After the coup, Turkey turns against America
Although from an outside perspective a military coup seems completely undemocratic the Turkish military has historically had the role of maintaining the principles Atatürk founded the Turkish Republic on. You can think of them as a built-in correction mechanism in case the government veers too far off course -- they remove the government, reset everything to start and then hand over control back to the people once the situation is stable again.<p>I strongly suggest reading the Wikipedia article on Kemalism (the principles of Atatürk for the Turkish Republic): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Kemalism" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Kemalism</a><p>Erdogan dreams of bringing Turkey back to its Ottoman glory and is willing to exploit religion (and abolish Laicism) to do so. I don&#x27;t think he staged the failed coup himself but it is clear that he&#x27;s benefited the most from it:<p>He told the Turkish people to go out and stop the coup, risking their lives and knowing full well that the soldiers wouldn&#x27;t massacre the civilians but creating an opportunity to make his supporters seem like a peaceful opposition to the &quot;violent&quot; military.<p>He spread the narrative that the coup was staged not to defend Atatürk&#x27;s principles but by a religious sect his ruling party fell out with. He used that narrative and the failed coup to get rid of thousands of educators, judges, officials and military officers (calling it a &quot;purge&quot; even).<p>He&#x27;s basically doing what he did before: eliminating all opposition to ensure his rise to permanent and unlimited power. Except because of the clever PR move of risking his citizens&#x27; lives he now has public support for his autocratic ambitions.<p>Atatürk created a nation that should have been an inspiration to the entire Islamic world with a degree of secularism far outmatching that of many Christian nations. Instead Erdogan is heading full speed back into the dark ages of theocratic dictatorships. This is a political tragedy of disturbing proportions and a huge loss for Europe and the Middle East.