Erdogan, the man who lives very fast
This is not the first time I have written about this character, his political life, ambitions, intrigues and clear and hidden intentions of all kinds. In July 2016, after Erdogan's last self-coup in Turkey against himself, I already published a piece on Turkey in which, referring to him, I quote: "Factors such as the attempts to seize all powers in the hands of its current president, a man of angry disposition, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose more than 30 years in politics have led him to occupy various positions at all levels and even cost him several years in prison for defending his ideologies. Compulsive hatred of his opponents in general and of the Kurds in particular. His tyranny of the military, whom he considers a caste full of privileges; for understanding that they are and will be the main opponents of his ultimate aspiration to try to reinstate Islamisation in Turkey and in his government so that it will once again cease to be secular; for knowing that they are the heirs and the guarantors of Atatürk's mandate in the opposite direction to his purposes; whom he always fears, and in a way sees as traitors. Reasons for which he has purged them on several occasions, without any consideration or contemplation, and he will not hesitate to continue doing so in the face of the slightest suspicion.
His well-known negotiations or rather impositions on the EU to try to "alleviate" the problem derived from the flow of refugees over it by taking advantage of its geographical position. His angry reactions to anyone who steps forward, as in the case of the - then - recent shooting down of a Russian plane on its border with Syria. His disputes with his Arab neighbours and Israel over Jihadist terrorism and other more domestic problems, especially with Syria; his arrogance on economic issues of general interest and his disqualification of everyone when he is accused of not being a defender of freedom of the press or opposed to the application of human rights in his national and neighbouring territories or when Turkey is accused of responsibility for the massacre of the Armenians between 1894 and 1896.
Since his appointment as prime minister and now as president, Erdogan has very often claimed and maintained that fate has made him the propitious victim of multiple conspiracies designed to depose and destroy both him and his current ruling neo-Islamic party, though not with an absolute majority, the Justice and Development Party (AKP). In his view, these alleged attacks are usually directed or moved by enemies abroad. His particular black beast is Fethullah Gülen, an exiled cleric of his and now in exile in the US. Although other times, he also looks for them, as after the mentioned self-coup, in other clergymen, politicians, jurists and military depending on whether they still exercise a certain type of influence in their country contrary to their interests. These reasons lead him to seek out and surround himself constantly with extremely loyal people to whom he does not hesitate to lay aside the slightest suspicion or loss of trust.
Some analysts appreciate that this energetic, tough and almost disdainful character comes from his tough and poor childhood in Istanbul and the many problems he has had to overcome in order to make a name for himself in politics. But the truth is that whatever the reason for this, any of the above is more than enough to keep him on his guard and to exercise his command with such energy, mistrust, contempt and personal ambition".
I have considered it convenient to keep these paragraphs because, with only a few words changed between them, everything remains in force, since the same experience has shown us that these reflected bad omens, unfortunately, have been fulfilled one after the other. Much of the proof of this appears in several of my pieces of work, published after the one mentioned above, which are in the same blog.
In any case, their evolution, with important changes in their points of view and in relation to the positions to be adopted in the search for allies or enemies -depending on the moment and the opportunity or situation-, is quite paradoxical. He does not mind changing his mind or his horse in the middle of the race; he has always pretended to be like a merchant who tries to sell to the highest bidder his very same and highly appreciated goods; goods that are really very valid and that derive from his privileged geostrategic position.
In addition to being a border country with many other influential or conflictive countries, it holds the key to controlling, allowing or denying access to the Mediterranean by separating Anatolia and Thrace by the Sea of Marmara and the straits of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, which serve to demarcate the border between Asia and Europe, and Turkey is therefore considered a transcontinental country.
This access currently not only refers to troops, ships and products on board, but also through the laying of pipelines that are already in operation or very advanced, such as the one mentioned a few days ago in another paper "the implementation of the TurkStream pipeline, strategic for Moscow, as it prevents the passage of Russian gas supplies through Ukraine; This means that the country loses control of its precious and important gas supply to Europe and therefore its interest as a transit territory -which must remain open at all times- and the current important international attention. In addition, it improves Turkey's own supply conditions and brings them much closer to the Russians for future major economic and commercial plans, such as the building of several nuclear power stations in Turkey with Russian materials and technology. This will also give them access to potential nuclear fuel for possible military use; a situation that would give Turkey a greater advantage or option to dispute for zone leadership.
