Friday’s failed coup in Turkey was the result of mounting alarm in the military over the Turkish president’s increasingly authoritarian behavior.
On Friday, a faction of Turkey’s military attempted a coup against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but the attempt failed and Erdogan was back in power in less than 24 hours.
There has been a steady progression of Erdogan’s abuses of power including harassment of journalists, the takeover and closure of Turkey’s biggest newspaper two months ago, the building of a lavish 1,000 room presidential palace and lackluster efforts against terror group ISIS, Wayne White, former deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s Middle East Intelligence Office, told Borderless News Online.
There has also been some support for Islamism in a country that was set up to be secular and democratic– all of which has alarmed top military brass.
Erdogan’s harassment, arrest, and trumped up charges against the military date back to 2010, and the two have been at odds ever since.
“There was no specific warning of an impending coup, but in the past when Turkey’s democratic process has run amok, the military has intervened—the last time in 1997,” White said.
There clearly has been resentment within the military, but as this failed coup attempt has shown, during Erdogan’s 13-year tenure as prime minister and then president, the military’s leadership largely had been taken over by Erdogan’s men — stripping this coup attempt of needed command and coherence, White said.
White added that Turkey’s shift toward more Islamist policies and away from its tradition of secularism is a reflection of a phenomenon common within the Muslim world over the past several decades.
Erdogan gave it a voice along with allies he has since alienated such as Prime Minister Ahmet Davtoglu, who resigned last May over objections over Erdogan’s questionable behavior.
Erdogan accused former Islamist backer Fethulah Gulen, who now resides in the state of Pennsylvania, of orchestrating the coup attempt – only the latest in a stream of seemingly paranoid accusations against Gulen, White said.
Erdogan is pressing the United States to extradite Gulen, and White noted that Erdogan’s closure of the airspace around heavily U.S.-used Incerlik Airbase and cutting off its power – which has nothing to do with securing the surrounding area – is directly related to Erdogan’s ire over his belief that the US is sheltering Gulen to threaten him, White said.
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