Turkey: Failed Coup or Paradigm Shift in the Middle East – in the World?
By Peter Koenig
Global Research
Theories and speculations about the failed military coup in Turkey abound, ranging from a botched CIA coup; to one inspired by Erdogan’s arch-enemy, the self-exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, now living in Pennsylvania, USA; to a combination of both, CIA-Gulen; to a purposely failed auto-coup by Erdogan and his close military allies – and possibly many more, or combinations of different conspiracies. – The old question Cui Bono is in order.
As of now, Erdogan looks like the big winner. He has regained popular support, was able to accuse his ultra-rich preacher enemy, Gulen, as well as Washington as the coup instigators, and he can pursue his new alliance with Russia and renewed friendship with Bashar al-Assad.
Is it so simple? By looking closer, a failed CIA-Mossad-MI6 coup is perhaps the most realistic scenario.
It appears that Russia played a crucial role in having the audacious and ill-prepared coup fall apart.
Washington and its European-NATO allies are becoming ever bolder in their pursuit of attaining world dominance. The arrogance of being untouchable does not pay well with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Flash-back to the downing of the Russian Sukhoi Su-24M fighter jet near the Syria–Turkey border on 24 November 2015. It was pursued by two US-made Turkish Air Force F-16 fighters that took off from the Turkish Incirlik Air Base, also used by the US and Royal Air Forces, where the US has stationed about 5,000 servicemen, in addition to uncountable fighter jets and war helicopters.
Were the pilots acting (indirectly) on behalf of US intelligence? [with a view to creating divisions between Russia and Turkey, GR Ed] One of them shot the Russian plane down. The pilot died.
The CIA had dozens of their agents infiltrated into the Turkish Air Force. How did the Pentagon think the Russians were not aware of this? The Federal Security Service (FSS) of the Russian Federation, KGB’s successor, informed the Kremlin. Putin knew who was behind the crime, when he cut all ties with Turkey. But he wanted Erdogan to react.
Putin knew Erdogan was vulnerable. He had lost the trust of Washington and was hated by the Europeans for his megalomania, his aspirations of becoming the new Ottoman ruler.
But Washington needed Incirlik and Turkey as NATO’s most strategic base in the region – just between Europe and Asia. The Americans were afraid that Erdogan might move into Russia’s camp as his hope for a future in Europe had vanished, and he increasingly realized that he was a mere peon for Washington – facilitating, funding and arming ISIS-Daesh, aka NATO’s ground troops, by keeping the border to Syria open, so ISIS could slip in and out, selling their oil stolen from Iraq, Syria and the Kurds, to such illustrious clients like Israel.
By playing along with the story that the SU-24M was shot down by orders of Erdogan, Russia severed all relations with Turkey – diplomatic and commercial. The latter were significant for the Turkish economy, particularly exports of agricultural goods (annually about US$ 1 billion), Turkish construction contracts in Russia (US$4.5 – 5 billion) and Russian tourism in Turkey (US$ 3.5 billion). Total annual losses for Turkey were estimated in excess of US$ 10 billion.
In addition, Turkey relies on Russia for 55% of its annual natural gas requirements. Russia has also suspended work on the TurkStream pipeline that was to bring Russian gas to the Black Sea for delivery to Turkey and Europe.
Erdogan had a lot to lose by playing patsy for the US-EU-NATO, helping them destroying the Middle-East and turning a “former friend”, Mr. Assad, into his arch-enemy. The calculation was not complicated. And Washington knew it. So – Erdogan had to go, in one way or another. Once more, ‘Regime Change’ was on the agenda. A coup was planned for mid-August 2016. The Pentagon-NATO-CIA had already made numerous ‘friends’ in the ranks of the Turkish military, police and judiciary system. Erdogan of course knew that there were traitors within his presumed supporters. He just needed a reason to purge them.
At the latest, when Mr. Erdogan called Mr. Putin to apologize for the downed Russian jet and subsequently went to Moscow to talk with the Russian leader in person, did he learned who was really behind the downing of the plane last November? He now had a confirmation for who his unreliable ‘friends’ are in Washington.
He hastened to solidify his new relationship with Russia (and Syria?), and Putin canceled all ‘sanctions’ against Turkey. Erdogan is scheduled to meet Putin in Saint Petersburg on August 9.
