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One Way the Kurdish Insurgency Could Lead to the Collapse of Turkey
The National Interest ^ | September 9, 2020 | Michael Rubin

Posted on 09/09/2020 2:22:58 PM PDT by Texas Fossil

Once other countries even covertly begin supporting the Kurdish insurgency in Turkey, there will be no turning back.

Modern Turkey arose nearly one hundred years ago against the backdrop of European efforts to divide the Anatolian Peninsula. This fact drives both Turkey’s collective paranoia and its xenophobia. Its nightmare is a Kurdish secession. While the PKK and its offshoot groups long ago abandoned this goal in favor of localized autonomy, Turkish president Recep Erdoğan’s penchant for instigating fights with neighbors and regional states may soon make Turkey’s fears a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Turkey’s problem with its Kurdish problem has existed almost as long as the Turkish Republic itself: Just two years after Turkey’s 1923 founding, Kurds rose up in the Sheikh Said rebellion in opposition to the abolition of the caliphate. In 1927, İhsan Nuri Pasha declared the Republic of Ararat, a small Kurdish state in far eastern Anatolia along the Iranian and Armenian borders. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, modern Turkey’s first president, ordered that entity crushed. Both the Turkish army and air force responded with brutal efficiency over the next three years. In 1936, another Kurdish rebellion erupted in Dersim in protest of forced Turkification and mandatory relocation in order to dilute demographically non-Turkish identities. Once again, the Turkish army crushed the uprising. In each case, Kurds could justify their uprisings in specific grievances beyond simply national identity, but their revolts simply reinforced the Turkish government’s distrust of any expression of Kurdish identity. 

The Turkish government’s antipathy to Kurdish identity ossified after Atatürk’s 1938 death. Successive governments in Ankara ignored Kurdish-populated areas as they modernized Turkey’s economy. Turks accepted Kurds, but only when the Kurds foreswore their own ethnic and cultural identity.  

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Russia; Syria
KEYWORDS: collapse; erdogan; hamas; insurgency; israel; jerusalem; jordan; kurd; kurdistan; letshavejerusalem; receptayyiperdogan; russia; syria; turkey; waronterror
Michael Rubin is not like by Erdoo the Islamist Dictator of Turkey.

But no matter, few people in the Middle East like Erdoo either. Some fear him, few like him.

Want to see how truly rabid Erdoo's officers are?

Abdullah Bozkurt @abdbozkurt(br> This would be funny if it wasn't a real.
Mesut Hakki Casin who advises #Turkey's President on security/foreign policy says Turkish army will hit French carrier, wage a war against #Greece.
He even wants to kill a Greek pilot himself. He tells all this bullshit on a national TV.

https://twitter.com/abdbozkurt/status/1302876011378421760

Enough said.

His allies?

Iran? They are also Muslim (Sunni vs Shia), but this is about more than that.

Russia? From one moment in time to another it could change. They "use" Turkey as a foil against the West. Always act in own interest, no matter how bad the country.

Qatar? They finance Turkey's exploits.

The number of countries who see Turkey as an unstable or even enemy presence is clearly growing.

Will the final battle be with Iran? Will Turkey be part of it?

Only God knows.

footnote: A wise friend here on Twitter reminded me recently:

"the Turkish women are not having babies much; in Anatolia they are below replacement rate; in Anatolia alone Kurdish births are above replacement rate. In another generation or two the Kurds will outnumber the Turks in Turkey."

1 posted on 09/09/2020 2:22:58 PM PDT by Texas Fossil
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To: BeauBo; Candor7; ColdOne; Navy Patriot; caww; dp0622; Gene Eric; Freemeorkillme; Wuli; ScottinVA; ..

Syria Ping List


2 posted on 09/09/2020 2:24:27 PM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: Texas Fossil

Never forget the Kurds were the main henchmen for the Armenian Genocide.


3 posted on 09/09/2020 2:30:30 PM PDT by 2banana (Common ground with islamic terrorists-they want to die for allah and we want to arrange the meeting)
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To: Texas Fossil

Although Ataturk was a muslim, he did two things which infuriated Turkish muslims: he abolished the caliphate and outlawed the fez. He secularized Turkey while Eardogan invigorated Islam, at least he has tried. In either case, the problem is a false religion started by an epileptic murderer, thief, liar, adulterer, pedophile and false prophet known as Mahomet.


4 posted on 09/09/2020 2:41:23 PM PDT by Fungi
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To: Texas Fossil

Michael Rubin and AEI are hotbeds of Neocon flop sweat.

Their goal is to find conflict, then a rationale for US intervention and war.

Toilet scum, every one of them.


5 posted on 09/09/2020 2:56:07 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: Mariner

Thank you. It seems as if the neocons somehow drum up a war in support of the Kurds, it will only mean that we will be creating another Islamic state that will return our support with future acts of terrorism against us.


6 posted on 09/09/2020 3:11:12 PM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: Mariner

Possibly true, but he is 100% correct about internals in Turkey.


7 posted on 09/09/2020 3:23:55 PM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: Fungi

Ataturk was an atheist.

He answered to nobody on earth once in power. He did what he wanted. Nobody held him accountable.

Good side, he wanted Turkey to embrace the West and not be backward. Bad side, he was totally ruthless. Turkish history is an illusion and truth is not in print.


8 posted on 09/09/2020 3:26:44 PM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: 2banana

Well some were and others weren’t. Those who weren’t and got caught helping the Armenians suffered the same end.

Some of the Alevi’s suffered the same treatment.

Long ago the Kurds admitted what happened and established good relations with the Armenians.

I have friends who grew up in Turkey and are well educated in the reality of Turkish history as far as elimination of minorities.

You will have a hard time finding the truth there in print.


9 posted on 09/09/2020 3:30:10 PM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: Fungi

Kemal sought to establish Turkey as a post-imperial secular modern state. He eliminated the religious influence from government And included provision for the Army to take action to prevent Islamic extremists from attempting to seize power. This was necessary and happened a couple times. But Kemalism is dead for now, Erdogan took power after islamists subverted the military. He has sough to turn back the clock, and is doing so. It does not promise to end well.


10 posted on 09/09/2020 4:52:52 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard (Power is More often surrendered than seized.p.)
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To: Texas Fossil

“Bad side (of Attaturk), he was totally ruthless.”

He borrowed heavily from the fascists, who were then in fashion, and in turn was a significant role model to budding fascist, Adolph Hitler.

Attaturk became President in 1923, not long after Mussolini took power in Italy (1922).

He modeled the new uniform, and imported their new legal system from Fascist Italy, and also based his ideology on ethnic Nationalism - Turkishness. Also like the fascists, he adopted a more secular approach to his Government and society.


11 posted on 09/09/2020 5:40:13 PM PDT by BeauBo
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To: Texas Fossil

Actually, its possible that the Italian fascists were borrowing from Ataturk, as much or more than he was borrowing from them.

ataturk was leading forces in the Turkish Civil War, and against Allied occupation Forces for years before Mussolini took power.


12 posted on 09/09/2020 6:55:42 PM PDT by BeauBo
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To: BeauBo

Thanks for that perspective, I was not aware that he patterned after Mussolini. And they patterned after him.


13 posted on 09/09/2020 7:40:23 PM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: BeauBo

Thanks for that perspective, I was not aware that he patterned after Mussolini. And they patterned after him.


14 posted on 09/09/2020 7:42:34 PM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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Funeral Of Kemal Ataturk: Former President of Turkey (1938) | British Pathe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsXwzoTa6Bo


15 posted on 09/09/2020 11:19:14 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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