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Although Turkey appears to have stepped back from a direct confrontation with Greece over the thousands of migrants trying to pass through the latters border, the last month has been extremely challenging for the Greek state. Since February 28, when Turkey announced it would no longer stop those wishing to go to Europe, thousands of people have attempted to break through the E.U.s easternmost border, Greece.

Up until twelve days ago, the Greek forces were repelling this invasion alone. Invasion may not be everyones choice of word, but that is exactly what it is. The migrants camped at the border did not set off on their own. They were implicitly instructed to go there by Turkeys president and, in many cases, were even bused to the region by the state.

This has been a coordinated and spiteful agenda on behalf of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan payback to a Europe that has refused to cower to his demands.

Although the E.U. has now sent some of its human resources to the region, its original response was unimpressive. One would have expected it to leap to the defense of its most vulnerable borders, immediately dispatching military personal from each of the 27 member states to the eastern Mediterranean. Instead, its leaders praised Greece for being Europes shield and promised to send it another 100 members of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.

Even so, it is a pitiable contribution when one considers that Turkey swiftly dispatched an additional 1000 Special Forces to the same area to prevent migrants from being repelled by the Greek army from re-entering Turkey.

The images coming out of the region have not always been flattering.

Greek border guards have been under enormous pressure firing teargas and using water cannons to push back people trying to cut through the wire. They have also had to contend with Turkish troops firing teargas back at them or attempting to pull down the border fence. Erdogan has compared Greek actions to the barbarism of Nazis in World War II an interesting claim considering Greece suffered three and a half brutal years of Nazi occupation while Turkey did not.

Greece needs much more than flattering metaphors and tokenistic gestures of a few hundred personnel in the face of 25,000 desperate and determined migrants at its frontier. Even a few hundred soldiers from each member state would have sent a powerful message to Erdogan, who has no doubt been enjoying all the chaos he unleashed after having duped hundreds of thousands of migrants into believing Europes border was open for all.

A more immediate and substantial response would have told him that on issues of sovereignty the E.U. stands together and will not be threatened by despots prone to throwing tantrums. This is an opportunity for the bloc to demonstrate that it actually stands for something. So far, it has only reinforced the rationale behind Brexit that is, of an E.U. that is inept, dysfunctional, and failing.

Erdogan has repeatedly proven that he does not share the same values as the West.He does not speak, and refuses to learn, the language of their secular, liberal democratic politics. This is also the reason he has incarcerated thousands of his countrymen, journalists, politicians, and average Turks.

For years he has threatened Greece and Cyprus while the E.U.s political elite has essentially watched from afar, hoping that it would all just go away. E.U. heads of state have occasionally come out in shows of solidarity towards Greece and Cyprus, imposing sanctions and supposedly reprimanding Turkey for its unending belligerence in the eastern Mediterranean.

However, none of these has proven effective or sincere. For months Erdogan has been threatening to flood Europe with refugees, even former ISIS fighters. The floodgates have finally been opened, and Greece has effectively been left to drown. Its Aegean islands, part of its main export, have been turned into squalid internment camps for thousands of people from the Middle East, Africa, and the subcontinent, thus destroying the locals income source tourism.

This has unfortunately resulted in the emergence of certain hothead vigilantes who are beginning to take matters into their own hands. Erdogan knows that the pressure is taking its toll on Greece and is banking on some disastrous Greek blunder that will vindicate him. In the meantime, he continues to blackmail the bloc. It either supports his Syrian peace missions or the migrants keep on coming.

By procrastinating, the E.U. has further solidified discord on the edges of its ailing experiment. It may not be immediately obvious to the average observer, but for years now there has been a growing resentment amongst Greeks towards the European Union.

Ask the average person and they will tell you they have never really felt European.That Greece has never been viewed as an equal partner but rather a liability on the impoverished southern fringes of the E.U.; a buffer, or Plan B, for when the Turkish buffer fails.

With the Turkish buffer now down and the Greek one at risk of collapsing, Europe is confronted with the very real prospect of being swamped, this time, with millions of people who desperately want to go to Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, and other affluent and quiet northern European states. Those who think this cannot happen should think twice.

Erdogan has been cornered and his ego badly bruised.His approval ratings are down, and many Turks have had enough of his escapades.He is, however, far too conceited to let this issue just quietly peter out.This is not over.One way or another, Europe will pay dearly for messing with the Sultan.