As a country bordering Syria and very close to the areas where important battles were fought with the self-styled Islamic State, Turkey welcomes and maintains within its borders more than 3.5 million Syrian and Afghan refugees who, fleeing their respective conflicts, have stopped in that country as a previous stopover and a point of passage towards the Europe of freedoms and a thousand possibilities. Migrants with whom he does not stop negotiating with the EU and moves them at will as a pressure relief valve or barter currency to get billions of euros to prevent this from happening (he has already received nearly 4,000). A game that he has been using too often and more recently, hoping to make other kinds of profits besides the economic ones, which are not few.
Now, after the repeated failures to find military support in NATO in his "particular war" in Syria - which, if it had been effective, could have led to a more international conflict over the possible entry of Russia into it as the protector of the Al-Assad regime - he hopes that the EU can give him such political and even military support. It is a complex manoeuvre, impossible to carry out at present and somewhat Sadducean, which has forced Merkel herself to take action and reproach him for his twisted ways of trying to force any kind of support in exchange for whether or not he will stir up the hornet's nest of refugees and throw them over the Greek border towards Europe. This situation of tension and great unease led to an emergency meeting in Brussels between Erdogan and the EU's top leaders on the afternoon of 9 March to deal specifically with the issue.
Conversations that, due to their complexity, could not be definitively closed and required successive adjustments. They have focused on making him see that the EU is not prepared to allow the recent crisis situations with the refugees created by Turkey on the Union's borders to be repeated, as can be seen from the clear words of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. She has sent out a message with which she intends to build open bridges: "We are going to relaunch the dialogue. The events at the border are unacceptable and must not be repeated. To do this, we must listen to all sides".
Turkey is a country that also plays, courts and struts with Russia against the United States and its demands for the maintenance and free use of its military bases on Turkish soil against any of those enemies of the Americans; who are not so much Erdogan's at any given time or circumstance. He appears as one of the three main international stars for peace from the same hand of Putin, together with Iran - even though they have and maintain totally different views on the future of al-Assad.
His launch into stardom comes from the so-called Astana process for the pacification of Syria; with it, he plays international politics as if he were or occupied a preferential place in the first division in that arena. Thus, he leaves Trump behind in this process and improves his alternatives to opt for a unipersonal zonal leadership or shared with Iran; although this last alternative has very few possibilities that one day it will be true. His claws and ambitions continue to expand over time and always behind a product that he needs for his economic and industrial expansion and that, for the moment, he does not possess: oil derivatives.
He also wants to share the Syrian oil cake, for which he must get rid of Al-Asad and the Kurdsyrians. In the Libyan conflict he has found a gap or loophole through which he can enter another oil business, even if it is at the cost of supporting, and even fighting for the benefit of different sides in which his friend Putin's Russia is located, from which he has not hesitated to buy the S-400 air defence missiles, totally incompatible with NATO's air defence system and that for security reasons they cannot, and should not, be integrated into the command, control and communications systems of that defence system or of modern American F-35 aircraft, because he could become a powerful spy, which has cost him much displeasure with both the US and NATO.
In his quest for the coveted oil and gas, besides getting his claws into Syria and Libya, he has also not hesitated to support and exalt the Turkish Cypriot side in Cyprus, to enter into a battle with Israel and Greece, among others, for the exploitation of the same in the jurisdictional waters of all the above with the start of territorial conflicts and demands that, along the way, may soon increase in size and importance.
Lately, Erdogan has been accumulating bilateral meetings to try to put out fires with all those he has been angry with. Thus, on the 5th last, he held a meeting with Putin in Moscow to try to bring some order to his natural disorder and calm the exalted spirits that have been sprouting and growing among them because of so much stepping on each other's fire hose after their fight against the Islamic State. The attacks on the Kurds and the fighting in the part of Syria bordering Turkey to annex this strip of land, under the pretext of creating a 'buffer zone' which, in addition to inflicting certain casualties on the forces loyal to Al-Asad, allows him to "control" the Kurds living there and prevent any kind of surprise attack from that direction.
