If Israel tried to launch a coup in Turkey it was a mistake for their interests
Reports have come out in Turkey that Mossad were involved in a plot to overthrown the democratically-elected ruling Islamic party, the AKP. If this is so, it was a big mistake, for a number of reasons.
By Matt Kennard on Monday, December 1st, 2008 - 834 words.
It emerged this week, according to Turkish daily newspaper Hurriyet, that Mossad, the intelligence service of Israel, were behind an attempted coup in Turkey seeking to overthrow democratically-elected leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his Justice and Development Party.
Military coups are not new to Turkey; since the Republic was founded in 1923 by Mustapha Kemal, there have been three – in 1950, 1960, and 1980. The constitution of Turkey is still based on that drafted by the right-wing coup in 1980: before that, for example, women could wear headscarves in university.
But Erdogan and his party, AKP, have overseen the most “stable” government in many decades in Turkey, perhaps since Turgut Ozal’s tenure in the 1980s and 1990s, as he pushed Turkey into the neoliberal consensus of the post-1973 era. Erdogan has been lauded by the Western business press because of his reform-minded (read: opening up Turkey to speculators) tendency.
In Turkey, Erdogan is popular (he has won two elections) amongst his socially-conservative, pious constituency; but among what is often called the “secular elite” or “Kemalist elite” he is hated with some real ferocity.
The higher echelons of the military are part of this latter group, and have been closely tied to upholding “Kemalism” since Kemal himself insisted on the incestuous relationship between political power and the military back in the 1920s.
Erdogan, although his government has pursued right-wing economic policy and only moderate Islamist social provisions, has endured the wrath of the “secular elite” and the Kemalists. For them, Erdogan, and his President Abdullah Gul (who’s wife wears a headscarf) are merely the precursors to the eventual descent of Turkey into Saudia Arabia, a sharia law dystopia, (or at least that’s the pretext they use for shutting them down).
This summer, dozens of political players, journalists and others were rounded up by the police and accused of plotting, through a radical nationalist group called Ergenekon, to get rid of Erdogan and the AKP. Soon after, there was even a trial of Erdogan and his party for unconstitutional religiosity which could have ended in them being banned from politics (they won the case by one vote).
The indictment of the alleged Ergenekon cell is still proceeding. But this new information about the involvement of Mossad throws up a number of new questions.
Firstly, why is Israel contra the AKP? Turkey has been one of Israel’s closest allies, with the U.S., for decades (Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize it) and the Islamist base of the AKP is often rancorously abusive about the party’s acquiescence to Israel. The AKP did invite a Hamas official for a visit to Ankara in 2006, but this was just a face-saver for their constituency rather than the announcement a real political alliance.
Secondly, Israel has looked to Turkey to help in its negotiations with a number of Arab states that it says it wants to talk with, from Syria to Iran.
Thirdly, the AKP is thoroughly in the pocket of the Bush administration so the U.S.-Israeli goals of remaking the Middle East – next stops Syria and Iran – are going to be vastly helped by having this pliant government on their side which borders both those countries. Charles Krauthammer, the fiercly right-wing columnist, recently suggested that the best way to attack Iran would be through Turkey. Taking out a main allies government and the concomitant political crisis seems like a mad gambit.
Not only has Israel seemingly got increasingly mad at Erdogan, the Western media which until recently could not stop rhapsodizing about his open-minded reform, are now turning against him. The Economist recently ran an article titled “The Worrying Tayyip Erdogan”. It lamented how, “Mr Erdogan appears increasingly autocratic and out of touch.” Then, as is usual fort the Economist, they decry that while “sticking firmly to IMF prescriptions Turkey helped foreign investment to soar, tamed inflation and narrowed the budget deficit,” but now the, “Foreign investors, who hold as much as 70% of the Istanbul Stock Exchange, have been pulling out, and the lira has tumbled by more than a third against the dollar this year. Growth of GDP has dipped sharply, to below 2%.”
Well, that’s the typical course of any country that follows the IMF-prescriptions; you get a little boost, then the unregulated investors pull out. To blame Erdogan is fair, but nothing has changed in him, just the ideology he is pursuing is dunderheaded and often catastrophic for under-developed countries.
It’s strange to see Israel trying to help the overthrow Erdogan’s government, not because they have any preference for democrats (they were supporters of the anti-semitic apartheid South Africa government, and the anti-semites of the Argentina junta, amongst many others). It’s just Erdogan seems to be the perfect stooge, he is following the neoliberal prescriptions to the book, and he has now got much more violent against the Kurdish minority (who are fighting a battle similar to the Palestinians). I think they should leave this one: If they are worried about Iran, I’m sure Erdogan will lay out the red carpet for the F16’s.
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Matt Kennard
26London
Matt Kennard graduated from the Journalism School at Columbia University as a Toni Stabile Investigative scholar in 2008. He now works for the Financial Times in London. He has written for the Guardian, Salon, The Comment Factory and the Chicago Tribune, amongst others. In 2006 he won the Guardian Student Feature Writer of the Year Award
mattkennard@thecommentfactory.com
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Reports have come out in Turkey that Matt Kennard was involved in a plot to overthrow the democratically-elected ruling GayBashers party, the AKP. If this is so, it was a big mistake, for a number of reasons.
Give me a break, You're a damn fool