Continued here:
EU, Turkey, and Migrants: One Way or Another Europe Will Pay Dearly - The Globe Post

The criticisms began in August last year, soon after the Indian government announced new constitutional and administrative arrangements in Jammu and Kashmir. Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on India to follow a just policy" towards the noble" people of Kashmir. The Iranian criticism became more strident after the communal violence in Delhi in February. Khamenei condemned the massacre" of Indian Muslims, and called on the government to control extremist Hindus and their parties" and avoid Indias isolation from the world of Islam".

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan also criticized the massacres" of Indian Muslims. Separately, he saw the struggle" of the Kashmiri people as comparable to the Turks own struggle against foreign domination in World War I. In his remarks at the UN General Assembly in September last year, Malaysias former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad accused India of invading and occupying the country" of Jammu and Kashmir. Later, in December, he criticized the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) for depriving Muslims in India of their citizenship.

In response to the censures from Turkey and Malaysia, India has taken quick retaliatory action. The government has said that it will cut imports of oil and steel from Turkey, and has placed imports of palm oil from Malaysia on the restricted" list, thus curtailing imports of 4.4 million tonnes of Malaysias major export item.

These brickbats from Muslim leaders contradict the massive efforts made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally to cultivate ties with the Islamic world. In his high profile outreach to Islamic nations, Modi has always had domestic interests in mind. Affirming this, last December, when there were protests across India against the CAA, Modi had said: Congress feels if the worlds Muslim countries love Modi so much, how will we create fear about him among Indian Muslims."

The Kuala Lumpur summit

These interventions in what India sees as its domestic concerns reflect significant shifts in the Muslim worlddoctrinal and politicalthat have brought these countries, along with Qatar (that has not joined the anti-India chorus), into an alignment founded on Islamist affinity. This could upend existing equations of power and influence in West Asia and the Islamic realm.

The nascent connectivity between these four nations was publicly proclaimed at the Muslim 5 Summit", convened in Kuala Lumpur by the then prime minister Mahathir Mohamad on 19-21 December last year. Mahathir had initially envisaged a five-nation Islamic summit that would bring together Malaysia, Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan and Indonesia.

This initiative was viewed as a rival to the Saudi-led Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Hence, the summit lost two of its founders"Pakistan and Indonesia: Pakistan was pressurised by Saudi Arabia not to attend, and Indonesia declined the invitation for fear of alienating the kingdom. Malaysia then invited Iran to fill the gap.

Mohamad, 94 years old and prime minister after a long gap, shaped the summit to promote his vision of a rejuvenated, modern and successful Muslim civilization that would overcome its backwardness, extremism, and internecine conflicts that have exposed it to western machinations.

The Kuala Lumpur summit reflects a clear schism at the heart of the Muslim world, with these four countries Turkey, Iran, Qatar and Malaysiauniting against the Saudi-led Islamic order that has defined Muslim affairs over the last several decades. The thread binding the four nations is their affiliation with Islamism, and specifically its most influential organization, the Muslim Brotherhood.

The bond of Islamism

Islamism" describes the efforts of a political movement to influence and ultimately shape government and society on the basis of the rules and traditions of Islam. While its adherents derive these ideas and principles from pristine Islam dating back to the holy prophet, there is no consensus among Muslim scholars and movements about the meaning and application of such principles in modern times.

Today, Islamism has three expressions: one, Wahhabiyya in Saudi Arabia that provides the monarch with full authority in the political area, giving him responsibility for his peoples security and welfare in return for their loyalty and obedience.

The second expression is jihad, where its adherents believe that Islam and the Muslim community are under attack from the West (in alliance with regional leaders) and hence they have divine sanction to resort to violence to defend their faith.

The third expression finds in principles of pristine Islam the sanction for grassroots politics that enjoins pluralism, human rights and liberties, constitution-based democratic systems, and flexibility in the understanding and application of Shariah, alongside acceptance of secular laws.

The Muslim Brotherhood, set up in Egypt in 1928, is the first modern Islamist movement. Concerned about the cultural encroachments of western materialism and secularism, it advocated a return to Islam". By the end of the last century, its scholars had derived the principles of democratic governance from Islamic norms, calling for a national constitution, parties, free elections, responsible government, and rights of citizens. These principles have never been implemented fully in any Arab polity due to the pervasive authoritarian order.