These were dangerous signs for the Washington-NATO alliance. The CIA-Mossad-MI6 coup had to be quickly brought forward, lest western armed forces may lose Incirlik – god forbid – to Russia! And that after ‘losing’ Crimea, the Russian Black Sea port, and Jumbo Prize for putting Ukraine under Nazi rule. The emerging Middle-East / Central Europe scenario did not look good.
Shortly before the quickly and poorly prepared coup was launched on 15 July, Putin informed Erdogan of the western plans. He sent a special emissary via a complex supposedly disguising detour route from Moscow to Ankara. The envoy handed Erdogan a long list of allegedly high ranking suspects in the Turkish Administration.
As soon as the rebellion to overthrow Erdogan began, he immediately mobilized the Turkish people to take to the streets in his defense. Strangely and paradoxically to do so he had the help of a CNN-Turk reporter who broadcast Erdogan’s call for support via her smart-phone over the social media. The public Turk TRT broadcasting station was in the hands of rebel soldiers. As Erdogan fled Ankara in a helicopter, two F-16 fighters took off in his pursuit – from NATO controlled Incirlik – of all places! But to no avail. The war jets did not fire a single shot onto Erdogan’s helicopter. The verdict must have been already clear at that time.
There are many controversies and contradiction in this strange ‘coup story’ – a story that defies all logic, especially knowing that the most perfected and most practiced coup-plotters are behind it – the alliance of lies, deception and assassinations, CIA-Mossad-MI6. Most likely their arrogance prevented them from contemplating that there may be an ace chess-player out there who can outsmart them all.
Erdogan did not hesitate to blame Washington for the failed putsch – which thanks to Vladimir Putin’s timely warning and the angry people in the streets hilariously climbing on to circulating tanks, was crushed and Recep Tayyip Erdogan emerged as the new popular leader of Turkey.
For how long remains to be seen. The British Independent quotes the Turkish Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim, reporting that 265 people died in the failed coup, including about ‘100 plotters’.
Let’s face it, Erdogan is no saint. His trustworthiness has a shabby record. It’s like a straw in the wind. He did not lose any time to use this occasion to arrest his enemies and suspects – so far about 70,000 and counting – military, police, judges, medical doctors, professors, teachers – and reintroducing the death penalty. He knows these drastic and tyrannical measures will distance him even further from the EU, but he doesn’t care. He knows first-hand how corrupt and deceptively the EU is dealing with her own people, let alone the people in the MENA Region (Middle East and North Africa).
While President Putin immediately called Mr. Erdogan wishing him well and congratulating him for the crushed coup, US Secretary Kerry flew to an emergency breakfast meeting in Brussels to confer with EU and NATO leaders (sic) to ‘discuss a unified stance on the crisis in Turkey.’
The French Foreign Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, questioned whether Turkey could remain a reliable ally and suggested that European backing of Erdogan against the ‘putschists’ was not “a blank check”. Of course, they all knew better: The new Turkey-Russia alliance could be the death knell for US-NATO’s self-declared and presstitute-propagated supremacy in the region. Kerry went even further openly questioning whether to consider expulsing Turkey from NATO.
This sounded about as fake as when German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble threatens Greece to be excluded from the EU / Euro, if they don’t behave and pay up. These liars know it is sheer propaganda of treachery for the people at large to swallow such statements in awe, while the masters also know that Greece and Turkey are crucial for their wars and plans of global domination, since they are both strategically important NATO countries – absolutely to be prevented from drifting east.
This botched coup is BIG; much bigger than the mainstream media are making the west believe. It could definitely and irreversibly tilt the balance of power in the MENA Region, perhaps give rise to a new world paradigm, as the new and crucial Russia-Turkey alliance solidifies, Turkey may be accepted into the wider circle of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). Turkey is geographically situated at one of the most strategically important cross-roads between East and West, thereby making her a geopolitical kingpin.
Turkey moving East might ruin the West’s game plan. We can only hope for that to happen. However, the masters and economic elites behind Washington, have no tendency of letting go after losing a battle. Defeat must be total. Theirs or that of the rest of the world. It’s all or nothing.
There is more at stake than just Erdogan and Turkey’s survival as a western ally, much more. It would be way presumptuous to rest on the laurels of winning a battle against the West. There may be more in store for Turkey.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, Chinese 4th Media, TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.