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Update on the Attack in Nice and the Failed Turkish Coup
Gokhan Tan/Getty Images. This photo is already justifiably famous.
Editors have been writing and calling me all weekend to ask if I can comment on events in France and Turkey. Of course, this would happen be one of the very few weeks in the past decade that I’ve neither been in France nor Turkey.
But I’ve been following the news closely in both places. I wrote this piece about the attack in Nice for City Journal. It was monstrous and terribly depressing, but not surprising. I’ll be back in France tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll then be able to tell you a bit more then about the investigation and how France is reacting.
As for Turkey, to tell you much beyond what’s in the news, I’d have to be there. It’s a catastrophe, and people there will suffer for a long time because of it.
Many aspects of the story so far make no sense to me — why did the putschists bomb the Turkish Parliament, of all insane things? Why was the coup attempt so incompetently executed? That doesn’t mean there’s no explanation, only that I don’t yet understand it.
Although Vox isn’t where I’d usually go for incisive commentary, they interviewed someone to whom I would turn for that. As Dani Rodrik points out, the whole coup attempt is very puzzling:
For one thing, it seems to have been very poorly planned. For example, most TV channels were left operating and there does not seem to have been an attempt to take Erdogan in. … Second, it is not clear who would benefit from a coup. The military is no longer the secularist stronghold with a strong esprit de corps and sense of mission it once was. (Hence the widespread theory in Turkey that this was a coup staged by Erdogan himself, designed to pave the way for an Erdogan dictatorship. But this doesn’t quite ring true either, in light of Erdogan’s recent attempts to mend fences with Russia and Israel to strengthen the economy. He must know that even a failed coup would wreak havoc with the economy.)
And it’s very unclear how anyone could have imagined that bombing parliament in Ankara and blocking bridges in Istanbul would overthrow Erdoğan, not least because he wasn’t in Istanbul or Ankara. He was in Marmaris.
The theory that Erdoğan staged this himself is insane, even if a number of my friends suspect so. Many real people have died. Were they all actors? How did he persuade so many people to sign up for a suicide mission in service of this theater? What’s pretty clear is that he’ll be the beneficiary, however; and this will give him cover to persecute any opposition remaining and pass a new constitution arrogating all power to himself. That’s an unqualified disaster.
It’s perhaps more plausible that he knew there was a faction planning a coup and chose not to disrupt their plans. But even that seems implausible — it’s a wild risk to take; how could he be so sure it would fail? But the lack of organization and inefficiency might be because they prepared for or at least entertained the idea of a coup, but somehow the preparations were discovered, forcing them to act prematurely. This is just wild speculation on my part, though.
It has already been followed by a massive purge of the judiciary and the army. The numbers change depending who’s reporting it, but they’re in the thousands and obviously go way beyond any evidence that could have been uncovered since Friday. Thousands of judges have been sacked and hundreds more arrested. Not only does this leave me wondering who will be left to judge the alleged coup-plotters, it makes me wonder whether everyday jurisprudence will now be in short supply. Who’s going to be left to adjudicate contract disputes and traffic tickets?
Erdoğan is unsurprisingly placing the blame on Fethullah Gülen; he and many in Turkey believe that we’ve been sheltering Gülen explicitly for such purposes. His demand that we extradite him has the potential to escalate quickly to a crisis. Last night a Turkish minister, Süleyman Soylu, explicitly blamed the US for the coup attempt: “The instigator of this coup is United States,” he said, and “Behind the terror in [Turkey’s] southeast, and troubles in Syria and Iraq, is the USA’s ambitions and plans.”
Last night Erdoğan announced that those who stand by Gülen would be “at war” with Turkey. As of last night, Incirlik was shut down, with much speculation that it would remain that way until Gülen was returned. I don’t know if this is true, but if it is, it will at least temporarily starve anti-ISIS forces in Syria of air support.
Over the years I lived in Turkey, I wrote a few pieces that might be useful as background to this. Here I ask, who is Fethullah Gülen? I wrote more about the relationship between Erdogan and Gülen in Turkey’s Two Thugs.
Murat Yetkin is probably the best journalist to follow for detailed timelines and accurate English-language reporting from Turkey. See, e.g., Anatomy of a Failed Coup.
I’ll be writing a bit about this over the week and I’ll post the links here.
Of course, I’m worried about my friends in Turkey.
Published in General
Thanks for the update, Claire. Do you think people like Süleyman Soylu actually believe that about the US, or are they just trying to whip up support by inventing an enemy?
I think they absolutely believe it. It’s key to their worldview.
I really enjoyed your article in City Journal, thanks for sharing it here.
Regarding the possible civil war who are the opponents? Is is the Islamic immigrants/migrants against multi-generational French? Is it multi-generational French getting fed up with their government?
This Tunisian was an alien in someone else’s country with no desire or ability to assimilate. If you don’t love what a place stands for, you have to leave it. But first, can anyone tell what being French stands for any more?
Being American is believing in and pledging allegiance to the constitution. What is being French all about? or German, or Dutch? It can’t be just a question of naturalization.
If I give it a try, I would say in the case of France, it is believing in the secular state, in gender equality, in liberal (in the European sense) values. But this doesn’t seem specific enough since it also applies to any European country.
Claire, I am curious: Why did you identify the vehicle as a “van” when it was a 19 ton truck? I think it is an interesting detail.
Is that a picture of real Turkish tanks?
Are they referring to the US’ support of the YPG/PKK in Syria?
Hope your friends stay safe.
Also what is the argument for sacking judges? How are they being linked to the attempted coup?
Excellent write-up, Claire. I appreciate getting your view of things, even if you’re not there. You know something about the people, and most of us don’t.