The Saudi view

Today, in West Asia, the Muslim Brotherhood is most influential in Turkey and Qatar, while it has been declared a terrorist" organization by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt. Egypts military dictatorship overthrew the democratically-elected Brotherhood government in a coup detat in 2013.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE view the Brotherhood as their principal threat; they fear that the activist democratic politics advocated by it could be more alluring to their young population than their 19th century ruler-led paternalism that provides no scope for popular participation in governance.

Saudi Arabias Wahhabi doctrine is firmly anchored in Islam; this has legitimized its guardianship" of Islams holy cities of Mecca and Madinah and given it a natural claim to lead the Muslim world in doctrinal and political areas. It has solidified support for itself across the Muslim realm through a network of well-funded institutions, domestic and transnational. The most important among them is the OIC. Set up in 1969, headquartered at Jeddah and largely funded from Saudi coffers, this 57-member conclave of Muslim nations serves to garner support for its positions against challenges from other Muslim countries.

In recent years, ties between India and the Gulf sheikhdoms have expanded exponentially due to: very significant Indian demand for the regions oil and gas; the substantial trade and investment ties, and the presence of the eight million-strong Indian community. These ties have been strengthened with Prime Minister Modis frequent interactions with the leaders of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, with the two countries promising to invest $70 billion and $100 billion, respectively, in India.

Besides energy and economic considerations, they also see India as a partner in the battle against extremism. Hence, taking a pragmatic approach, they did not join other Muslim nations in criticizing India in response to recent domestic developments; they probably also hope that Indias ties with them could over time dilute its links with Iran.

While the kingdom is confronting a strategic challenge from Iran in its geographical space, the bigger threat it faces is to its leadership of the Muslim ummah (community) from the emerging Islamist alignment of Turkey, Qatar and Iran.

Brotherhood affiliation

Turkey under Erdogan has substantially severed its ties with its Kemalist secular order. What we witness now is a Brotherhood-influenced Islamic nationalism", an approach that combines backing for Islamism with aspirations to revive Ottoman power and influence and ultimately replace Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Muslim world.

Iran describes its revolution as Islamic", but its neighbours and its own constitution view it as Shia. Iran has repeatedly sought to overcome this stigma by reaching out to Sunni Islamism as represented by the Brotherhood. During former president Mohammed Morsis short reign in Egypt, the two Islamist nations attempted to bridge the sectarian divide with the over-arching doctrinal and political affiliations they share. After Morsis fall, Irans leaders have communicated with Brotherhood leaders in exile to build an anti-Saudi front.

Qatar has for long been an outlier in the family of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) sheikhdoms, mainly on account of its backing for the Brotherhood and its advocacy of normal ties with Iran. Islamist advocacy is at the heart of its foreign policy. This has fed the paranoia in the Gulf relating to the threat from the Brotherhood and led to Saudi Arabia, allied with the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt, initiating in June 2017 the siege" of Qatar, a comprehensive political, economic and logistical blockade of the tiny peninsula nation.

This seems to have been a miscalculation, since Turkey and Iran rushed to Qatars assistance.

Meanwhile, Turkeys ties with Iran are more complex. Though divided by the sectarian cleavage, they are today brought together by shared doctrinal and political interests.

The Prognosis

After the departure of Mahathir Mohamad, even if Malaysia becomes more low-key in Islamic matters, the alignment of Turkey, Iran and Qatar on Islamist basis is a major development in regional politics. Given that it is being shaped at a time when the regional scenario is divided and conflictual and the global order uncertain, it is difficult to forecast the assured resilience of the grouping and its effectiveness in regional affairs.

With this caveat, the following prognosis is offered:

One, the triumvirate will offer a serious challenge to Saudi leadership of the Muslim realm. This has largely been facilitated by Saudi Arabias own recent self-goals: the futile war in Yemen; the siege of Qatar; the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and the arrest, incarceration and mistreatment of royal family members in November 2017, followed by the detention of other senior royals this month to pave the way for the crown prince to ascend the throne. These developments, coupled with the crown princes close ties with USPresident Donald Trump and Israel have discredited the kingdom and its crown prince and called into question their fitness to lead the Islamic ummah.

Two, while the unity of the nascent alignment will face serious tests, the three partners will make every effort to make it work. Their ideological commitment to Islamism is that of true believers rather than that of pragmatics or opportunists. They are also joined together by their visceral hostility towards Saudi Arabia.

