Turkey’s Islamic supremacist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is increasingly forthright regarding his dreams of Ottoman revival, and has been working to broaden Turkey’s influence.
Yet few are paying adequate attention to the aggressive expansion and influence of this country, which is a member of NATO. It should long ago have been expelled, given its increasingly obvious incompatibility with NATO’s philosophy and other members.
“Turkey is wielding influence all over the Arab world,” Economist, August 1, 2020:
Azaz has experienced quite the turnaround. The city in northern Syria was once controlled by Islamic State (is), which continued to terrorise it even after leaving in 2014. That is when other jihadists and rebels swooped in. Today, though, Turkey is calling the shots. It keeps the lights on and supplies the local shops. The list of Turkish projects under construction ranges from schools and universities to hospitals and roads. “The infrastructure is better than before the revolution,” says an architect who is building new housing as part of another Turkish project.
Turkey is expanding its footprint across the Arab world, using force more than diplomacy. In the past year it has occupied north-eastern Syria, punched deep into Iraq and intervened in Libya’s civil war. Its military spending has increased by nearly half since 2016.
Yet Turkey’s strongman, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, does not appear to have an all-encompassing vision for the region. Rather he is pursuing Turkey’s economic interests and dealing with perceived threats—sometimes by violating the borders of other countries. Thus is he fulfilling a promise made four years ago to “go and confront [problems] wherever they nest”.
Turkey is no newcomer to the Middle East. Its predecessor, the Ottoman empire, ruled the region for 500 years, until European powers rolled it back. More recently it has exerted cultural and economic influence, especially through Turkish soap operas and construction projects. After the Arab spring of 2011 brought Islamist movements to the fore, Mr Erdogan promoted Turkey as a model of Islamist governance—and himself as leader of the Muslim world. As the Islamists were pushed back (or crushed) and Western powers lost interest in the region, Turkey grew more assertive.
Start in Syria, where Turkey has long backed the rebels trying to topple Bashar al-Assad’s regime. They have all but lost, but Turkey continues to protect the areas still under their control in the north-west. It does not want another flood of refugees to cross its border, so it has tried to stabilise the region—further digging in. It trains police, funds a civil service and has replaced the Syrian pound with the steadier Turkish lira. In cities such as Azaz it is building rapidly. Backers of Mr Erdogan suggest that this is an investment for the long run.
Turkey has been even bolder in the part of northern Syria once controlled by the main local Kurdish force, the People’s Protection Units (ypg). The ypg grabbed a large swathe of territory while helping America defeat is. But the ypg has close ties with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (pkk), a separatist Kurdish group in Turkey. So when America pulled out in October, Turkish troops moved in, backed by local Arab rebels. Together they pushed the Kurds out of much of their statelet. Turkey now occupies a 30km-deep strip in Syria extending for 145km along their border.
Mr Erdogan is also battling the pkk in the Kurds’ autonomous region in northern Iraq. Turkey says it has “neutralised” over 1,400 Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria this year. Sometimes the Turks have attacked 200km inside Iraq. They insist it is a short-term operation aimed only at the pkk, but they have set up a number of new outposts in the country. Many suspect their aim is to carve out a buffer zone along the border, as they did in Syria. Iraq’s Kurds fear a Turkish presence would endanger their aspirations for statehood and, if it extends far enough, cut them off from the Kurds in Syria.
Turkey’s intervention in Libya is different. The countries of the eastern Mediterranean have long argued over who controls which part of the sea—and the gasfields beneath it. Mr Erdogan feared that an alliance of Egypt, Israel, Greece and Cyprus might squeeze Turkey out of the area. So last year he signed a deal with Libya’s un-backed government that demarcated their maritime boundaries and supposedly gave Turkey the right to drill in waters off Greek islands. (Greece is having none of it.) In return Turkey has provided troops, arms, drones and mercenaries (from Syria) to the Libyan government and its allied militias, tipping the war in their favour. Earlier this year the forces of Khalifa Haftar, a rebellious Libyan general, were pushed out of western Libya….
