Erdogan shot self in foot over Syria: Analyst

An Analyst, with the Executive Intelligence Review from Washington D.C., sheds light on Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan internal and external policies, Press TV reports.

What follows is a rough transcription of Jones’s interview on Press TV’s Debate program.

Press TV: I like to find out more William Jones, of what Recep Tayyip Erdogan means when he says what is happening to them is the result of an evil probe or he said foreign plots. What does he mean by that?

Jones: Well, I guess that it is based partially on the fact that Mr. Gulen has his operations here in the United States in Pennsylvania and can operate freely and maybe has contacts with the US forces who want to do Mr. Erdogan harm.

In one sense I think that Mr. Erdogan has, over the past few years, shot himself in the foot by very fluctuating policies with regards to what is going on in Syria and that the reaction of that of course, had economic consequences for Turkey, undermining the very strong position that Turkey held in the region several years ago.
In addition, the refugees who have been coming from the Syrian battlefront, are becoming a burden on Turkey and the government is trying to keep control over that.

There is opposition from the people in the country naturally because their conditions are getting worse and he has decided to crackdown on them. So there is a lot of opposition going on, it is a period of turmoil and I think that Mr. Gulen is utilizing this turmoil for his advantage.

Press TV: Well, William Jones, as we speak there are plenty of protests that are speculated to being planned, that are going to take place over the weekend in Turkey.

We know that Erdogan, this year is not his year, is it? I mean we could look at a range of issues. Tell us what consequence that is going to have for Erdogan especially given the fact that elections are going to be coming up next year.

Jones: Well, I think that it depends , to some extent, on how Erdogan deals with this situation. Like I said there was vacillation with regard to the Syrian operations, he was under a lot of pressure, I believe, from the West in the beginning, to trying to give support to the opposition movements, so-called, in Syria to overthrow Assad.

That was not going to work, it was not going to happen, then Turkey, concerned about its own interest; backed off of that and it has, now in the last few weeks, been working together to try and create something out of the Geneva meetings that are being held around the Syria operation.

The other fact you have to look at is the fight within the region in which the Saudis and Qatar and some of the other countries are really targeting, utilizing the Syria situation to, not only undermine Assad, but also to undermine the role of Iran in the region and I think that that could very well play a factor in this because of the Islamist connections of the Hizmat Movement that Mr. Erdogan no longer is seen as much of an ally for these groups who do want this radical change in the region and maybe they are going after them.

But I think that it is largely going to depend on how he deals with this situation. If he tries to crack down even further, you probably have something similar to what we have seen in Ukraine with growing mass discontent and therefore his chances for reelections are going to be pretty dim but he may turn the corner; he has shown himself to be very versatile in these situations and he may work his way out of this nevertheless.

Press TV: And based on this, William Jones; I do not see a bright future for Erdogan in terms of the events that have now spiraled with these corruption arrests that have been made. What can Erdogan do?

I mean is he left with…, we hear that he may actually go with cabinet reshuffle, maybe perhaps speed up the parliamentary elections; are those the only two options you foresee perhaps is Erdogan choosing to do?

Jones: Well, I think that he will make an attempt to sacrifice some of his own people to try to create a new image here.

It may have gone so far at this point that he is not going to be able to make any gains here. There is of course within the AKP, opposition to Erdogan; some of it is not so visible but there are other people who are jockeying for positions and they see that he has become a weak candidate.

So I think that you will have a lot of infighting going on in there but it really is a reflection of the turmoil in the region and Mr. Erdogan has tried to play his own cards in such a way that he has done one thing one day and other thing the next day and people no longer trust what he is doing and like I said if he takes the route that he is more inclined to do, to crackdown on this opposition, I think that that opposition will grow into a force which he is not going to be able to withstand.

Press TV: Bill Jones how do you see Turkey then in the future? We saw what happened during the summer regarding the Gezi Park protests, which we still do see protests happening and some were calling this, as far as it is going, to be a Turkish Spring.

Are we looking at this country being divided in any sense and experiencing something to that effect or are we just looking at elections taking place and of course your take on what the future, AK Parti (Party) is going to be looking like, if they are going to stay in power.

Jones: Well, obviously there are great divisions within Turkish society and they are playing out. As we speak there is a resistance to moving in the direction of creating some kind of an Islamist state that Mr. Erdogan seemed to be working towards, you do have, still, the commitments to this sort of secularist identity that has been characteristic for Turkey ever since its founding.

Those things are going to be in play, I think the military…, I agree with the other speaker, that the military probably at the moment is out of play, although I think if there are other forces moving in that direction or if Mr. Erdogan or anybody else wanted to lean in the direction of bringing in these groupings in a broader coalition to give him support, they would then again be playing a role, but Turkey has lost, significantly, that unique position that it had in the region, really as a secularist state and it could evolve into something much worse.

There is so much turmoil in the region at this point that nobody can really predict what is going to happen.

But if the conflicts continue, if the Syria conflict continues, if you have more trouble erupting, like in Iraq, with a lot of the terrorism, this is always going to be overflowing into Turkey and will create a situation of practical ungovernability but I do not think that that is inevitable, I think it looks very murky at this point and it is only by some of the forces, that I indicated, coming together to try and reestablish some form of Turkish identity that we will have any hope of Turkey playing some of the role that it had played several years ago.