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Erdogan: Master Of Political Duplicity

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  • Erdogan: Master Of Political Duplicity

    ERDOGAN: MASTER OF POLITICAL DUPLICITY

    Mirror Spectator
    Editorial 11-8 Nov

    By Edmond Y. Azadian

    Any politician claiming to exercise moral principles has to be cast
    as a hypocrite. World history has never witnessed a war to uphold
    some moral principles yet almost all wars have been waged under the
    cover of moral principles, religious and human rights and above all,
    under the cover of promoting democracy.

    Media outlets during the last decade or so have been harping on about
    how the Arab Spring grew out of popular uprisings in the Middle
    Eastern countries against dictators. After trumpeting that lie so
    loudly and for so long, the manufacturers of that lie remained as the
    only believers while the people at the receiving end of that Spring
    only witnessed death, destruction and bloodbaths. And mind, only
    the secular governments were toppled, while the medieval potentates
    remained under additional protection from those very same powers
    which concocted the legend of the Spring, which, incidentally created
    further mayhem for the region.

    Only opportunists, manipulators and political jugglers could survive
    and thrive in that kind of atmosphere. One such political animal has
    proven to be Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom the West considered
    the right statesman to facilitate their plans, adorning him with
    the most gratuitous qualifications, such as "mildly Islamist," or
    "moderately religious," and so on while the latter used and abused
    the religion and the epithets of democracy to further his own agenda,
    at the expense of the naivete of his handlers. Erdogan turned out to
    be the master of political duplicity and from now on his words and
    actions need to be measured under that paradigm.

    It is true that under Erdogan Turkey became an economic powerhouse and
    regional military superpower, but Turkey's growth had to serve the
    ambitions of its ruler, who dreamt to revive the "glorious" Ottoman
    Empire and sitting at the top of the pyramid of power to play the
    caliphate of modern times.

    First, he used the Gulenists to destroy the secularist power of the
    Kemalists. Once he achieved that goal, he began to purge the courts,
    the military and the police of those very same Gulenist elements.

    In the meantime, Turkey's Achilles' heel is the Kurdish issue, which
    may eventually lead to the country's territorial partition. While
    entertaining the Gulenists and purging the Kemalists, he opened a
    dialogue with the Kurds. He did not consider any logical or legal
    impediment to negotiate with the jailed leader of the Kurds, Abdullah
    Ocalan, offering some vague promises to disarm the military arm of
    the PKK. Now that he Kurds have been fighting a life-and-death battle
    against the Islamic extremists of ISIS, Turkish army is bombarding
    the Kurdish forces within the country first, by denying any help
    to the beleaguered Kurdish forces under siege in Kobani, across the
    Turkish border and second, to weaken the Kurdish armed resistance in
    preparation for future negotiations.

    The case of Kobani is a turning point, and revealing case about
    Turkey's standing within the US-led coalition against ISIS. Although
    Turkey has nominally joined the coalition, it is working at
    cross-purposes. The irony and Turkish duplicity reside in the fact
    that Erdogan's government not only is refusing to fight against the
    coalition-designated enemy, namely ISIS, but it has also banned the
    US bases in Turkey from carrying out their mission. On top of all this
    travesty, Turkey has been arming the ISIS forces and facilitating their
    barbaric atrocities in Kobani, Mosul and other occupied territories
    in Iraq and Syria.

    Under immense pressure form Turkey's allies, the foreign minister,
    Mevlut Cavusoglu, stated cynically that no civilian population is
    left in Kobani, let two terrorist groups destroy each other.

    Erdogan's government is trying to implement the same policy of
    duplicity with Israel but certainly not for too long. His angry
    outbursts against Israel are intended for two main purposes: to comfort
    his conservative power base at home and win kudos from the Arab street,
    which can be converted into lucrative business in the Arab world.

    The Financial Times, which has dedicated a supplement to Turkey in
    its September 22, 2014 issue, writes, "In August of 2014, Mr. Erdogan,
    speaking at a presidential campaign rally, as Israel bombarded targets
    in Gaza that was to kill 2,100 Palestinians, he said, 'Those who
    condemn Hitler day and night have surpassed Hitler in barbarism.'"

    The same article, further down, underlines the contradiction between
    Erdogan's words and actions, stating: "Not withstanding the acrimony,
    trade between the two countries continues to new highs. Israel and
    Turkey bought a record of $5 billion of each other's goods in 2013."

    The Financial Times also indicates that Turkish energy links have grown
    20 percent in 2014 as compared to 2013 and that an energy deal is on
    the drawing board to build a pipeline utilizing offshore Leviathan
    Field in the Mediterranean.

    No matter how much the western media may portray the Arab world
    in denigrating terms, the Arab countries have already detected the
    hypocritical policy of Erdogan's government and they have already
    lodged a sobering response during Turkey's recent campaign to gain a
    non-voting membership in the United Nation's Security Council, where
    Ankara failed miserably. Foreign Minister Cavusoglu justified the
    defeat by announcing, "We will not give up our principles for votes."

    No one has yet questioned what those principles are.

    Although Armenia is a small fish in Turkey's political pond, Erdogan
    and his ventriloquist, Ahmed Davutoglu, are planning to use the same
    deceptive means. The protocols, which were much in Ankara's favor,
    were not ratified by that country's parliament after so much fanfare.

    Of all the statesmen, Hillary Clinton stated that the ball is in
    Turkey's court. And still it remains there, neglected.

    Mr. Erdogan, after emphatically stating that "our ancestors did not
    commit a genocide," eventually deigned to extend a dubious condolence
    to the survivors and the children of those "deportations."

    In preparation to preempt the impact of the Armenian Genocide's
    centennial, the Turkish government has sent out feelers to different
    Armenian communities in fact-finding missions. Those facts will help
    the Turkish government to formulate its stand on he Genocide issue to
    deflate Armenian activism. It was an early sign of that campaign to
    engage veteran journalist Etyen Mehcubian as Davutoglu's senior advisor
    "to deal with issues of democracy." The Turkish government is trying
    to get credit that for the first time a non-Muslim has been assigned
    to that high position. But turning the tables, we need to ask that
    if Turkey is not a racist country, why is it that a non-Muslim has
    not been allowed to reach such a position before?

    We have to wait and see what kind of spin the Turkish government
    will put on the Genocide issue. That will impact also President
    Obama's position.

    In the meantime, the actions of Armenians in the homeland and in the
    diaspora will be commensurate with the clout they have internationally.

    Mr. Erdogan and his prophet, Ahmet Davutoglu, have the unwarranted
    presumption that they are shaping history. But their actions and
    their policies speak to the contrary. The motto of "zero problems
    with neighbors" proved to be an illusory balloon. Actually, it ended
    up with "zero neighbors with a multitude of problems."


    From: Baghdasarian
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