Putin: How To Come in From the Cold

I am in midtown New York watching Secret Service Suburbans accompanying world leaders to the United Nations. Traffic is a giant mess and the sidewalks are occupied by Falun Gong folks with their cultish demeanor, beatific smile and large brochures.

I am here to catch a glimpse of Vladimir Putin as I am curious of the man who, in the span of one week, achieved several momentous victories.

First off, he declared that his goals in Syria are lofty, laudable and lawful. He was trying to help the legitimate government of a country to stay in power. Unlike, he implied, its neighbors, who are all conspiring to bring him down.

He also added that he was trying to prevent another failed state, a clear reference to what Western powers did to Libya as they brought down Qaddafi (not to mention Iraq).

When you frame it like this, Putin looks like a serious statesman whereas all the others are petulant, pouty children whose actions are based on temper tantrums.

Secondly, he underlined the fact that Russian policy towards Syria was consistent from the beginning whereas all the other actors expressed shifting positions over time, including the US going from "no Assad" to "transitional Assad," to "maybe Assad."

Putin was hinting that this was because his approach was based on solid UN principles like sovereignty of a country and legitimacy of a government, whereas everyone else's positions were motivated by base calculations.

Thirdly, by offering a broad coalition against ISIS he was daring the US and EU countries to acknowledge that whatever he does in Ukraine, the Middle East is more important and they badly need him there. Especially in view of his massive military build up and enhanced intelligence gathering capabilities.

His proposal for intelligence coordination puts the Western powers in a difficult spot. How do you say no to that? But how can you be seen working closely with a power that seems to annex a country every year?

In that sense, this is also a clear signal to Ukraine. Putin is saying that the world will not lift a finger for them as long as Russia is such an important player in the Middle East. "I can annex the Eastern region and nothing will happen, so play ball or else" is Putin's loud and clear message.

Fourth, by establishing a major military presence in Syria and by expanding it rapidly, Putin is telling regional super powers that they can no longer act with impunity. There is a new sheriff in town. This is why Netanyahu rushed to Moscow only to be lectured by Putin.

And this is why Erdogan also visited Putin and he too was told that when it comes to Syria, Turkey has to listen to Russia. In fact, after the Moscow visit Erdogan acknowledged for the first time and very tersely thatAssad might be part of a transitional solution.

Finally, by expanding Russia's existing military base and by starting to build a new one, Putin is issuing a warning to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Stop supporting ISIS financially or I will come down on the side of the Shia powers. To make it clearer, he announced a tighter cooperation with Iran and Iraq in Syria. The meaning is unmistakable.

Now, I have long maintained that ISIS and its predecessor (and perhaps successor al Nusrah Front) were operating to ensure that Syria's ethnic and religious groups could never co-habitate. So even if ISIS was defeated (and I seriously doubt that this is possible) Syria can not be put back together. Too much blood was spilled and too many atrocities were committed.

But this is not what Putin aims. He simply wants to block the Qatar natural gas pipeline and to maintain an Alewite state on the Mediterranean cost with a large Russian military presence. The first part will leave Russia and Gazprom as the only supplier of natural gas to Europe and salvage Russian economy. The second will be the first and critical step towards his dream of turning Russia into a naval power again.

And the other beneficiary of blocking the Qatar pipeline will be Iran. Hence Russia is smack in the middle of the Sunni-Shia nexus.

As I said previously, Putin is no Yeltsin and trying to corner him while "misunderestimating" his moves was both risky and stupid.

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UPDATE

Read this BBC piece in case you think I exaggerate.

Judging from the reactions of media commentators, Mr Putin appears to have won on points overall, and not only in the "duel of speeches", as Germany's Der Spiegel website described it.

Many point out that he skilfully kept the world's focus on the Syria conflict, despite Mr Obama's condemnation of Russia's intervention in eastern Ukraine on the side of pro-Russian rebels.

(...)

So Russia no longer looked diplomatically isolated, despite the Western sanctions imposed for its pro-rebel activities in Ukraine.

In photo opportunities Mr Putin smiled more than Mr Obama - though some saw Mr Putin's expression as a satisfied smirk.

The Russia leader had stolen the spotlight at the United Nations, according to the AFP news agency, with a "swaggering push on the Syria crisis".

And the Associated Press said the meeting "highlighted Putin's ability to command attention and shift it away" from Ukraine.

I can tell you that he did win and not on points.

I am sure Bill Kristol will beg to differ.

Russia and Syria in the Context of the New Cold War

A good friend of this humble soapbox recently sent me a Robert Parry article regarding the dangers of starting a new Cold War with Russia and how the neo-con thinking could get the US into trouble again.

As you probably remember, the Prince of Darkness and his minions claimed credit for the demise of the Soviet Union. They argued that their policy of forcing the Soviet Union to try to keep up with America's disproportionate military spending enabled Saint Ronnie to yell "tear down this wall, Mr Gorbachev"and to put an end to both the Soviet Union and the Cold War.

The reality is, of course, more prosaic, as it has a well known liberal bias.

If you ask me, the Soviet system collapsed primarily because of its own key structural problems. Marx's labor theory of value was more of a critique of capitalism than an actual economic system and provided no viable incentive mechanism for innovation or productivity. The Soviet economy survived long enough because of the immense geography and natural resources involved; but given enough time, it simply folded under its own weight. As it would have, with or without Ronnie and Mommy.