I love Iblis says
As dear posters on here like Mortimer said before, Turkey is preparing for another genocide. Most probably this genocide will target Christians and irreligious people. I liken today’s Turkey to Nazi Germany. Turkey has still not been punished for its crimes against Christians in the past. There’s a reason for that. Turkey is planning a new genocide. Before a genocide happens Turkey should be tried and punished for its crimes in the past. However, if Turkey does not face punishment for crimes it has committed in the past, they will continue to slaughter non-muslims until every country on the earth becomes muslim.
gravenimage says
Yes–this could be coming. Muslim Azeris are targeting Christian Armenians, and Secularists in Turkey are more and more at risk.
elee says
Has political social or religious influence ever been achieved any other way in the lands the Arabs subjugated to Islam? Or does someone wish to contend that their scripture calls on them to subjugate the worlld by rational persuasion?
ElderlyZionist says
“In cities such as Azaz it is building rapidly. Backers of Mr Erdogan suggest that this is an investment for the long run.”
Where the Turkish army goes, it stays. 47 years after Turkey invaded Cyprus, Northern Cyprus is a Turkish province, ethnically cleansed of Greeks, a base for Turkey to take over the Dodecanese Islands and the offshore gas fields of the eastern Mediterranean. The Turkish army will remain in Syria and Iraq…until someone makes them leave.
gravenimage says
Yes–and NATO did nothing over the Muslim invasion of Cyprus then. Turkey is now threatening the Greek islands.
ElderlyZionist says
Cyprus was not and is not a NATO member. Greece would have risked NATO action if they had gone to war against Turkey for Cyprus.
Turkey is too strong of a regional power for any of her neighbors to take down. War between Turkey and Greece, or Egypt, or Israel would likely be bloody, costly and indecisive. Only the US Navy has the power to stop Turkey from taking over the eastern Mediterranean.
But this isn’t a game of Risk. Going to war with our erstwhile Turkish ally would be a political shock to the world, and a gift to Russia, China and Iran.
I have no easy solution. We had better stand by our friends.
gravenimage says
You are technically right about Cyprus, ElderlyZionist–thank you. It is *culturally* Greek, though.
gravenimage says
Turkey ‘expanding its footprint across the Arab world, using force more than diplomacy’
……………
Erdogan wants to be the new Caliph…
Chris says
Erdog. said the recent desecration of Hagia Sophia was the “end of the Interregnum.” It was his snatching of the Crown Jewel. It was his Ascent of the Throne of the (abolished) Satanate. So in HIS mind, he’s already the new Sultan. He’s already built his sultanic palace in Ankara…
He once said, “Democracy is like a train: You take it to where you want to go; then you get OFF!”
This is his OFF. The Turkish Republic has played Taps to itself, Friday, July 24, 2020. Expect statues of Ataturk to fall next…
Yes, the World must stand UNITED, and put Turkey on Trial for the SEVERAL genocides they have conducted, the most notorious being that of the Armenians, in several stages, the extreme beginning in 1915. But it was NOT the ONLY ONE.
German Imperial Officers were present as observers then, and certainly conveyed knowledge of that atrocity along to Herr Hitler, who used it as a precedent, saying, “Who remembers the Armenians?” ————– THE WORLD MUST –NOT– FORGET!!!
I love Iblis says
Statues of Ataturk are like statues of Buddha, used by old Turkic Uighur Buddhists before their forced islamization. Statues of Lord Buddha were destroyed by Mahmud of Ghaznav, the treacherous Arab dog who turned against his own Turkic kind for islam. History repeats itself. Muslim Turks in Turkey could destroy Ataturk statues like their treacherous ancestor Ghaznavid. But even I don’t approve everything Ataturk did I’ll be protecting his statues with my blood for they are the symbols of secularism in Turkey.
gravenimage says
Yes–Ataturk is as good as Turkey was going to get, and better than we might have expected.
I love Iblis says
Sorry, it was Mahmud al-Kashgari who destroyed the Buddhist statues not Mahmud of Ghazni. And the name for idol in Turkish is “put” which derived from Buddha. Islamists in Turkey are calling Ataturk’s statues as “put”. This is an interesting resemblance between Gautama Buddha and Ataturk. I wanted to share it.