So Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has not only survived a putsch, but it increasingly appears that even if he didn't actually stage it, he was so well prepared for it that he pretty much knew how it would play out. He set a trap for his enemies and they took the bait. Unless he's assassinated now, he will almost certainly emerge stronger than ever. That's bad news for the West and the US - and yet another coup for Putin.
It's no coincidence that the botched military uprising took place as unmistakable signs were emerging of Ankara's realignment with Russia in what would amount to an unprecedented reorientation away from NATO, the EU, and the US. Knowing Mr. Erdogan, it's actually more plausible that he's playing both sides - getting chummy again with fellow strongman Vladimir certainly boosts his leverage with Washington and Brussels. But Turkey's beleaguered liberal secularists have good reason to suspect that his move into Moscow's orbit is genuine. And there's little doubt that this dramatic shift has accelerated the Obama administration's own rather stunning convergence with the Kremlin's views on ISIS and the Syrian civil war in just the past two weeks.
It all boils down to the Kurdish question. With his policy of overthrowing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad reduced to shambles last winter by Russia's remarkably successful air campaign on behalf of Damascus, Erdogan has ever since been trying to contain the fallout of his whole Syrian misadventure within Turkey's own borders, namely the spillover of a reignited Kurdish separatist insurgency in the remote, mountainous southeast.
That has not only left him at Putin's mercy in the critical northwestern sector of the Syrian front, where Kurdish fighters continue to act as Assad's de facto allies in squeezing the hodgepodge of jihadist outfits, many of which rely on Turkish support, but it has also widened the gulf between him and the US concerning the central role of Kurds in the ground campaign against ISIS in the north-central and northeastern parts of Syria, the latter being home to the caliphate's effective capital, Raqqa.
So it was just a matter of time before Erdogan would seize on a way out of his geopolitical morass; it helped that Putin was also prepared to make limited but significant concessions.
The months since the Kremlin's surprising withdrawal of its main aerial force from Syria in March have convinced Putin that Assad's regime remains too weak to sustainably reoccupy much of the country beyond its major urban areas and transport networks, even in key sectors of the heavily pro-regime western provinces. With little interest in supporting a longer war of attrition, Moscow wants to cut a deal that leaves Mr. Assad in de facto charge of a reduced Syrian polity, whatever de jure recognition he is accorded to rule the entire country within the old Sykes-Picot boundaries.
That leaves Erdogan with a clear tradeoff: if he simply drops his demand for regime change in Damascus, he maximizes his position in a negotiated settlement to the Syrian conflict - to possibly include Turkish peacekeepers in northern Syria in a UN-sponsored arrangement to transition the especially troubled areas to some kind of federated autonomy that precludes both jihadist extremists and Baath reprisals. If Erdogan can't eliminate Assad outright, the next best thing is to lock down his reduction as firmly as possible - even if it's primarily de facto and not de jure.
That's especially so because the Kurdish issue, while far from slipping out of Ankara's control, has made it absolutely imperative for the international situation to stabilize such that Erdogan can focus on consolidating centralized power at home.
In that light, last Friday's putsch is something of a coup-de-grace for the US and Western strategy of containing Russian expansion in the Mideast: it all but ensures an accelerated collusion between Moscow and Ankara to end the war to overthrow Assad, leaving the dictator and his brutal regime in place but still full of holes. Kurdish de-facto autonomy and the Kurdish role against ISIS in Syria will be bargained with, but only in conjunction with securing Turkish sovereignty - i.e. tightening Erdogan's grip. Turkish Islamism with its clear anti-Western, anti-secular bent will enjoy a stronger position than ever: while it may seize the opportunity to squeeze hated liberal democratic values even further, more likely it will leverage its new position to continue pressuring the EU for fairer treatment, i.e. less cultural prejudice.
All this will be music to Putin's ears. The more that Europe's fate is dictated by the neo-fundamentalist dictators on its eastern fringe - namely Erdogan and himself - the less sway that a hyper-secular Washington holds over western and central European capitals. That suits the Kremlin's grand strategy quite nicely.
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