The New Sultan of East

The New Sultan of East

By: Erreh Svaia

“According to this view, democracy is a product of western culture, and it cannot be applied to the Middle East which has a different cultural, religious, sociological and historical background.”

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

As I have said too many times before here in this blog, Turkey is one of my favorite countries in the world, is a prodigious land where the East meets the West, where ancient meets the new, where myth meets reality, where the past meets the present and a powerful bridge between Middle East and Europe, for a while it looked as if Turkey was the land destined to connect the European Union with the Muslim world, and then came the Arab Spring, Tunisia became the only place where apparently the Arab Spring truly triumphed over authoritarianism, as the Arab world spun out of control, strongman Recep Tayiip Erdogan vowed to keep his country safe, but Erdogan, a very smart man chose to make a deal with the devil, he let the terrorist menace known as ISIS reach near the Turkish borders, he let ISIS get very close to his neighbor Syria, and used terrorism as an excuse to weaken the Kurds, a fast growing minority in Turkey, and seen as a menace to ethnic Turks, Erdogan used the migrant loving Turkey in order to contain the refugee crisis, extort the European Union with promises of keeping the migrants from reaching Europe, in exchange, he was close to take Turkey into the Union, he missed the opportunity but instead received financial resources form Germany, but by playing with the devil, Erdogan apparently lost his soul.   

In Berlin on February 27, 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire in the middle of an arson attack in Germany, the communists were blamed for the violent act, the event was used as a perfect excuse for the suspension of civil liberties and the government's immediate order of massive arrests of the government´s opponents opening the door for the rise of Adolph Hitler, history however, has unveiled that the arson attack could have been truly started by the Nazis in order to manipulate public opinion against communists and making things easy for Hitler and his followers to become in society's eyes, the saviors of the republic granted with supreme powers, and precisely that supposed coup by the communist, was the perfect motivation for an even bigger devil to assume absolute powers.

So back to our days, finally we have arrived to the last station in Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan runaway train escaping traveling far away from democracy, a supposed military coup attempt, presumably carried by a small group of militaries opposing President Erdogan closeness to Islamism, a direct attack towards his government, and perhaps one of the fastest defeated coup attempts in Turkey's history and in world's history in general, the attempt is supposedly blamed on Fethullah Gulen's religious movement in Pennsylvania, USA, so basically retakes the well-known blame on the west attacking the middle east, but it could also easily mean something more, in recent days, Erdogan was busy rebuilding his relationships with Russia, Israel and even Syria's leader Basher All Assad, so it could be deducted that Erdogan long time desire of taking Turkey into the European Union was not happening anymore, as Erdogan's government was starting to move away from democracy, moving towards a directed democracy, or even a dictatorship, thanks to the fear instilled by ISIS, radical Islam and even Russia, in Erdogan's Turkey, a dictatorship wasn't something too much of a fantasy as the government was taking control of all the media, internet, and even shutting down every critic of Erdogan's rule, who was building a powerful image as security provider in exchange of lesser civil rights, as Erdogan role in the middle of the post Arab Spring agitation, Turkey was seen as a safe place for democracy and secularism, but things don’t look that way anymore, the coup, will certainly help Erdogan to achieve maximum powers, at the expense of civil rights, to vindicate again his iron fist rule, with world approbation, to clean the army, who traditionally oppose authoritarian rulers in Turkey, claiming the extradition of Gulen and finally installing an Islamic republic in Turkey, just like Putin, using religion as a weapon of mass dominance, with Erdogan reaching his dream pursued of becoming Sultan.

The possibility of a new axis formed by Putin, Netanyahu, Al Assad and Erdogan could become a formidable opposition against the European Union, using again the excuse of terrorism, establishing a powerful grid on the Eastern part of Eurasia, might this be a dream for Putin? Might this new axis be too much to stay together a long time? What role would play ISIS on this new geopolitical map? This time Erdogan, a very smart guy has played all his cards to perfection, but the future of his developing dictatorship remains to be seen.