Michael Collins

If Erdogan and his advisors seriously believe that they can publicly blackmail a superpower like the USA then their days are numbered. The Saker, Feb 20

Apparently, Turkish President Erdogan and his cronies failed to get the memo from The Saker. They continue to insist that the United States label as terrorists the Kurdish fighters of northern Syria known as the YPG. The YPG and the Syrian Arab Army are the only two ground forces fighting ISIS. The Kurdish YPG fighters are mopping the floor with the barbarians and control nearly the entire border region between Turkey and Syria. Even so, the Turkish government insists that the U.S. is either for Turkey by labeling the YPG as terrorists or against Turkey by supporting YPG’s efforts against ISIS.

Why is the current Turkish government obsessed with the YPG? There are several reasons, none of them related to terrorism and all of them about the survival of the amazingly corrupt and repellant Erdogan, his family, and cronies in the AKP party.

What do Erdogan and company have to fear?

Jail.

Erdogan and his cronies were caught engaged in the following on publicly released audiotapes:

•instructing his son on how and where to hide huge sums of cash that neither party wanted found;

•telling judges how to decide critical cases in his interests;

•planning a false flag operation in which Turkish troops would fire weapons at the Turkish border from within Syria and assign the blame to Syria;

•ordering government takeovers of private corporations, media outlets in particular, that simply opposed his government;

•ordering the release of weapons bound for Syrian rebels held up by local authorities at the Syrian border; and

•enabling the transit and sale of ISIS oil traveling over the Turkish landmass and shipped from Turkish ports.

These criminal acts are well known in Turkey. Should any government other than one controlled by Erdogan come to power, then Erdogan, his family members, and his cronies will go to trial and likely be sentenced to serious jail time.

What does Erdogan have to fear more than jail?

Barack Obama.

You might ask why I didn’t say Vladimir Putin. That’s simple. Putin is indeed Erdogan’s enemy, one he should greatly fear. However, Erdogan doesn’t work for Putin, he works for Obama. Putin can make life very difficult for Erdogan, but only Obama can fire him. Turkey is part of NATO, which is up to its neck in supporting Islamic extremists fighting to topple the government of Syria. More specifically, Erdogan has been a willing servant of the White House through Turkey’s key role in training, supplying, and transferring foreign fighters into Syria and supporting homegrown rebels.

Erdogan’s wholehearted support of the Syrian rebels didn’t happen as a result of any long-held Shia-Sunni antipathy or due to his steadfast opposition to Bashar Al-Assad, Syria’s elected president. As late as 2010, Erdogan was engaged in personal diplomacy with Al-Assad for closer trade and security relations. But when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said ‘Assad must go,’ Erdogan fell in line immediately. This path was sweetened by inducements by Saudi Arabia but there was no question that the maestro was (and is): President Barack Obama.

Over recent weeks, as it became obvious that the U.S. ‘Assad must go’ policy was a failure, it was time for Erdoğan to back down and follow the leader. This was necessary for two compelling reasons. First, Erdogan isn’t the leader. Obama is. Turkey is not the world’s dominant superpower. The United States is.

The second reason to follow Obama’s lead is subtler.

Everything Turkey has done to stoke the flames of Islamist extremism, including support for the rise of ISIS, was done with the full knowledge and, in many cases, involvement of the White House and its subordinates in London, Paris, and Berlin. Turkey was the frontline state. But Obama and his supporting cast of NATO leaders were providing instructions and pitching in.

If Turkey cooperates and allows what will happen inevitably to happen quietly, i.e. peace in Syria with a government chosen by Syrians, then the White House and company can take a victory lap with the knowledge than no one will be forced to take a serious look at what they all did to destroy a society.

By failing to cooperate and making a spectacle of defying Obama, Turkey raises the risk of a more detailed examination of this entire sordid affair – the real cause of the loss of 250,000 lives in Syria; the real cause of the refugee crisis (there was none prior to the attack on Syria); the strong support, direct or indirect, by all parties of jihadist extremists who gloried in the killing of Christians, Druze, and other minorities in Syria.

Erdogan’s defiance is not just blatantly insubordinate and disrespectful; it poses a clear risk of exposing the truth about the destruction of a people and a nation on the basis of a whim – ‘Assad must go.’

Given all of that, it’s time to say adios to Erdogan. His days as President of Turkey will soon be over.

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Michael Collins