Turkey’s Erdogan Thinks War in Syria Could Save His Political Skin

In Syria, the USA, Turkey, and even in Russia, fears are mounting that Turkey might launch a full-scale navy operation on its embattled neighbor at any second. On Nov. 27, Turkish Protection Minister Hulusi Akar advised navy commanders on the Iraqi border that Turkey was able to “full the duties” of his authorities’s operation in opposition to the Individuals’s Protection Models (YPG) in Syria, indicating Turkey’s readiness to launch a floor offensive in Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself mentioned his forces would “come down arduous on the terrorists from land on the most handy time,” reiterating his conviction to constructing a “safety hall” in Syria alongside the Turkish border—one thing he particularly talked about in a name with Russian President Vladimir Putin final weekend.

Tensions turned to escalation on Nov. 13 when a bombing on Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue, a preferred buying space, killed six individuals and reportedly injured 81 people. The Turkish authorities blamed the bombing on the Kurdistan Staff’ Celebration (PKK) militant group and livestreamed the arrest of the Syrian girl liable for the assault; the PKK, for its half, denied involvement within the bombing. One week later, Turkey launched Operation Claw-Sword, a collection of missile assaults on Kurdish bases throughout northern Syria and Iraq.

In Syria, the USA, Turkey, and even in Russia, fears are mounting that Turkey might launch a full-scale navy operation on its embattled neighbor at any second. On Nov. 27, Turkish Protection Minister Hulusi Akar advised navy commanders on the Iraqi border that Turkey was able to “full the duties” of his authorities’s operation in opposition to the Individuals’s Protection Models (YPG) in Syria, indicating Turkey’s readiness to launch a floor offensive in Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself mentioned his forces would “come down arduous on the terrorists from land on the most handy time,” reiterating his conviction to constructing a “safety hall” in Syria alongside the Turkish border—one thing he particularly talked about in a name with Russian President Vladimir Putin final weekend.

Tensions turned to escalation on Nov. 13 when a bombing on Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue, a preferred buying space, killed six individuals and reportedly injured 81 people. The Turkish authorities blamed the bombing on the Kurdistan Staff’ Celebration (PKK) militant group and livestreamed the arrest of the Syrian girl liable for the assault; the PKK, for its half, denied involvement within the bombing. One week later, Turkey launched Operation Claw-Sword, a collection of missile assaults on Kurdish bases throughout northern Syria and Iraq.

The next week noticed violent retaliation from either side that killed dozens of individuals. On Nov. 23, Erdogan described Turkey’s strikes on Kurdish targets as “only the start” of a bigger operation, suggesting {that a} full-scale invasion of Syria could possibly be imminent.

Given Turkey’s broader geopolitical pursuits, an invasion of Syria might sound contradictory. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s authorities is backed by Putin, for whom Turkey’s Erdogan has emerged as considerably of a diplomatic conduit, particularly because the starting of Russia’s battle in Ukraine. Current missile strikes have additionally created a clumsy—probably incidental—alliance between Iran and Turkey, lengthy on reverse sides of the battle in Syria.

Nonetheless, approached from a home angle, a Turkish invasion of Syria begins to make sense. Erdogan and the entrenched authorities and safety equipment he’s constructed over twenty years of rule are dealing with presidential and parliamentary elections in June 2023 that they may lose.

Moreover, Erdogan has lengthy confronted criticism about his dealing with of the nation’s Syrian refugee inhabitants. The nation hosts greater than 3.6 million Syrian refugees—principally because of a March 2016 deal between Turkey and the European Union to manage the stream of refugees from the Center East into Europe. The opposition coalition has seized on anti-refugee sentiment, with latest marketing campaign posters promising that—if it wins—it might oust refugees from Turkey inside two years.

On this context, a battle in Syria could possibly be a helpful electoral device for Erdogan to keep up management over an more and more unfavorable political surroundings. At the beginning, it might sign to his base—a inhabitants with rising frustration towards Syrian refugees within the nation—that he and his occasion are “doing one thing” about Syria and the refugees, which he says he’ll return to Turkish-controlled areas. Second, a battle would offer a rallying cry for extra nationalist parts of the Turkish inhabitants. Erdogan, on the helm of an invasion of Syria, might mission himself because the protector of the nation from Kurdish terrorists within the lead-up to the elections.

This tactic, which he has utilized many instances earlier than, is an embodiment of devlet baba (or the Turkish idea of the state as a father). Underneath this logic, the pinnacle of state might be flawed, corrupt, or make excessive choices and nonetheless be trusted as a result of he’s believed to be doing so within the title of the household—the Turkish populace. Lastly, in essentially the most excessive of circumstances, a Turkish-led battle in northern Syria and Iraq might set off a state of emergency in elements of Turkey or the entire nation. This might drastically increase Erdogan’s capacity to manage the election and its final result, and within the worst-case situation, it might allow him to postpone or cancel the vote altogether.