Three, while Qatar will seek to maintain close ties with the US, the other two partners see a far greater strategic affinity and clarity of purpose with Russia. Again, China, with its Belt and Road Initiative, is also deeply interested in regional stability and, in time, could abandon its caution in regional affairs in favour of a more proactive approach to regional security, in tandem with Turkey and Iran. This will facilitate the shaping of a new global order.

What does this mean for India? As long as Modis government pursues its current domestic agenda, the criticism will remain strident. Modis ability to bank on the silence" of his Muslim friendsSaudi Arabia and the UAEto flaunt his links with the Islamic world will get further diluted, as will his leadership persona globally. In fact, if the communal divide widens at home, India may find that the list of its friends has got much smaller.

Thus, India, that has so far viewed itself as a global role-player and shaper of the new world order, may find its influence confined to the borders of Bharat Mata.

The author is the former Indian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE

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Diplomatic challenges from the Muslim world - Livemint

The show which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan is playing now with the migrant crisis is, to a great extent, the result of the green light he got from Trump last October when the US troops withdrew from Syria.

Iveta Cherneva writes about security, politics, human rights and sustainability. She recently published the book Trump, European security and Turkey (2020).

Writing from Bulgaria the EUs external border with Turkey I remember that when the White House delivered its statement of 6 October that the US military forces would be moving out of Turkeys way, many of my compatriots realised that nothing good will come out of this.

Erdoan entered Syria like a king and started running the show. Several days ago, he even proclaimed to his party that the Syrian province Idlib was Turkish territory now. We are the hosts now, he said.

The 33 killed Turkish soldiers in Syria were a big blow but it was a small price to pay for the gains Erdoan has made.

Erdoans ambitions to continue expecting help from NATO in Syria are arrogant, as is his countrys veto on the Alliances defence plan for the Baltic States and Poland in NATO, unless the Syrian Kurdish YPG is recognised as a terrorist organisation. These are just blackmailing tactics.

Turkey will never get direct military help by NATO in Syria. And forget about Article 5 in the Turkey-Syria case. In the end, it is Turkey that entered Syria, not the other way around. This is why Article 4 and consultations are the most that Turkey can hope for, and they already used that option last week.

A Turkish government spokesman announced that 100,000 refugees are now headed towards the EU. When all other leverage fails for Erdoan, it is the refugees turn. This is the show we are watching. I wont even mention the refugee deal that Turkey struck with the EU that is pretty irrelevant right now, from where I am sitting.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov will try to serve as a mediator between the EU and Turkey he did so on Monday and will continue over the following days.

My thought is for those that did not pay attention to Turkeys incursion into the Kurdish parts of Syria. In the end, it was only about the Kurds, right? In the EU, who cares about the Kurds?

When we look at the new migrant crisis unfolding at our doorstep, we should not forget about Erdoans motivation and the fact that Trump gave him the green light. By the way, the US President promised in a phone call more support to Erdoan.

The chiefs of the three EU institutions are meeting the Greek leadership on Tuesday in Greece but that will be no more than a symbolic meeting. The real breakdown of dialogue is not between EU institutions and Greece. It is elsewhere.

Erdoans plans, however, are to see many more dramatic scenes at the EU border. Unavoidably, there will be human suffering. Turkeys propaganda will make the most of it.

The last refugee episode tells Europe that the show will end when Erdoan says so. Today, the Turkish leader said that millions of refugees will enter Europe. It doesnt take millions, however. Several thousand refugees and several fatalities will be more than enough to accomplish what Erdoan intends humiliate the EU.

Read more from the original source:
Erdogan is bullying Europe because Trump gave him the green light - EURACTIV

There is little mystery about Erbil Gunastis perspective on U.S.-Turkey relations. His new book, GameChanger: Trump Card: Turkey & Erdogan, is a typo-ridden, rambling work arguing that only President Recep Tayyip Erdoans Turkey can ensure the United States is successful in its foreign policy objectives.

Gunasti, who was then-Prime Minister Erdoans press officer from 2002 to 2007, and his life partner, Daphne Barak, are long-time supporters of President Donald Trump, representing him as delegates at the 2016 Republican Party Convention.

In the books preface, Gunasti writes that he will have joined [Trumps] administration by the time this book is published. So far, he has not been appointed to any U.S. government position.

It is hard, however, to take Gunastis proclaimed expertise on the books content seriously given it contains more than a whiff of plagiarism. Whole pages of GameChanger are copied and pasted directly from articles published in outlets including Reuters, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Guardian and many more without any credit given to the authors of these direct quotes.

