Turkey
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is on a high. His Syrian proxy is in power in Damascus. The Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan has called on his followers to lay down their arms and disband. Kurdish fighters in Syria are doing that and amalgamating their forces with those of the new Erdogan-backed government.
It is the perfect time for the Turkish president to go after his domestic opposition. And that is exactly what he has done.
This week he arrested his chief political opponent—Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu– on charges of corruption and aiding and abetting terrorists. Funnily enough, the arrest came just before Imamoglu was due to be nominated as the candidate for the presidency by the Republican People’s Party (CHP).
The elections are not due until 2028, but the opposition wanted to give Imamoglu the maximum campaign time to break the stranglehold that Erdogan has on the media, courts, police and electoral processes.
Erdogan shouldn’t be worried about the Istanbul mayor simply because he has announced that he is retiring in 2028 when his term of office ends. In fact, he has to retire. Unless… he changes the constitution.
The current constitution limits the president to two terms in office. Erdoğan was first elected in 2014, but changed the constitution so that he was able to serve three consecutive terms instead of the two under the old constitution.
Erdoğan has made statements in the past indicating that he would retire in 2028, but there’s also speculation that he might seek to alter the constitution or push for an extension of his term. Both of which are possible given the dominance of his Law and Justice Party (AKP). And his chances are improved even more by the elimination of the only personality presenting a serious challenge.
Putin
In 2007 President George W. Bush declared: “I looked into the soul of President Putin and found a man I could trust.” He later admitted that that he was wrong.
In 2014 Putin denied that Russian troops were in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. They were “local militia” or “volunteers,” he claimed. He also denied any intention of annexing Crimea. He lied about the “volunteers” and annexed Crimea.
In July 2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over Eastern Ukraine. Putin blamed the Ukrainians. A multinational investigation determined it was the Russians.
At Helsinki, the Russian leader told Donald Trump that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 US presidential elections. The Mueller Report and every one of the US intelligence agencies said it did. Putin dismissed the allegations as part of a wider conspiracy against Russia.
In 2018 former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with novichok in the quiet English town of Salisbury. Putin said it had nothing to do with Russia. British intelligence determined that he ordered the attempted assassination and identified the assassins.
In 2022 French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were repeatedly told by the Russian President that he would not attack Ukraine. Then he attacked.
The above are a small sample of the untruths uttered by President Putin. They and many more are the reason that President Volodomyr Zelensky does not trust the Russian leader and why he, and his European backers, insist on iron-clad security guarantees as part of any ceasefire agreement.
Israel
Israel cannot fight forever. There is no doubt that it is one of the world’s most effective military forces.
It has a superb air force and incredible technical expertise backed up by first class intelligence. Behind it is the United States with a $3.8 billion military aid budget and the Mediterranean-based US Sixth Fleet
There are roughly 200,000 Israeli troops currently active and another 400,000 on active reserve. Three years conscripted service is mandatory for all men (two years for women) and after their conscription period they can be returned to active duty up to the age of 40.
But the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israeli economy is in danger of becoming overstretched. The American contribution is significant, but the total Israeli defense budget is $22 billion which represents six percent of the country’s GDP which is among one of the world’s highest expenditures relative to GDP.
These are the costs when the country is at a state of readiness, which is more or less permanent. They skyrocket when it is at war, and Israel has been at war since October 2023. This week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the resumption of the war in Gaza.
He also has troops in Northern Israel and Southern Lebanon to prevent a resurgence of Hezbollah. The Israeli Prime Minister fears that Syria’s new leader, Mohammed al-Jolani may return to his al-Qaeeda roots and has increased the Israeli forces on the Golan Heights and moved some troops into Syria’s southern provinces. Another 40,000 troops are deployed on the West Bank helping to clear out Palestinian settlements there.
* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and author of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “America Made in Britain".
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11 Comments
Western liberal democracies scurrying around capitals gathering together a coalition of the willing for Ukraine . Sits in stark contrast when one of its allies embarked on over 72 hrs ago an air assault in Gaza that killed over 500 civilians including nearly 200 children.
It’s almost as if Palestine lives in a parallel universe to them.
There is no doubt that Putin is willing to break any promise he ever makes if it becomes in his interests to do so. But he is not the only one who negotiated in bad faith – you will recall that Angela Merkel admitted in an interview for Die Zeit that the 2014 Minsk agreement was only agreed to as a way of buying time for Ukraine to strengthen militarily. Of course, the failure of Ukraine to implement the Minsk agreements became the excuse/basis for the Russians invading in 2022 but by then Ukraine was much stronger.