Thanks, Claire. The City Journal articles to which you link are deserving of a much wider readership. I very much look forward to further enlightenment via your pen.
Then call me crazy as a loon. Just because you think it is unlikely does not make it “insane.”
In my very humble opinion, it seems more than a bit “insane” to think that the informed buy-in of such expendable / consumable materials would even be considered in a matter of such importance. In a more general sense (for I certainly have no insight into the inner workings of this specific event), I would assume that these were not “actors” but individuals who were duped into believing they were part of something real. Just saying…
Beyond my two cents worth above (if that much), thanks a million for the extensive background and update.
It does seem odd how the coup just know me of ran out of steam as soon as global media picked up the story. I first got an update via my BBC app at about 5 – 5:30pm and by 7pm all momentum, at least as the story flowed via news updates, just dissipated. By 9pm it was pretty much over. And no real mention of loyalist factions in the military fighting back. All of this was East Coast time. Very strange indeed.
I don’t know anything about either man or Turkey, but I don’t think one can dismiss the things certain kinds of men will do if they feel even slightly threatened or feel the need to consolidate power well beyond what a normal person would think necessary. Nor would I dismiss the pressure Obama will feel to extradite. It humiliates the US, as Carters’ shunning the Pasha, while eliminating a potential threat. Does he have any objective for himself and Turkey beyond just protecting and consolidating his power?
I was at a wedding Friday night during the events of the coup and already within the first few hours i knew it would fail.
I played enough games of Junta to know that it was doomed from the start. Trying to seize the government when Erdogan was out of the country. That was pointless. Unless they got him within the first few hours it was always doomed. The Nazis understood that, I wonder why these guys didnt.
Anyways the fact it happened just shows you what kind of times and world we live in.
I think it’s possible that he thought a hit on the economy was worth so comprehensively taking out opponents in positions of power. He can always blame the suffering on someone else.
I first thought “Reichstag fire,” but when Claire said that was insane, I changed my comment.
I think the Colonels got caught and went for broke. A mass arrest of fresh plotters would give Erdogan the same effect without looking weak. The fact that it actually happens weakens Erdogan in the eyes of so many people, even as it allows him to concentrate power.
The Turkish armed forces’ constitutional rôle is to step in whenever religious fanaticism is ascendant. It’s always worked before–but this time, it looks like Erdo had already infiltrated the military with Islamist supporters, so not all of the top brass were on board. Now, he’s got an excuse to massacre all the Kemalists in the military. Will he mow ’em down in their barracks, like Sultan Mahmud II did the Janissaries in 1826? Plus ça change…..
Nice. Nothing new.
Turkey. Not over.
Interesting that you combined the two subjects….
After 9/11, America became obsessed with protecting gatherings, prevention and rapid response. We still are. The NYPD went to school on the Israeli’s and took it up a notch. This set the standard. Yet, both the Israeli’s and the NYPD will tell they can be easily beaten for the few moments it takes to create a tragedy.
France is on the learning curve and paying a heck of price for past complacency. And, they have a huge problem in their Islamic communities. France has probably passed the tipping point and may see an uprising in some quarters – action and reaction. See the movie the Battle of Algiers and rename it, the Battle of Department 93.
Turkey is a state drifting toward whatever keeps Erdogan in power. A leader of his ilk will find it hard to retire. Retirement means exposure to retribution. The drift to authoritarianism will continue – and the government will need enemies to justify this.
Erdogan will hand out some rewards to his supporters, punish the wealthy oligarchs who opposed him, purge the military, and toss out dollops of Islamism to his public. There is nothing like Islam to justify what is necessary to keep a population under control. The enemies list grows: Kurds, PKK, Assad, Russians invading Turkish airspace, ISIS, and now, the US for harboring Fetullah Gulen.
France and Turkey, two third-world nation’s struggling to preserve their regimes.
My thoughts on the coup in Turkey is that there was an actual underground coup building and something forced their hand so the went early. Most likely somebody found them out so or they thought they were about to be found out.
Alternate possibility is that this is an Erdoğan staged event, or at least his internal secret police. Basically he set up and encouraged a coup in order to draw out malcontents then executed it so he could sweep opposition from the ranks. Sort of a fatal version of entrapment.
Hasn’t Erdogan been steadily purging the dedicated Kemalists from the military and judiciary for years? Was this coup attempt their last gasp?
Never let a good crisis go to waste. This is Turkey’s version of Stalin’s Red Army Purge of 1941. It’s an excuse to clean house and kill off the last of the Kemalists.
Claire, your post and the referenced articles underscore for me just how cautious the West needs to be about any form of Islam. I am not saying to be discriminatory, but the impulse of Islam in many of its forms is political control — not simply living a virtuous life in a secular world. This suggests caution for all non-believers. The Islamic project seems well under way in the West and it is going to wreck havoc with our historic approach to religious toleration.
Ha! USA’s ambitions and plans? Doesn’t he know who the president and Secretary of State are?
Something needs to wreak havoc on our historic approach to religious toleration. We cannot take in millions of unassimilable immigrants who wish to destroy our way of life without dire consequences.
My view of Muslims is that they should be treated more or less like we do White Supremacists. Shun them, marginalize them, treat them as ignorant scum to be avoided as much as possible, and slapped down when they get out of line.
Erdogan was probably behind on his payments to the Clinton Foundation.
They’re handy targets; separately, the arrests and sacking are an instruction that the judiciary is not to contradict Erdogan.
Eric Hines
It’s interesting that Erdogan saw fit to signal his Muslim Brotherhood sympathies in his speech following the failed coup