Locating the duplicated quotes is easy given Gunasti does provide the web links to the articles in footnotes, but in most cases he does not even bother to use quotation marks or indents when he copies entire paragraphs of other individuals writing. The books content holds up no better than the poor quality of its writing.

With Trump and his supporters as the target audience for the book, Gunasti plays on fears of Muslim migration, blames President Barak Obama and his predecessors for all of the United States travails, both real and imagined, and touts Turkeys big things: Istanbuls huge airport, the countrys thousands of railway miles, its growing defence industry, and the millions of tourists it attracts.

GameChanger shifts back and forth between boasting of Turkeys strengths and incanting the Erdoan administrations litany of grievances with the West. The book either omits Ankaras own transgressions, or paints them as legitimate, and even beneficial.

It asserts that Turkeys geopolitical attributes and steadfast political will make it a domineering regional power with leverage over its neighbours in the Middle East, the eastern Mediterranean, and Central Asia, as well as Russia and China.

Gunasti is right that Turkey is endowed with a unique geostrategic location that it can use to its advantage. Russia has been eager to send natural gas to Europe via Turkey, China has incorporated Turkey into its Belt and Road Initiative, and the United States has long sought Turkeys cooperation on counterterrorism and stability operations in the Middle East.

Beyond these oversimplified facts, however, much of Gunastis halting narrative distorts reality and parrots Erdoan talking points. Even when addressing problems that Turkey can legitimately argue the West does not fully appreciate, he fails to illuminate reality.

On issues like the U.S. support for Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkeys stalled EU accession process, Gunasti bashes the United States and the EU for their stupidity without bothering to outline the actual facts that explain why Turkey has genuine grievances with their actions.

Much of the rest of the book discards serious discussion entirely to traffic in conspiracy theories. On the subject of the Middle East, Gunasti employs fierce criticisms of globalists including the last three U.S. presidents. He writes repeatedly that Obamas decision to deploy U.S. troops as a part of the global coalition to fight ISIS was a political hit job designed to weaponise Syria against Trump.

Leading the global coalition, the U.S.s Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) was initiated in 2014 to achieve the territorial defeat of ISIS, long before Trump announced his candidacy for President. That goal was not achieved until March 2019 and OIR continues to this day to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS, despite the partial withdrawal ordered by Trump last October on the eve of Turkeys invasion of northeastern Syria.

Turning to the eastern Mediterranean, Gunasti repeatedly asserts the Erdoan talking point that Turkey controls and has legal rights to much of the seas natural resources. He criticises the Republic of Cyprus for unilaterally declaring oil and gas exploration zones and calls the UN hypocritical for not recognising the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which he brags Turkey was able to single-handedly create.

However, the idea that Cyprus has acted unilaterally in contravention of international law is farcical. Cyprus, which is an internationally recognised member of the UN, has treaties with Egypt, Israel, and Lebanon delineating their maritime borders and the support of the EU for its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) claims under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

None of that really matters though according to Gunasti, because Turkeys massive naval military exercises prove it has laid claim to much of the seas around it and the West is in no position to oppose Turkish dictates in the region. In fact, Turkey is largely isolated in regional affairs.

To evidence Turkeys preponderance of power, Gunasti claims that of the 200 surface warships that are present in this semi-closed sea, 90 percent of them, including half that belong to the Western European powers, are in contention with the U.S. Navy.

He goes on to write that The European Union started to build its own navy under PETCO. To many its main adversary is a NATO that is under U.S. leadership, rather than any of the Eastern powers. Among the books many typos, PETCO refers to the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), which is a part of the EUs security and defence policy.

It is true that renewed interest among EU states in pursuing structural integration of their military capabilities is somewhat prompted by uncertainty over the future of NATO, inspired in no small part by Trumps ambivalent stance on the alliance.

However, security problems in the EU neighbourhood, including the Syrian and Libyan civil wars and their ensuing migration crises, are the primary motivations behind the activation of PESCO by 25 of the EUs now 27 members in 2017.

Gunasti fixates often on the threat of migration to Europe. He asserts that Turkey has saved Europe twice from a total annihilation by stemming the flow of millions of refugees.

Painting Erdoan as the leader of the Muslim ummah, Gunasti says Turkey can be a pressure valve to the immediate benefit of Christian white Western Europeans whose civilisation could be destroyed by the avalanche of illegal refugees headed for Europe.