Still, you could say it was the economy, stupid. And it was. It is quite possible that Reagan's new arms race provided the coup de grace. And that is why no one has challenged the neo-cons for this dubious causality.

The lucky break for the rest of us was the fact that it was the increasingly drunken Boris Yeltsin who replaced Gorbachev and not one of the cold apparatchiks like Vladimir Putin. The world would have been a very different place if the coup succeeded in 1991.

All of this to tell you that sometimes shorthand explanations could hide major errors of logic, like suggesting that economically starving the Russian state could lead to the ouster of Putin and the collapse of his increasingly authoritarian regime.

But neo-cons are true believers and this time they got the Administration to manipulate energy prices in order to push Putin into a corner. And Iran and Venezuela became the icing and the cherry (respectively) on their cake.

With oil prices falling below $50 for the first time in a long time, Russian economy has been in a free fall: it contracted by 3.5 percent in 2015. This is not surprising since energy is the largest sector of Russian economy representing, until two years ago, a third of its GNP (now it is down to a quarter), 68 percent of it exports and half of its budget revenues.

More worryingly for Putin, Gazprom, the company that was once touted as the first conglomerate likely to reach a trillion dollar valuation, has lost a staggering $300 billion of its market capitalization. It is now worth about $50 billion.

And this has profound operational implications.

To bypass Ukraine, Gazprom had planned a new pipeline through Turkey and an expansion of the Baltic Nord Stream network. The Nordic and Turkish Streams are estimated to cost roughly $25 billion or half of Gazprom's net worth. The Turkish stream is now on hold because Turkey insists on a significant discount.

Similarly, the $400 billion deal with China is negatively affected by the current situation: The pipeline is supposed to cost anywhere from $55 billion to $110 billion or double the net worth of the company. Moreover, with falling energy prices the deal is now worth a lot less than the estimated $400 billion. In fact, with probable cost overruns, the pipeline could conceivably be worth more than the natural gas it is supposed to carry.

Does this bleak picture mean the neo-cons who have been "so wrong for so long" are finally right this time and Putin will soon become a footnote in history books?

I seriously doubt it, as I believe Putin is aware of the American desire to start a new Cold War and he has his own strategy to counter it.

It is a high stakes gamble covering many regions and it involves many risks for all the parties involved.

A Foreign Policy Based on Energy

Putin believes that the fall in energy prices will not last long as Saudi Arabia and other OPEC producers will have to face up to harsh financial realities. The Kingdom has a significant budget deficit and at the going rate it would use up its Sovereign Fund reserves in about a decade.

Putin is also putting a lot of pressure on Qatar and other members of Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) to turn them into an OPEC for gas producers.

In other words, Putin is doubling down on energy rather than diversify Russia's economy. This makes sense since he has no funds to invest in a New Economy and therefore he has to salvage the old one at any cost.

In the short run, he hopes to pull Ukraine back into Russia's sphere of influence in order to capitalize on Gazprom's five pipelines serving the European market. Crimea was his way of getting the Ukranian government's attention and with a de facto occupation of Eastern Ukraine he is telling them that they have the choice between losing a big chunk of their territory and adopting a pro-Russian attitude.

In that respect, his tactics were clear from the outset: Crimea provided him with a decent test case to see if the military build up could be achieved rapidly and whether European and American reactions would be anything significant. That annexation simply earned him a disinvite to G7 and some weak sanctions. Eastern Ukraine added some more sanctions and that was about it.

At the same time, Putin has been working over-time to expand the Nordic Stream, in case the pressure on Ukraine does not yield the desired result. Tellingly, despite the EU sanctions (and unlike the Turkish Stream), this one attracted a lot of investors from Western Europe.

Top-flight Western firms such as Shell, E.On, BASF, and Engie (formerly GDF Suez) have banded together with Russia’s Gazprom to double the capacity of Nord Stream, with hopes it will be operational by late 2019. If completed, the 10 billion euro project would enable Russia to finally bypass Ukraine as a transit country. 

Another critical component of Putin's energy-based foreign policy is to prop up Assad's government and thereby to prevent ISIS from forming a stable Sunni Pipelineistan from parts of Iraq and Syria.

As you know, in the world according to Contrarian Progressive, a massive Qatari natural gas pipeline network that will connect their North Dome field to Europe via Turkey is the main reason for the Syrian civil way.

Finally, Putin is laying a huge claim on Arctic oil and gas resources as he believes the receding glaciers will reveal a massive energy reservoir and Russia should be the main beneficiary.

These last two elements require a closer look.

Russian Build-Up in Syria

If his previous ventures in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine should serve as a blueprint, it looks like Putin seems to have decided to intervene directly in the Syrian civil war. There is a massive military infrastructure being readied.

Housing units have been set up that can accommodate "hundreds of soldiers" as well as a portable air traffic control station near the Syrian port city of Latakia, US officials said on condition of anonymity. 

Aerial imagery showed Russia was focusing on Bassel al-Assad International Airport, south of Latakia on Syria's Mediterranean coast, and on the Russian naval facility in Tartus. 

Two tank-landing ships have recently arrived at Tartus and about a dozen Russian armoured personnel carriers are now at the airport, one US official said.

Syria-based observers report that Russia is actually expanding the Tartus military base and is building its first air base in Latakia.

"Syria has completely redone Latakia airport," journalist Thierry Meyssan, who writes for Al Watan, told Al-Monitor in an email. "The ground was leveled. A new runway was built for Russian aircraft. Sheds have been installed to house the aircrafts." Meyssan said workers also are building housing. 

