Erdogan will now be cleaning up ‘the virus’
The failed coup in Turkey to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on July 15 has shown how elected Governments in that country will have to counter massive unrest within its army for long. Though for the time being the dissenters have been taken into control, yet chances are that the deep state may strike back at any time. However, President Erdogan's victorious speech addressing the public rightly underlines that the terror elements masterminding the coup have already descended in Turkey and his resolve to stamp out ‘the virus' is a stern warning to global jihadis spreading menace particularly across West Asia.
It remains a big mystery how the Turkish military, one of the most powerful institutions of the country, which is known as the vanguard of the secular traditions, responsible for successfully pulling off three coups in the last century, has come to a tipping point of staging the banner of revolt against an elected presidency. Besides, the rounding off the members of the military and handling the very elements of the putschists, may unknowingly help in seeping a sense of deepening divide within the Army and between the Government, and the governed for sure.
As the Erdogan Government is leaving no stone unturned to initiate action against Fethullah Gulen, the US-based Islamic preacher, who may have inspired or rather, directed his terrorist group to plot this coup, therefore, the security establishment back home must gear up for any untoward incident in the days to come. The group behind the coup, which called itself the Council for Peace in the Homeland is apprehensive about the real intensions of Erdogan, citing his increasingly authoritarian tendencies. It is obvious that Erdogan will seize the moment to reach out to the diverse political landscape of the country. He will definitely earn accolades both from his religiously conservative supporters and from the liberal and secular Turks who opposed the coup and hate falling their country into an abyss.
At a time when West Asia is engulfed by the mindless violence of jihadis, threatening the very survival of the nation-states created by the historic Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, the immediate concern shown by world leaders like US President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are highly appreciated. But then Obama raising his concern in regard to the treatment meted out to the renegade factions of the Turkish Army and other coup plotters, urging Erdogan to respect the rule of law is casting doubt over the process of cleaning up the aftermath.
It is a matter of serious internal political crisis which may probably snowball into a regional chaos. Instead of intervening and guiding the Turkish leader on how to deal with the coup leaders, Obama must work hard at the home front, wherein the racial fight between the black and the whites are taking an ugly turn. Under Obama, America has long lost the hegemonic role that it used to play in West Asia as many of its older allies now wholly blame it for unleashing the current tragedy in the region. Whatsoever it may be, the puzzling question is that while fending off the coup is fine, has the crisis left Erdogan more powerful or led him to know the simmering dissent against his rule, preparing him to accommodate his rising opponentsIJ