Tapping into xenophobic fears among Trumps base and similar ultra-nationalist movements in Europe, Gunasti suggests Turkey can either be the saviour of Western civilisation or it can use its geostrategic position to open the floodgates of destabilizing migration.

To undergird his claim that Turkey is a major power that the United States and EU need more than it needs them, Gunasti write repeatedly that by 2030 the United States will only be the third largest economy in the world and Turkey will rise to become the fifth largest, eclipsing Germany, Britain and France.

A study by PwC Global does project that the United States will be the third largest economy by 2050, but does not even place Turkey in the top 10. It does project Turkey will overtake France, but not Germany or Britain.

Overall, PwC does concur with Gunastis broader claim that emerging economies will reshuffle the G7s economic power, but it cautions that for this to occur, emerging economies need to enhance their institutions and their infrastructure significantly if they are to realise their long-term growth potential.

Furthermore, Gunasti claims Turkey is already essentially a top five military power, but the 2020 Military Strength Ranking places Turkey outside the top ten globally, with regional rival Egypt ranked higher in ninth place.

Paul Iddons reporting for Ahval demonstrates that although Turkey has developed its indigenous military-industrial sector with some success, in key power projection areas including its navy and advanced fighter jets progress has been limited.

What GameChanger makes most clear are the roots of Trumps affinity for Erdoan, underpinned by authoritarian impulses on a wide range of issues. The pair may be predisposed to cooperate on many consequential matters, but if left free to impose their shared visions this cooperation would chiefly benefit them politically at the expense of their countries security and economic interests.

There are far better books available that provide nuanced explanations of Turkeys legitimate grievances with the Western powers, accurate depictions of Turkeys strengths and weaknesses, and balanced interrogation of the calamities Ankara is responsible for. GameChanger provides no such forthright analysis.

View original post here:
A self-proclaimed Trump and Erdoan insider tells a tale of fear and falsehood - Ahval

The latest installment of the interminable Syria tragedy could be interpreted as Greece barely blocking a European invasion by Syrian refugees. The invasion was threatened by President Erdogan even as he refused the EUs puny offer you can refuse bribe of only one billion euros.

Well, its more complicated than that. What Erdogan is in fact weaponizing is mostly economic migrants from Afghanistan to the Sahel and not Syrian refugees.

Informed observers in Brussels know that interlocking mafias Iraqi, Afghan, Egyptian, Tunisian, Moroccan have been active for quite a long time smuggling everyone and his neighbor from the Sahel via Turkey, as the Greek route towards the EU Holy Grail is much safer than the Central Mediterranean.

The EU sending a last-minute emissary to Ankara will yield no new facts on the ground even as some in Brussels, in bad faith, continue to carp that the one million refugees trying to leave Idlib could double and that, if Turkey does not open its borders with Syria, there will be a massacre.

Those in Brussels spinning the Turkey as victim scenario list three conditions for a possible solution. The first is a ceasefire which in fact already exists, via the Sochi agreement, and was not respected by Ankara. The second is a political process which, once again, does exist: the Astana process involving Russia, Turkey and Iran. And the third is humanitarian aid a euphemism that means, in fact, a NATO intervention of the Libya humanitarian imperialism kind.

As it stands, two facts are inescapable. Number one: the Greek military dont have what it takes to resist, in practice, Ankaras weaponizing of the so-called refugees.

Number two is the kind of stuff that makes NATO fanatics recoil in horror: Since the Ottoman siege of Vienna, this is the first time in four centuries that a Muslim invasion of Europe is being prevented by, who else, Russia.

Fed up with sultan

This past Sunday, Ankara launched yet another Pentagon-style military adventure, baptized as Spring Shield. All decisions are centralized by a triumvirate: Erdogan, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and the head of MIT (Turkish intel) Hakan Fidan. John Helmer has memorably called them the SUV (Sultan and the Ugly Viziers).

Behlul Ozkan, from the University of Marmara, a respected Kemalist scholar, frames the whole tragedy as having been played since the 1980s, now back on the stage on a much larger scale since the start of the so-called Syrian chapter of the Arab Spring in 2011.

Ozkan charges Erdogan with creating conquering troops out of five unlikely fundamentalist groups and naming the armed groups after Ottoman sultans, claiming they are a sort of national salvation army. But this time, argues Ozkan, the results are much worse from millions of refugees to the terrible destruction in Syria, and the emergence of our political and military structures affecting national security in a dangerous way.