"Work began at the beginning of August and continued day and night. They should be finished in a few days," he said, adding that Russia has begun delivering "more sophisticated weapons and especially satellite images." 

"This information will profoundly change the situation. So far only the jihadists had satellite images."

Foreign Policy had this picture showing the extent of the expansion.

Foreign Policy

And this was from Stratfor via BBC.

There are also reports that Russia intends to build a new base in Rmaileh, north of Jableh to facilitate the rapid unloading of larger Russian ships.

A base around Jableh would enable Syrian government to have access to satellite monitoring of the entire Syrian-Turkish border. Besides altering the balance of power, this could put a damper to Turkish government's plans to create a "safe zone" inside Syria.

No one knows for sure how far Putin will take all of this. But this is certainly more than expanding a military base to prop up Assad's government. Besides the uncanny resemblance to the rapid military build-up efforts in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, there is also the fact that a large number of Russian troops were put on alert and told that they were going to fight "in a hot country."

And there are many Russian soldiers already in Syria putting their geo-tagged pictures online which shows them in various parts of the country.

Even John Kerry who was quite cautious initially began to wonder why there was such a massive build up and ha has been pressuring his counterpart Lavrov to give some indications on Putin's intentions.

Besides altering the balance of power in favor of Assad and therefore prolonging the civil war, the new Russian presence could complicate things further by putting regional players in a collision course with Russia.

Turkey is the obvious candidate with its dependence on Russian oil and gas on one side and its diametrically opposed positions on Syria and Kurds.

There is another less obvious regional player that might be affected by all this.

As much as Russia's military presence concerns Turkey, it is also of concern to Israel, which sometimes enters Syrian airspace and occasionally fires on targets there. According to the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, the Russian military presence will make Syrian airspace off-limits to Israeli planes.

Clearly, starving the Russian beast might lead to some very unexpected outcomes in the Middle East just as it did in Eastern Europe.

Ice-Cold War

Putin's policy of doubling down on energy is also evident in his Arctic strategy.

Just a month ago, Russia has submitted a bid to the UN claiming a huge chunk of territory.

The ministry said in a statement that Russia is claiming 1.2m sq km (over 463,000 sq miles) of sea shelf extending more than 350 nautical miles (about 650km) from the shore.

Moreover, last year while everyone was focused on Crimea and Ukraine, Russia quietly expanded its military presence in the Arctic.

As the Guardian reported in a piece entitled "Russia prepares for ice-cold war with show of military force in the Arctic" they restored a Soviet-era military base in New Siberian island and beefed up many military outposts.

This year,

[T]he military conducted sweeping manoeuvres in the Arctic that involved 38,000 servicemen, more than 50 ships and submarines, and 110 aircraft. As part of the drills, the military demonstrated its capability to quickly build up its forces on the Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land archipelagos.

Interestingly, the US is in no position to counter the Russian threat. It has just one aging ice-breaker named Healy, whereas Russia has "has a fleet of six nuclear-powered heavy icebreakers, with 11 more planned or under construction." 

In short, the neo-con gamble is a very risky one, as Putin is well aware of the stakes and he is willing to raise them. He is a much more dangerous adversary than Yeltsin ever was and his moves might have far reaching consequences in Europe, Middle East and in the Arctic region.

Incidentally, there is one country that seems to be aware of the risks involved in the energy prices game and willing to go against the tide:

The Qatar Investment Authority has committed $2 billion to the government-connected Russian Direct Investment Fund for infrastructure projects in Russia. Coming as Western governments attempt to isolate Moscow economically, it is a significant gesture that the Kremlin will notice and understand — “business is business” also means “nothing personal.” As US and European relations with Russia continue to erode, that message may matter.

If I were a decision-maker, I would stay away from the neo-cons.

Gay Marriage License Issue and a TV Show

The Kentucky county clerk who refuses to issue marriage licenses to gay couples on Christian grounds is a Biblical literalist.

If she was a Muslim she would be a Salafist. Like the Saudi clerics who claim the earth is flat or the sun revolves around the earth because the Koran suggests these notions. These are people cut from the same cloth.

All of which made me think of a famous West Wing episode and the way all literalists have to be handled.

You might remember President Bartlett dressing down an evangelical talk show host on her calling homosexuality an abomination. But I always enjoy reminding people what a profound well of inspiration all Holy Books are.

The evangelical talk show host defends her decision by quoting Leviticus 18:22 which reads "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; such thing is an abomination."

Bartlett's answer is to cite specific verses of the Bible to see if she would adhere to those as well.

"I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleaned the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be?" 

The verse in question indeed states that "When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go free as male slaves do."

Bartlett is not done yet.

"My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it okay to call the police?" 

And Exodus 35:2 says "For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of Sabbath rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it is to be put to death."

Bartlett:

"Here's one that's really important cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7 If they promise to wear gloves can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?"

Leviticus 11:7

"and the pig, which does indeed have hoofs and is cloven-footed, but does not chew the cud and is therefore unclean for you. 

and 8

Their flesh you shall not eat, and their dead bodies you shall not touch; they are unclean for you."

Bartlett finishes off with two more examples

"Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother, John, for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?

He does not provide the exact verse but I am here to tell you that he is referring to Leviticus 19:19.

"You must obey all my decrees. "Do not mate two different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two different kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven from two different kinds of thread."

