On Monday (20/7/15) the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) carried out a suicide bombing in the Turkish border city of Suruc. As I explained at the time this attack was a response to a recent Turkish crackdown on ISIL activity within the country. As I also explained that crackdown has been made possible by the ongoing negotiations between the Islamist Justice & Democracy Party (AKP) and the extreme nationalist/fascist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
Since 2003 Turkey has been ruled by AKP which was founded as a vehicle for Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2001. In his role as Prime Minister Erdogan has been one of the main architects and sponsors of ISIL. His intention has been to use them to help form a Sunni-Islamic state that stretches from Turkey's border with Bulgaria, across the middle-east and into Egypt. The idea being to re-create the Ottoman Empire that represented the last Sunni-Islamic Caliphate until it's fall in the 1920's.
So for example Erdogan decided to 'celebrate' the inauguration of Sunni-Islamist Mohamed Morsi as Egypt's President in June 2012 by sending an F-4 Phantom jet into Syria. The idea being that when the Turkish jet was inevitably shot down it would provide a pre-text for Turkey to invade Syria. Since Morsi was removed from power in Egypt by popular uprising in 2013 Erdogan has been backing Islamist terrorist groups to carry out attacks on the Egyptian state in order to destabilise the nation and have Morsi re-installed as President against the will of the people.
At the start of 2014 Erdogan hit a problem in the form of Turkey's constitutional term limits which prevented him from continuing in the role of Prime Minister. He attempted to get around this by taking up the office of President in January 2015. However in Turkey the role of President is a ceremonial rather then an executive one meaning that it holds no real power. Therefore AKP's main objective at June's Turkish General Election was to secure either a two thirds majority that would allow them to change the constitution to grant the President executive power without holding a national referendum or a simple majority that would require a referendum on constitutional changes.
The AKP failed on both of these fronts falling 17 seats short of a majority with 40% of the vote. With the Kemalist Republican People's Party (CHP) nor the Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) being prepared to work with the AKP on account of Erdogan this led this led them into torturous negotiations with the MHP.
The MHP were formed by NATO as part of the "Gladio Organisation" in 1965. Rather like the School of the Americas in South America Gladio was a network of European fascist paramilitary groups funded by NATO to counter the influence of communist paramilitary groups funded by the USSR. As such the MHP share many of Erdogan's imperialist designs having been behind the 1974 Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus. However they are very opposed to his Islamist agenda and have an almost visceral hatred of Turkey's Kurdish population.
While AKP and MHP have been trying to work through these ideological differences in order to form a governing coalition the day to day running of Turkey has been left in the hands of the Turkish establishment which is sometimes referred to as the "Deep State." Having an aggressively secular agenda that dates back to Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk they do not share Erdogan's love affair with ISIL and have been quietly moving to disrupt the group's activities. This is one of those things that everybody sees but no-one comments on because it is only able to happen due to the vacuum created by the coalition negotiation so would become much more difficult if it was made a factor in those negotiations.
Monday's (20/7/15) ISIL bombing was an attempt to draw attention to the security crackdown in order to make it a factor within the coalition negotiations and to intimidate Turkey into bringing it to an end. Obviously it is not my role to point out ISIL's mistakes to them but my first reaction to the Suruc bombing was to pat them on the back and give them a round of applause.
However as always seems to be the case these days US President Barack Obama was on hand to sweep in and try to tidy up after ISIL's mistakes. On Wednesday (22/7/15) Obama contacted Turkey to offer his condolences on the Suruc bombing.
His first mistake was that he telephoned President Erdogan. As with the UK, Israel, Japan and all other Parliamentary democracies it is Turkey's Prime Minister who is considered the head of government and therefore the person protocol dictates this type of communication is with. Therefore it is hard to understand why Obama would break with protocol to contact Erdogan particularly when around 60% of the Turkish population appear to have voted to make sure that Erdogan has no future role in such discussions.
Obama's second mistake was to amplify ISIL's desire for the Suruc bombing to play a role in Turkey's coalition negotiations by taking the opportunity to formally discuss Turkey's role in the fight against ISIL. As always with things they cannot justify the US are keeping the details of these discussions secret. However it appears that in return for the use of Incirlik airbase the US has given Turkey carte blanche to do whatever it likes in Syria and Iraq including conducting an independent air campaign and the invasion and occupation of Syrian territory. As this is a NATO operation the notion that concessions would have to be made to Turkey in return for it fulfilling its obligation to make Incirlik available is just insane.
Putting aside the fact that AKP simply cannot be trusted not to go back to supporting ISIL once the coalition negotiations have ended Monday's bombing targeted Turkish Kurds. Over the past 40 odd years the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have presented themselves as the protectors of Turkey's Kurdish population. Therefore in response to an attack on Turkish Kurds they had to carry out an attack in retaliation. This exactly what they did on Wednesday killing two Turkish police officers who the PKK claim had been assisting ISIL. On Thursday the PKK executed an ISIL fighter that they say they had tracked from Syria into Turkey where he had been given medical treatment and sanctuary.
The MHP were formed specifically to counter the PKK so any PKK activity is going to have them baying for blood and demanding retaliation. With Obama having given Turkey free reign to respond in anyway it likes on Friday (24/7/15) Turkey carried out air-strikes in the Kurdish regions of northern Iraq and Syria. These of course are the areas that have been leading the resistance to ISIL over the past year. In response to these strikes the PKK have declared that the ceasefire with Turkey is over and have escalated their activities in southern Turkey including the kidnapping of police officers. This is no doubt going to lead to the MHP calling for more strikes against the Kurds.
Although I hope the situation will calm down this is likely to be future of the AKP/MHP negotiations and of any government it forms. The MHP will demand tougher action against the Kurds in return for ignoring the AKP's support for ISIL and the AKP will be happy to give it because it allows them to wipe out the only anti-ISIL force - except the Syrian government - in Syria. With the anti-ISIL coalition at war with itself the use of Incirlik or not isn't going to make much difference.
So in the space of a single phonecall Obama has managed to set back the fight against ISIL by about 7 months. I can't imagine that he'll be able to continue as Commander-in-Chief
15:50 on 25/7/15 (UK date).
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