To say that the Russian General Staff are absolutely fed up with the SUVs shenanigans is the ultimate understatement. Thats the background for the meeting this Thursday in Moscow between Putin and Erdogan. Methodically, the Russians are disrupting Turk operations to an unsustainable level ranging from renewed air cover to the Syrian Arab Army to electronic countermeasures totally smashing all Turkish drones.

Russian diplomatic sources confirm that no one in Moscow believes any word, promise or cajoling emanating from Erdogan anymore. So its useless to ask him to respect the Sochi agreement. Imagine a Sun Tzu-style meeting with the Russian side displaying the very picture of self-restraint while scrutinizing Erdogan on how much he is willing to suffer before desisting from his Idlib adventure.

Those non-nonsense proto-Mongols

What ghosts from the past evolve in Erdogans unconscious? Let history be our guide and lets go for a ride among the empires of the steppes.

In the 5th century, the Juan Juan people, proto-Mongols as much as their cousins the White Huns (who lived in todays Afghanistan), were the first to give their princes the title of khan afterwards used by the Turks as well as the Mongols.

A vast Eurasian Turco-Mongol linguistic spectrum studied in detail by crack French experts such as J.P. Roux evolved via conquering migrations, more or less ephemeral imperial states, and aggregating diverse ethnic groups around rival Turkish or Mongol dynasties. We can talk about an Eurasian Turk space from Central Asia to the Mediterranean for no less than a millennium and a half but only, crucially, for 900 years in Asia Minor (todays Anatolia).

These were highly hierarchical and militarized societies, unstable, but still capable, given the right conditions, such as the emergence of a charismatic personality, to engage in a strong collective project of building political constructions. So the charismatic Erdogan Khan mindset is not much different from what happened centuries ago.

The first form of this socio-cultural tradition appeared even before the conversion to Islam which happened after the battle of Talas in 751, won by the Arabs against the Chinese. But most of all it all crystallized around Central Asia from the 10th and 11th centuries onwards.

Unlike Greece in the Aegean, unlike India or Han China, there was never a central focus in terms of a cultural berth or supreme identity organizing this process. Today this role in Turkey is played by Anatolia but thats a 20th century phenomenon.

What history has shown is an east-west Eurasian axis across the steppes, from Central Asia to Anatolia, through which nomad tribes, Turk and Turkmen, then the Ottoman Turks, migrated and progressed, as conquerors, between the 7th and the 17th centuries: a whole millennium building an array of sultanates, emirates and empires. No wonder the Turkish president pictures himself as Erdogan Khan or Sultan Erdogan.

Idlib is mine

So there is a link between the turcophone tribes of Central Asia from the 5th and 6th centuries and the current Turkish nation. From the 6th to the 11th centuries they were set up as a confederation of big tribes. Then, going southwest, they founded states. Chinese sources document the first turkut (Turkish empires) as eastern Turks in Mongolia and western Turks in Turkestan.

They were followed by more or less ephemeral empires of the steppes such as the Uighurs in the 8th century (who, by the way, were originally Buddhists). Its interesting that this original past of the Turks in Central Asia, before Islam, was somewhat elevated to mythic status by the Kemalists.

This universe was always enriched by outside elements such as Arab-Persian Islam and its institutions inherited from the Sassanids, as well as the Byzantine empire, whose structural elements were adapted by the Ottomans. The end of the Ottoman empire and multiple convulsions (the Balkan wars, WWI, the Greek-Turkish war) ended up with a Turkish nation-state whose sanctuary is Asia Minor (or Anatolia) and eastern Thrace, conformed into a national territory thats exclusively Turk and denies every minority presence that is non-Sunni and non-turcophone.

Evidently thats not enough for Erdogan Khan.

Even Hatay province, which joined Turkey in 1939, is not enough. Home to the historic Antioch and Alexandretta, Hatay was then re-baptized as Antakya and Iskenderun.

Under the Treaty of Lausanne, Hatay was included in the French mandate of Syria and Lebanon. The Turkish version is that Hatay declared its independence in 1938 when Ataturk was still alive and then decided to join Turkey. The Syrian version is that Hatay was acquired via a rigged referendum ordered by France to bypass the Treaty of Lausanne.

Erdogan Khan has proclaimed, Idlib is mine. Syria and Russia are responding, No, its not. Those were the days, when turcophone empires of the steppes could just advance and capture their prey.

Read more here:
Empires of the steppes fuel Erdogan Khans dreams - Asia Times