Interesting article this morning on Zerohedge, a financial site, about inflation in Turkey. The conclusion this article comes to is that the severe and rapidly imploding inflation situation there was deliberately caused by “President” (read dictator) Erdogan and his cronies robbing $billions from the country over the years he’s been running it, and that he may stage some sort of phony coup as an excuse to leave the country with his stolen riches.
“Deliberately caused” in order to blame the economic collapse on foreign interference and/or manipulations, to cover up his thefts.
If the Zerohedge writer is right in his thinking and the imminent collapse of Turkey’s economy will see Erdogan and his crew abandoning the government, what will happen next? This is a Big Deal, because Turkey is a major power in the Mid-East, a NATO member and an important US ally. We have a lot of military aircraft, including bombers, at their Tikrit Air Base, and while the 90 atomic bombs we’d stored there have supposedly been removed, I’ve never seen any actual proof of that. They may still be there and if so, are still a very substantial deterrent against Iran and Russia using nukes of their own.
Erdogan turned Turkey into an enemy of Israel instead of keeping their previously neutral position, and has returned the nation to an Islamist state from a secular one. None of this is good for the West and is the primary reason Turkey was never admitted to the EU, even though they pushed hard for years to join.
If Erdogan does abdicate his illicit throne, what will the Israelis do? It would be a golden opportunity for them to do everything they can to push Turkey back toward being a secular state again and possibly even an ally. They managed to ally with the Saudis, a veritable miracle in itself, and the Turks are far less harsh than the Saudis.
A Turkey working for peace in the Mideast alongside Israel and Saudi Arabia would be a huge step in ending all the fighting and bringing Iran to heel.
This is going to be really interesting to watch.