Incidentally, it was not mentioned in the show but 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 denies the Kingdom of God to homosexuals and to a long list of others like the adulterers, drunkards, thieves, covetous, swindlers, revilers, fornicators etc. are in the same boat.

But you never hear evangelical Christians getting worked up about Banksters who swindles millions of people in fake bubbles or cheating pastors or the dirty financial tricks of televangelists.

Why worry about these things that affect millions of people when you could invoke fire and brimstone on two people for loving each other.

Chinese Currency in Record Fall: Oh Dear!

Yesterday, this was the headline on the BBC News site.

I included other news items below the headline for you to be able to verify the date.

You know what the record fall was?

1.9 percent.

That's right, the record fall was less than 2 percent.

It is not uncommon to see such falls in daily dollar to euro fluctuations but this, for some reason, was different. 

I checked other news outlets. There were incredible claims about the sputtering of the Chinese economy or how this move was going to increase their exports and how they would flood the Western markets with cheaper goods.

Then I looked at a piece posted by BBC's Asia Business Correspondent Karishma Vaswani. This is what it said:

DBS Bank in its daily breakfast note said "A proper devaluation is 10 - 30%, and it has to stay the course for a year before exports start to show any change".

In other words, 2 percent is hardly a devaluation and it most certainly cannot be qualified as a record fall.

And for Chinese exports to be positively affected by a devaluation, the actual currency depreciation should have been exponentially higher and the effects would not be apparent for another 12 months.

Did we get that from the lead news item? No. It repeated the export claims like every other news outlet.

Moreover, if every 1 percent depreciation leads to a $40 billion capital outflow why would China go this route to boost its exports?

Why loose $80 billion in capital exodus for dubious gains in 12 months?

Clearly, there are other considerations than export boosting behind this decision. But almost all news outlets reported it with highly exaggerated statements and they all made the export boost claim.

There is more.

This is how USA Today reported the news.

As you can see, there is now a hint of a causal link between falling oil prices and Chinese devaluation.

The article does not even offer a correlation between these two occurrences let alone a causation but a clear suggestion is made in the headline.

Tell me how ordinary news consumers are supposed to make sense of the world in which we live.

Greek Bailout Money: Another Case for Oh Dearism

Since very few of my readers checked out the Oh Dear theory you might not be familiar with the notion. 

It refers to the corporate media's concerted effort to make any issue unintelligible and scary so that your reaction as a consumer of news is to whisper "Oh Dear" instead of "OK I see why" like this case.

I am not even the person who coined the phrase. This guy is.

In any event, the Greek economic crisis and the so called Grexit makes another compelling case.

During the tense negotiations, we read about how Greeks were lazy and greedy, how they squandered the bailout money again and again. There are too many links, just check out my previous posts if you are curious.

There were ominous hints about their future outside the Eurozone. BBC reported that if the crisis continued their tourism revenues would collapse even though the obvious attraction of cheaper holidays in an ISIS dominated Mediterranean would be a no-brainer for anyone.

Moreover, news outlet claimed that things looked bleak because of the Syriza government: they singlehandedly crushed Greek recovery and put Greece back into recession, they said.

Curiously, ever since Alexis Tsipiras agreed to a very onerous deal that is guaranteed to destroy the Greek economy, the corporate media changed its tune.

It now looks like that their previous reporting on "them profligate swarthy folks" was not exactly correct.

There was a recent story in the New York Times that acknowledged that Greek bailout funds came in only to leave again instantly. Apparently, none of it remained in the country.

Wow, who knew?

Bloomberg immediately and breathlessly agreed.

It was not the profligacy of them swarthy, greedy and lazy Greek folks, they said, the whole thing was set up to bail out German and French banks.

Really? You don't say.

Yeah, it was never intended to benefit the Greek economy.

Listen to this, Bloomberg sounding like a contrarian progressive.

I always find it amusing whenever someone expresses surprise that the financial bailouts for Greece haven't benefited Greek citizens. "Bailout Money Goes to Greece, Only to Flow Out Again" in the New York Times is just the latest example. "The cash exodus is a small piece of a bigger puzzle over why — despite two major international bailouts — the Greek economy is in worse shape and more deeply in debt." 

Unfortunately, this is a feature of bailout, not a bug.

The author maintains that this has been the case in all recent bailouts, including the 2008 US crisis and of course the Irish and Icelandic bailouts, as some folks noted many years earlier.

As for Greece, well, here is the reality, after the fact.

In the case of Greece, the money flows in large part from European governments and the International Monetary Fund through Greece, and then to various private-sector lenders. We all call it a Greek bailout, because if it were called the "Rescue of German bankers from the results of their Athenian lending folly," who would support it?

No kidding.

Except where were you four months ago?

There is more.

Now the BBC reports that every time Germany pushed Greece towards bankruptcy, every time Schauble feigned disgust with his Greek counterpart and clutched his pearls and went for the smelling salts, Germany made money.

However, the study by Halle Institute for Economic Research said Germany had made interest savings of more than 3% of GDP between 2010 and 2015, and much of that was down to the Greek debt crisis. 

The IWH study says every time this year there was a spike in the Greek debt crisis, which made Greece's exit from the euro appear more likely, German government bond yields fell. Whenever the news looked better, Germany's bond yields increased.

So far Germany made 100 billion euros out of the Greek crisis.

Yes 100 billion.

