I visited Turkey in April last year, traveling through the country, witnessing the troubles of the leadership of the ruling AKP party: it had just lost a general election that left it without a workable majority in parliament and only 40% of the popular vote; it was sucked into a war in Syria from which millions of refugees were flooding the country; it was in open warfare with the large Hizmet\Gulen movement that leaked videos and recordings of the many nefarious deals the AKP leadership got into; and its dynastic and dictatorial tendencies were openly derided by the press in Turkey that never ran out of stories of huge palaces and rampant nepotism.
One year on and that same AKP leadership is riding high: they no longer suffer embarrassing media stories inside Turkey; they have a large parliamentary majority following new elections; they have over 50% of the population behind them; the Hizmet movement has largely backed off and is suffering blow after blow; the EU is promising it billions of euros, favourable visa arrangements for Turks, and accelerated negotiations for EU membership. NATO has promised it continued support; and the economy is doing well. Wow!
How did they achieve this remarkable turnaround? The answer is sobering: they started a civil war, abused state power to crush internal opposition, and openly blackmailed the EU with millions of refugees. They have now been handsomely rewarded for all three of these audacious choices. As an object in realpolitik, a student of politics and human nature can hardly find a better modern example of ruthless and successful power-politics than the choices of the AKP leadership. They have been inventive, bold, and relentless.
How did these choices help them?
The civil war that the AKP started with the Kurds mid 2015 brought it many related benefits: it galvanised support amongst the non-Kurds around the AKP party and thus gave it a majority in newly called elections; it divided the opposition that included a nationalist party that preferred continued AKP rule over a coalition with the Kurds; it kept the army busy, which had previously been a source of opposition; and it opened up a lot of jobs available to its own supporters that were previously taken by Kurds. It is hard to find a cleaner example of a war that benefited those who started it. Of course thousands of deaths and disruptions of whole regions inside Turkey were the result, but such humanitarian costs have not affected the ones who started it. Continue reading →