent postponement of declaration of independent status to India and a possibly astute denial of freedom by the British.

At one point of time, on 17th July, 1944 that Gandhi wrote to Jinnah: "I have not written to you since my release. Today my heart says that I should write to you. We will meet whenever you choose. Do not disappoint me."

Personally, Gandhi had a sort of aspiration and self-confidence in bringing some form of self-determination for Muslims within a united India, although it remained as just his personal desire. Forfeiting his personal judgment, he was adamant on implementing the Rajagopalachari formula as his political agenda.

Jinnah was adamant on his "two nations" theory based on the fact that Hindus and Muslims, however scattered all over the country, are entirely foreign to each other. And, this was the thematic resolution of the Muslim League's Lahore Resolution of March 1940.

Gandhi held talks 14 times with Jinnah in Bombay in 1944, about a united front. And, it was all back-to-back talks between these two highly respected leaders and when it finally ended without agreement in a meeting held in September 1944.

While negotiating with Jinnah, a highly resolute point of stance was taken by Gandhi when he suggested that he should be allowed to meet the Muslim League Council to make them see the reasonableness of his proposals. “…Give me an opportunity of addressing them. If they feel like rejecting it I would like you to advise the Council to put it before the open session of the League... If you will accept my advice and permit me I would attend the open session and address it'.” That idea did not work as expected as the council rejected his proposal. It was at this point of time, did Gandhi truly realize Jinnah’s stronghold and the ground realities of the divided populace which is actually driving the partition issue. With the conflict deepens to its core, Gandhi felt a sense of democratic upheaval which necessitated him to suggest an alternative way of putting the issue to arbitration.

“Is it irrelevant or inadmissible to supplement our efforts to convince each other with outside help, guidance, advice or even arbitration?” he asked Jinnah.

And finally, during the meeting of the Viceroy with the Indian leaders on 3rd June, 1947, Gandhi was just a mere spectator. Much of his views were delivered by Patel and Kripalani and the resolution of Partition of India was passed.

- Balamurali Balaji
Founder, BB systems (CIT-GPNP)
Administrator: www.Gandhitopia.org
Balamurali Balaji
February 01, 2013
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