They contributed 90 billion euros to save the Deutsche Bank and have already recovered more than that while squeezing Greece for another 90 billions.

And the beauty of it is that it is a gift that keeps on giving.

 Even if the situation were to calm down suddenly, Germany would still be expected to profit from the situation, the IWH argues, because medium- and long-term bonds issued in recent years are still far away from maturing.

Once again my question is, where were you when the narrative about the lazy Greek people living off the savings of honest Aryan people was solidifying?

When the whole Europe was whispering "Oh Dear!"

In case you read this as a vain stupid "I told you so" on my part, this is not the case.

The reason I refer to my previous posts is to highlight the fact that, if I, the lowliest and the most marginal commentators of the Intertubes could suggest where this was going, months or even years earlier, surely Bloomberg, BBC and New York Times could have done a little more than repeating the mainstream "profligate Greeks" narrative.

They didn't. Which clearly indicates that they didn't want to. And not they didn't know.

That is why we live in a world where your co-workers and neighbors tell you the most inane things with conviction followed by an Oh Dear expression.

Oh Dear, indeed.

Can Somebody Explain to Me "Erdogan's Gamble"?

After losing the June 7 elections, Turkey's bombastic President Tayyip Erdogan has first declared the Kurdish peace initiative DOA and then began shelling PKK positions in Northern Iraq, killing scores of militants.

He has also been relentlessly attacking Selahattin Demirtas, the co-leader of the pro-Kurdish party HDP. His latest move was to try to get HDP outlawed and Demirtas indicted.

And PKK, relishing the limelight, have responded in kind and have first shot dead a couple of cops to retaliate for Suruc, then a number of troops in separate attacks.

For once, all the pundits are unanimous. They maintain that "Erdogan's gamble" is to push up political violence in a prelude to early elections as a snap poll would certainly increase his vote. People, they say, would rush to him seeking stability.

They also point to the assistance he gets from the ultra-nationalistic MHP and its wily leader Devlet Bahceli. After the June elections, he maneuvered to have the AKP candidate elected Speaker of the House even though the other three parties outnumbered Erdogan's party.

Since then Bahceli has been attacking HDP and Demirtas on a daily basis (an odd approach for a party in opposition). He recently called HDP voters "dishonorable' creating a national outcry.

All of this, say the pundits, indicate that Erdogan's got MHP's backing to avoid any coalition government. He will call early elections and thanks to the current tense political climate, AKP and MHP will increase their electoral support enabling the former to form a government by itself.

I don't get it.

This is not because I am stubbornly contrarian, I just don't understand the logic.

Let's first take a look at the argument that political tension and renewed violence would decrease HDP's support.

HDP in Early Elections

HDP's supporters are primarily Kurds who previously voted for AKP, Erdogan's party. After Erdogan refused to help Kobani, they turned against him and pulled HDP from a lowly 5-6 percent to a lofty 13 percent.

Sure, some liberal and social democratic Turks voted for HDP, but the best estimates for their contribution are around 2 percent.

And crucially, these votes came from big cities in Western Turkey like Istanbul. The rest of the votes, meaning 11 percent, came from ethnic Kurds in Southeast Turkey.

In fact, this regional concentration is the reason why AKP lost big and HDP got 80 MPs with just 13 percent of the vote.

To give you an idea, MHP received 16.3 percent of the vote from the rest of the country and got the same number of seats in Parliament as HDP.

Given this background, if we know that Erdogan primarily lost the elections because he antagonized Kurdish voters and they switched sides and voted for HDP, how would vilifying the same party and its leader every day help Erdogan now?

Can anyone explain that to me?

MHP in Early Elections

There is more.

If you were a nationalistic Turkish person and you were afraid that Kurds were gaining too much power and might try to establish their own country in the near future by claiming a big chunk of what is currently Turkey, who would you vote for?

Would you vote for a party like MHP which has no chance of being a coalition partner and affect any policy change or for a slightly religious version of the same party which is very likely to form the next government and decide the issue?

Early opinion polls suggested that the voters were happy with their initial choices:

[A]ccording to a recent survey conducted after the election, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) would receive 41.6 percent, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) 25.1 percent, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) 16.2 percent and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) 12.9 percent if snap polls were to be held.

However, things changed after Bahceli began to carry Erdogan's water.

A survey taken in late July showed that in early elections AKP and CHP would get slightly higher results (41.9 and 26.3 percent respectively, but AKP would still be unable to form a government by itself) and MHP would score 15.3 percent, a full point below its June results.

So clearly MHP is hemorrhaging support with its pro-AKP policy.

And this is only early August. I don't see how MHP electorate would vote for their party in a few months' time when Erdogan has been and will continue to be matching their political platform and ideological rhetoric.

Given this situation can anyone explain the political calculus that convinced the MHP leadership to back Erdogan's early elections?

CHP in Early Elections

CHP is an interesting beast.

The majority of its electoral support is drawn from aging folks who adhere to the old Kemalist precepts. They call themselves secularist but that stance hides a vague disdain for believers, a sense of superiority and a healthy dose of elitism in the form of "this is my Republic and not yours."

AKP essentially rose to prominence by denouncing these unsavory propositions.

The rest of CHP -a minority- is composed of liberal and social democratic idealists who are there because the party used to be a social democratic entity and also because these people are concerned about the growing Islamisation of Turkey.

In a way, they support CHP not for what it stands but for it might do to stop the creeping shift towards a Wahhabi-lite system.