Throughout Erdogan’s rise to energy, he acquired vital assist from some Kurdish voters—assist that has disintegrated since 2015’s electoral violence and his alignment with the ultra-nationalist MHP in 2018. As an alternative, Kurdish voters have more and more turned to the Peoples’ Democratic Celebration (HDP), which has been excluded from each electoral blocs. Many analysts imagine that Kurds and the HDP would be the kingmakers for whichever facet manages to curry favor.

Given this dynamic, a Turkish floor assault in Syria would additionally put Turkey’s opposition bloc in an uncomfortable state of affairs. Critiquing the invasion would invite Erdogan to label opposition members as pro-Kurdish or supporters of terrorists. But supporting the invasion might each alienate the Kurdish vote that’s essential for both facet’s electoral victory come June and it might come throughout as hypocritical to the remainder of the voters on condition that the bloc has crafted itself nearly totally in opposition to Erdogan and his insurance policies.

Predictions about Erdogan’s machinations will not be mere hypothesis; reasonably, these potential outcomes have a powerful foundation in latest Turkish historical past. Over twenty years of rule and significantly in recent times, the AKP and Erdogan have honed their capacity to channel violence and battle into political affect. And so they probably gained’t hesitate to do it once more to maintain energy.

The turbulent political interval from 2015 to 2017 is especially illustrative on this respect. Turkey’s 2015 parliamentary elections, by which Kurdish voters denied Erdogan’s AKP a parliamentary majority, broke open Turkey’s fragile peace. The following months noticed bombings, protests, and large-scale civilian clashes. In November 2015, the police killing of a human rights lawyer named Tahir Elci marked the start of a full-scale battle that leveled Kurdish cities and killed lots of of civilians.

This was a vital turning level in Erdogan’s rhetoric towards Turkey’s Kurdish populations in addition to towards dissent writ giant. Erdogan seized on the violence and chaos as a possibility to current himself as a protector of the true Turkish individuals—a pacesetter who would safely shepherd his nation by way of a grisly battle in opposition to dissidents. The years of widespread violence that adopted solely legitimized this narrative and helped Erdogan additional strengthen his rule.

In July 2016, a failed coup by defecting military officers supplied Erdogan one other helpful narrative for his crackdown on dissent. Now, not solely did he have to guard the nation from the PKK and the Islamic State but additionally from allegedly malevolent forces inside his personal authorities. Erdogan seized upon this rhetoric and doubled down additional on authoritarian levers of management at nearly each degree of civil society.

Within the aftermath of the coup, greater than 110,000 individuals had been detained, and practically 50,000 of them had been formally charged and arrested. The police and navy had been gutted by the hundreds. The federal government declared a state of emergency (or OHAL), which per the Turkish Structure, permits for “the train of basic rights and freedoms [to] be partially or totally suspended” and offers the president near-total energy to find out precisely what suspension of rights and regular functioning of presidency the state of emergency requires.

Underneath this OHAL declaration, the judiciary was gutted and changed with AKP loyalists prepared at hand out sentences to those that opposed Erdogan and his supporters. In complete, round 179 media shops had been shut down, greater than 2,700 journalists had been dismissed from their posts, and dozens of journalists had been jailed. Distinguished members of the opposition and civil society—together with HDP co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, and later, philanthropist and businessman Osman Kavala—had been arrested and jailed on expenses of terrorism and sedition. Underneath the violence and coup-induced state of emergency, Erdogan and the AKP centralized and cemented their rule.

On April 16, 2017, Erdogan put forth a constitutional referendum that vastly expanded presidential and government powers—in essence, cementing the emergency powers, in place because the coup try, into legislation. Amid accusations of meddling and corruption, the referendum handed.

Now, after 5 extra years of tightening management, Turkey faces an election that might resolve the way forward for the nation. And it looks as if Erdogan and his allies will do all the things of their energy to make sure that historical past repeats itself.

There may be additionally the chance of Erdogan declaring a state of emergency. Though the structure nonetheless requires Turkey to carry elections, this declaration might additional increase on his government emergency powers, codified within the 2017 constitutional referendum. Relying on what the president deems crucial based mostly on the character of the emergency, Erdogan might postpone or cancel the elections or, on the very least, severely limit opposition media and marketing campaign exercise. It’s also potential that such a state of emergency could possibly be declared solely in Turkey’s Kurdish areas, which might make voting and taking part in elections tough for the very voters who could be vital to any opposition victory.

Regardless of the final result, Erdogan will probably put the Syrian battle—and the specter of terrorism it represents—on the middle of his reelection marketing campaign. Already, his authorities has unified behind cross-border operations, risking its ever-more vital relationship with Russia to take action. Given all the things he and his allies must lose if they’re voted out of energy, Erdogan’s bloc has its full consideration and sources targeted on the election. A significant navy operation like Operation Claw-Sword wouldn’t be undertaken if it weren’t deemed, at the very least in principle, considerably useful to the incumbent bloc’s reelection efforts.

It’s already clear that Erdogan sees his finest guess for staying in workplace as consolidating energy based mostly on opposition to terrorism and Kurdish separatism. What stays to be seen—given the fast and ever-changing nature of the Turkish voters—is whether or not that tactic will work.