The important relations between Russia, Syria and Turkey for the area stem from a pact that was made in Sochi (September 2018); a pact that, over time and after some setbacks, had been significantly weakened in favour of Moscow and Damascus and to the detriment of Ankara. It was so bad that it needed to be smoothed out and updated as much as possible.
The truth is that Erdogan's position on Syria has been very changeable in the last five or six years; first he opted unsuccessfully for the overthrow of Bachar al-Asad's regime, while opening its doors to the transit of people and the trafficking of oil, refugees and art objects plundered by Jihadists of all sorts and supporting, directly or indirectly, militias opposed to the Damascus regime. However, it was from 2016 onwards that he decided to change his attitude and focus on preventing his territory from being fouled by the violence and the drums of war sounding in his neighbour's house. Also in blocking the passage of the resulting refugees when they surpassed a certain shocking number, which would give him enough profit and prevent the Kurds from consolidating and reinforcing an entity of their own in their vicinity with the help of the US.
The evolution of events, after many twists and turns, shows that the results are not as satisfactory as he had hoped. Likewise, the current operation 'Spring Shield' does not seem to be focused either on producing a resounding success or on becoming a simple military tour.
While it is true that Erdogan is destroying some Syrian pro-Asad military units in the part of Syrian territory he has managed to occupy, after the recent and cited discussions in Moscow, it has become manifestly clear that he cannot defeat Al-Asad as long as the tyrant continues to have Putin's iron-clad support and Russian air cover. In fact, after their recent meeting, Putin has forced him to withdraw from part of the occupied territory and, in particular, to return the important M-4 motorway (linking the port of Latakia with Aleppo) to Syrian control. This implies a de facto cession of territories and, consequently, that the area of Idlib will remain in the hands of the Syrian forces; a strong point that makes it very difficult to sustain the tricky positions and the few Syrians fighting alongside them, if Damascus decides to resume the offensive in that sector.
Putin, like an unparalleled silver fox, has seen and smelled that Erdogan has provoked or fallen into a situation of inferiority and almost powerlessness as a result of several concatenated errors: he has overextended his lines of ambition in Syria and Libya; his clashes with Trump and NATO, which have taken him out of their respective umbrellas as a result of the purchase of the aforementioned S-400 missiles; the continuous disagreements and moments of tension with Greece and Israel over the oil in the ground and the mismanagement with the EU of the refugees he is holding within its borders.
All these factors, when taken together and mixed together, make for an explosive cocktail that is quite difficult to manage individually and collectively. Mainly, for a country with a very large army (close to a million troops in total), but mostly fed by conscripts, really lacking in adequate equipment, and with insufficient training to maintain intense combat on more than one front, almost no capacity for prolonged and remote support of large operations. We should not forget the important beheading of the Army, which has not yet been resolved, after the self-coup that resulted in the overthrow or death of the most prepared and charismatic generals, as well as their well-prepared -in the United States- General Staffs.
These are factors which, for a good strategist like Putin, are more than enough to indicate that he is facing an opportunity to plainly view a wounded and almost unarmed Erdogan. Because, in addition to having created many enemies, he does not have the capacity to react to all of them. In fact, he has practically been left alone for attacking so many at once without having consolidated the previous one, disregarding the response capabilities of almost all of them and rushing too fast in his ambitious race to have a finger in every pie in his surroundings and beyond. From their meeting in Moscow, it is clear that Putin has put his conditions on the table, taking advantage of the moment and the real situation in which he finds himself to tighten the screws on his aspirations over Syria and, in the process, determine his zonal leadership, as if he were to achieve it without his personal support. Something that the Russian also does not seem very willing to give away if Uncle Sam decides once and for all to leave the Middle East or to stay there, but in a very selective and rather residual way.
Erdogan has miscalculated his strength, although it can and should be said that much has been achieved since he began to shape his vision of the nation-state in the domestic arena, despite the fact that, after such efforts, he has lost some political strength and weight in the big cities. He was overcome in the last elections of last year (even after having repeated them) and Trump and other internal and external factors are making it very difficult for it to find a way out of the great economic problems that lurk in Turkey, despite successive devaluations of the Turkish lira and its trade agreements with several countries. But in the international arena, Turkey's excessive ambition and rush to implement it has been running into real obstacles, which will most likely force it to lower its level of ambition sooner rather than later.