The Kemalist crowd in CHP identify more with the secular nationalists of MHP than with these wild-eyed liberals. They hate the AKP Islamists but they are equally leery of HDP Kurds.

Early elections would be a test for these people. If Kurdish insurgency became a daily reality would the Kemalists hold their nose and vote for Erdogan?

No one knows for sure.

It is also possible that they might hate Erdogan so much that they might agree to a Kurdish homeland just to get rid of him, especially if the face of that Kurdish homeland is Demirtas and what he asks for is less than outright separation.

It is a true gamble as no one can predict which way they would go, including themselves.

Given this calculus, if you were Erdogan would you roll the dice?

I wouldn't.

There is one more thing.

PKK and ISIS

By attacking ISIS and PKK at the same time, Erdogan is challenging two formidable enemies for what I consider very dubious political gains.

I think it is a safe bet that, if the insurgency returns, PKK would no longer fight traditional guerrilla warfare. Why stick to the mountains to be hunted 24/7 by drones when you can bring the war to them?

A few well placed IED or a couple of suicide bombers in a crowded area or a shopping center and you will get everyone's attention. And my guess is that this is what the PKK's leadership is itching to do.

Then there is ISIS.

Erdogan has just committed Turkey to a full fledged attack on ISIS, in order to get the US approval for his PKK adventure.

Now if you think PKK folks are itching, ISIS militants have a gigantic eczema waiting to be scratched.

An ISIS spokesperson suggested that there might be over two thousands militants who now live in Turkey but it is estimated that there are substantially more ISIS idiots in the country. Some were returning idiots, others were hardened ISIS fighters who moved to Turkey when their border towns were taken over by the Syrian Kurds.

To say that these guys are looking forward to blowing themselves up is a huge understatement.

And once you pulled those genies out of the bottle there is no easy way to put them back in.

How To Close the Circle?

The only way "Erdogan's gamble" would work is if he could find a way to get rid of Demirtas himself.

Either legally, by charging him with some bogus crimes or extra-legally, by terminating him with extreme prejudice.

The legal one is tricky especially since Demirtas dared him by asking for his parliamentary immunity to be removed. Clearly, he thinks he has no skeletons in the closet. At least none that can be found.

Which leaves the termination with extreme prejudice option. Sadly, it is also the most effective of the two options.

It is idle speculation on my part but think about it for a minute.

Such an event would instantly ignite Kurdish masses in Turkey and lead to huge and violent protests. Turkey being a nation state, these would be suppressed harshly and even more violently.

Under this scenario, the bulk of the Kemalists in CHP and a large portion of the MHP voters would vote for AKP as this is the only party that could form a stable government and Erdogan is the only leader who could find a way out of this catastrophe.

And most importantly, within a few weeks, the Kurdish political movement would be in disarray as they would be unable to replace Demirtas and PKK, once again, would be their only representative. The liberal Turks would have no party to support.

Erdogan would make conciliatory noises about a renewed peace process and national unity and after a somber electoral campaign he would emerge victorious.

All I can say is that I hope Demirtas is well protected.

And that Davutogu and Kilicdaroglu are as ambitious as they appear.

Because if they could form a lasting coalition government, Erdogan's gamble would become a moot point.
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UPDATE

Bekir Agirdir, the CEO of, Konda, one of the leading polling companies told Al Jazeera Turkish (link in Turkish) that there is no way AKP could get back Kurdish support. He said that previously out of 10 Kurdish votes 5 went to AKP and 4 to HDP. In the June elections this ratio was 7 to 3 in HDP's favor.

Agirdir believes that those 7 out of 10 Kurds are not going anywhere and they are certainly not going back to AKP. He is convinced that early elections would not change the current distribution significantly.

If this is correct, a dramatic change would indeed be needed to make Erdogan's gamble work.

Will Erdogan Push Turkey Into Syrian Quagmire?

This is not a hypothetical question.

And after the recent massacre in Suruc, a small town in Southern Turkey, where 32 people were killed by an ISIS suicide bomber, it is actually a tangible possibility.

You see, the last election results put Turkey's combative President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a serious bind.

His electoral defeat was primarily due to the rise of a pro-Kurdish party (HDP).

Ironically, HDP won a bigger percentage than expected thanks to Erdogan's increasingly hostile attitude towards Kurds and his borderline genocidal rhetoric during the Kobani siege.

However, this open animosity towards Kurds was not just a stupid or visceral reaction on his part. Basically, events forced his hands and from where he stood, he must have felt he had no other choice.

It is a complicated setup worthy of John Nash and his equilibrium. Or if you prefer the Prisoner's Dilemma.

Allow me to explain the many twists and turns behind this story.

Most pundits claim that Erdogan abruptly changed his position on Kurds and went from major reformer to implacable enemy because he was worried that an independent Kurdistan in Syria might set a persuasive example for Turkey's Kurds to seek the same.

To me that makes no sense. If Erdogan was really concerned about the pull factor of an independent Kurdistan, why did he help Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Northern Iraq claim a de facto independence. And why did it have KRG's back against the Iraqi goverment in Baghdad?

Isn't KRG is a much more potent model for Kurdish independence?

Moreover, why would Erdogan promote economic development of KRG which would make the model even more enticing? And most importantly, if he was so afraid of Kurdish independence why would Erdogan pass an extensive rights package for Turkey's Kurds and negotiate a settlement with Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned head of PKK?

The stark reality is that, three years ago, to the nationalists' chagrin, Erdogan was ready to make peace with Turkey's Kurds.

So what happened?

To understand what happened, I always go back to the point in time where Erdogan moved from being Assad's BFF to his most determined enemy, which is July 2011 when the so-called Shiite pipeline was signed.

The pipeline was to connect Iran's South Pars natural gas fields to the Mediterranean (and eventually to Europe) though Iraq and Syria (hence the nickname). Crucially, the proposed pipeline bypassed Turkey. The agreement also blocked the competing Qatari pipeline that was supposed to go through Syria and Turkey to reach Europe.

Erdogan's rhetoric sharpened in the few months before the signing of the agreement and by September he sent his then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ahmet Davutoglu to Damascus to deliver an ultimatum to Bashar.

Although we are talking hundreds (maybe thousands) of billions of dollars and Euros, there is more to this than money.

Since Qatar and Iran both exploit the South Pars fields from opposite ends (North Dome in Qatar), the side with a pipeline would have a huge advantage over its rival. Earlier this year, despite crippling sanctions, Iran announced that it finally managed to produce more natural gas than Qatar from that shared field.

Imagine what would have happened if sanctions were lifted and Iran could revamp its production facilities and pumped its natural gas directly to its customers.

In other words, one pipeline would favor the Shia powers of the region and the other would help the Sunni countries. This is a perfect example of economic interests overlapping with ideological predispositions.

The Sunni-Shia war that is being waged in multiple theaters in the region is also contemporaneous with that fateful decision.

Each side believes that it should become the dominant strand of Islam. This not idle talk. As the Saudis and their $200 billions showed, if you spend enough money you can change a religion in less than forty years regardless of what its edicts are.

Besides the Sunni-Shia rivalry, the Qatar pipeline was problematic for Russia. Gazprom has a virtual natural gas monopoly in Europe and the proposed pipeline would have allowed a major competitor to enter the same market, effectively reducing Russia's leverage and dominant position. Which explains why Russia leaned on Syria at the time and has been supporting al Assad since then.

In any event, this is why Qatar gave ISIS billions of dollars in seed money and unleashed them upon hapless Iraqis and Syria.

And of course, this is why Turkish government stood behind them, providing them with truckloads of arms and ammunition, intelligence and logistical support, free and swift healthcare and most importantly, safe passage to Syria to gun fodder idiots from all over the world.

This is also (and especially) why ISIS has been the first terrorist organization in history interested in creating and governing a country. I called their Caliphate unifying large swaths of Iraq and Syria, Pipelineistan.

Incidentally, this is why Raqqa has become the capital of Pipelineistan, as you will see in the next map below.

All of which brings us to the Kurds.

To put it simply and perhaps a tad simplistically, they are in the way.

This is why Syrian Kurds (and not Iraqi Kurds) are a problem for Erdogan. This is why he refused to lift a finger for Kobani and rejoiced its seemingly imminent fall.

And this is why when he says Turkey needs a buffer zone in Syria he means an area ethnically cleansed of Kurds.

But therein lies another dark tale.

Border Blues

On 19 September 2012, Turkey, rather curiously, decided that Tell Abyad, a key frontier crossing on the Syrian side, should be looked after by a coalition of Islamist forces which consisted of Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, Burkan al-Firat and Liwa al-Tawhid Brigades.

That decision had two objectives:

- To distance Syrian regime forces from the border and to create a buffer zone for the opposition forces to operate freely. 

- To hinder the Kurds' autonomy movement in the Syrian areas Kurds control and to sever the link between the Kurdish cantons of Kobani and Jazeera in what the Kurds call Rojava (Western Kurdistan).

This is the map of the area. You will notice that Tell Abyad is right in the middle of Kurdish region (Kobani to the West and Qamishli to the East).

And it is directly linked to Raqqa, the formal capital of ISIS.

Of the twin stated Turkish objectives of creating a buffer zone and hindering Kurdish movements, the latter was (correctly) understood by the forerunners of ISIS as a license to conduct a large scale ethnic cleansing:

[T]he operation to cleanse the area of Kurds began on July 19, 2013, with warning calls from mosque minarets for the Kurds to leave Tell Abyad or be punished. Of 25,000 people in Tell Abyad, which was Arabized by the Baath regime in 1963, about 12,000 were Kurds. 

Kurds who lived in the Tell Abyad town center and in 18 villages in its vicinity had to emigrate to the Kobani and Jazeera areas as well as to Turkey and Iraq. Those who didn’t paid a high price. Every single Kurdish house was raided until Aug. 5, 2013. Seventy adult males were killed, and about 400 women and children were abducted. It is not known what happened to them.

In January 2015, ISIS, having eliminated rival Islamist groups, took over Tell Abyad.

After the crossing was entrusted to Islamist groups it became a very busy hub. In fact, last month Obama noted that "thousands of foreign fighters [are] flowing into, first, Syria, and then, oftentimes, ultimately into Iraq" and criticized the Turkish authorities for not doing enough to stop the flow.

As we know, it is a feature not a bug.

But recently, the reversal of that ethnic cleansing became an actual possibility, throwing up another crisis.

In Search of a Casus Belli

After the Syrian Kurdish forces defeated ISIS in Kobani, they decided to retake Tell Abyad. This would allow them to open up a corridor along the Turkish border to Northern Iraq and get all their supplies from KRG bypassing the often prickly Turkish border officials. It would also cut off a critical supply route for ISIS.

And, as a bonus, it would make Raqqa fairly vulnerable.

The Kurdish offensive began in early June and it was assisted by American air power.

During the fortnight operation, Erdogan grew increasingly angry and began hinting that Turkey might have to intervene to stop the Kurdish advances. He appeared like a man who was quite publicly looking for an excuse to do so. At first, he stated that

“The West, which is hitting Arabs and Turkmens of Tell Abyad from the air, is sadly settling the PYD [Democratic Union Party] and PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] terror organizations in their places.”

When this was not well received, he closed the border crossing so that he could use the human misery of the civilians running away from the armed conflict to accuse PYD of ethnic cleansing. The problem was,

when he triggered a cacophony by saying, “There is a feeling that Arabs and Turkmens are targeted at Tell Abyad,” the Kurdish YPG and its Free Syrian Army ally Burkan al-Firat had not yet entered Tell Abyad.

Incidentally, according to Kurdish sources, the border was opened briefly to allow some ISIS militants to escape.

There is a picture of one of the handful of ISIS fighters who were arrested (when journalists were there) and his smirk conveys perfectly the Faustian deal Erdogan made with them.

When Tell Abyad was taken over by PYD on 15 June, civilians slowly returned to their homes. Which prompted Erdogan to put forward another justification for intervention, namely the security threat posed by PYD and its armed forces YPG.

Since the threat was totally fictitious and YPG never had any border issues with Turkey, this didn't get any traction either.

That forced him to advance a third justification for intervention.

He ominously declared that Turkey would never allow the formation of a Kurdish state in its Southern border.

Erdogan upped the ante June 27 and said Turkey would not allow any attempts to establish a Kurdish entity in northern Syria. “We will never allow a state to be established in northern Syria and in the south of our country. No matter what the cost, we will continue our struggle in this regard,” Erdogan said.

And third time being the charm, he directed his Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to ask the Turkish army prepare plans to intervene and create a buffer zone, code for removing Kurds from the area.

Domestic Obstacles

Besides long-term Pipelineistan ideas, Erdogan has a short term domestic agenda as well.

Since he lost his Parliamentary majority during the last elections, he has been itching to call early elections. I am sure he believes that a successful incursion into Syria and a confrontation with Syrian Kurds might bring the nationalists back to the fold.

And give him at least the 18 MPs he is missing for a simple majority.

In fact, to ensure the nationalists' support, he has been attacking HDP and its charismatic leader Selahattin Demirtas by accusing him of having strong ties to PKK which is reviled by a large majority of Turks.

He was also hoping that, feeling overshadowed by HDP, the PKK, or at least some factions within it, might be tempted to break the ceasefire and give him the ammunition he needs to go after them. The day after he Suruc massacre PKK did just that and killed two police officers in the same city.

That, in turn, gave Erdogan the pretext he needed to bomb both ISIS and PKK positions in Syria and Iraq respectively.

So in principle, all Erdogan has to do right now is to invade a small pocket in Syria, ostensibly to create a Kurdish-free buffer zone and call general elections once the coalition talks end up in failure.

However, there are two problems with this plan. And this is why I invoked John Nash and the Prisoner's  Dilemma at the outset.

The first was the unexpected resistance of the Turkish army to the idea of a Syrian incursion:

According to reports in Ankara, TSK’s response to the government instructions was total surprise when the Chief of General Staff Necdet Ozel asked for a written order from the government. When Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu reminded the TSK that there is already parliamentary authority for such a cross-border operation, the military command asked for “a written order specifically about this case.” Davutoglu is reported to have penned a specific order even while discussions were going on. It is, however, understood that to activate a plan that would require intervention in a hot combat zone, a simple signature won’t be enough.

Among other things, the army objected to the fact that this was a caretaker government and with a new parliamentary majority in place such momentous decisions should be left to the new government.

While the army is staunchly nationalistic and perceives everything related to Kurds as a major security threat, understandably, the generals did not feel very comfortable to move around in the local Pottery Barn franchise. They knew breakage would be extensive and the final bill prohibitive.

They also knew that, such a move would mean a return to Turkey's decades long civil war with PKK, a war the army did not win. This time around, with ISIS one of the likely players, the body count could be incomparably higher.

The second problem is the Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

You see, even though I once described him as a dorky academic with the charisma of lawn furniture, he is a supremely ambitious man.

He is well aware that if early elections were called, Erdogan would replace him with a more pliable Prime Minister so that he could exercise presidential powers in a cabinet-centric system.

On the other hand, a coalition government dominated by AKP would ensure his tenure as both AKP leader and PM and keep Erdogan locked in his gilded presidential palace as a figurehead.

Crucially, Davutoglu has the support of the majority of Members of Parliaments.

You see, because of self-imposed term limits, most of the AKP MPs are newcomers. If they remain MP for at least two years, they will get full pension benefits. If they are gone in six months, they will get nothing. So, the incentive to form a coalition government is very high.

In fact, I suspect it was Davutoglu who ordered those strikes against ISIS.

Adding PKK targets might be a way to mollify Erdogan but bombing ISIS persistently is an effective method of destroying Erdogan's Pipelinistan pipe dreams and his alliance with the Sunni thugs.

There is one thing I did not mention.

There are probably several thousands ISIS militants who returned to Turkey after a brief killing fields stint.

You bomb them and they will strike back.

And there are something like 22 million Kurds.

Do the math.

Or the arithmetic, as the case might be.