So today there is complete distrust on both sides about whether agreeing to ether a ceasefire or final peace agreement will be honoured by the other.
2021 – 23 June, BBC wrote: ‘Today, many of those former territories and allied states, such as Poland and the Baltic states, have joined Nato. So Russia feels surrounded, and that is a dangerous place to be. Yet as dramatic as Wednesday’s events appear (HMS Defender off Crimea), this could end up being just a dress rehearsal for a bigger test to come. HMS Defender is part of the Carrier Strike Force, spearheaded by the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth. It peeled off earlier this month to make this Black Sea visit while the rest of the force exercised in the Mediterranean.’ Why?
2021 – 21 June – on board HMS Defender the UK and Ukraine signed a naval cooperation agreement for the UK to construct a base on the Sea of Azov. (Which is surrounded by Russia and Russian-occupied land.) The probable site was Mariupol.
2021 – 12 July – Putin responding argued for the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians.
2021 – In late 2021, Russia massed troops near Ukraine’s borders and issued demands to the West including a ban on Ukraine ever joining the NATO military alliance.
2022 – 24 February – Russia attacked Ukraine
2022 – 24 February – Russia starts 3-month long siege of Mariupol.
2022 – 17 August – Mail Online: ‘The Pope declares the war in Ukraine is driven by the interests of several ’empires’ and not just Russia and that the war was ‘perhaps in some way provoked’ by NATO’.
i worked for many years from offices in Piccadilly Circus and would oftern walk down Regent street to Pall Mall where the Guards Crimean War Memorial in located in Waterloo Place. The Crimean War is a long forgotten conflict best known by school children for the work of Florence Nightingale in developing modern nursing.
170 years later we find ourselves discussing a coalition of the willing, spearheaded by British, French and potentially Turkish troops, in an alliance formed to contain Russian expansionism; while mass demonstations are underway in Istanbul against the autocratic actions of the present day Sultan.
“History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes,” as Mark Twain is often reputed to have said.
Britain– at the urging of Winston Churchill– was also heavily involved in Crimea and eastern Ukraine in supporting Ukrainian nationalists and White Russian troops in the Russian Civil War following the Bolshevik Revolution and the end of World War I. A little known postscript in the history of Anglo-Soviet relations. At least in London. It is well remembered in the Kremlin.
“Western liberal democracies scurrying around capitals gathering together a coalition of the willing for Ukraine”
The whattaboutery is not helpful or clever.
Last Wednesday (19th March) Israeli MK Ohad Tal told Secunder Kermani on Channel Four News that under the Biden administration, Israel had been “fighting Hamas with one hand and feeding them with the other”, and that under Trump things are very different. Interesting use of language – not “under Netanyahu”. The previous day, Israeli forces had killed hundreds of people in Gaza.
It is unlikely that Trump wants responsibility for those deaths laid were it belongs – at his door – but the unguarded admission only told us what we all know. Netanyahu is no puppet, but the US has strings it can pull, if it choose to. Instead of intervening to halt the genocidal attacks on civilians, Trump’s wild rhetoric about all Hell breaking loose was a green light to the extremists in the Knesset. It deserves (and has not been getting) absolute, unequivocal condemnation from the British government. Those six hundred people died not just on his watch, but directly because of what he said.
I would agree with the various comments on Palestine by Tom Arms and above. The war on the West Bank has received relatively little attention in the British media but it is very serious. In the Conference debate on foreign aid yesterday morning, Monica Harding MP our International Development Spokesperson who visited the illegally occupied territories
in November, reported that Israel has now destroyed as many medical facilities in the West Bank as it has in Gaza.
The greatest threat facing Britain today is lawlessness. The British establishment’s support for a rogue state that flouts international norms is jeopardizing the UK’s standing in the global south. Freedom of speech has been significantly eroded in an effort to safeguard the Israeli agenda, which has led to the loss of countless Palestinian lives. This situation has emboldened Russia, prompting them to question, “If they can do it, why can’t I?”
Israel functions as a strategic outpost for the US and a handful of Western nations, acting as a “big brother” in the Middle East. Its brutal occupation remains largely unchallenged and is often justified and respected by politicians. Putin may very well argue, “If they can occupy, why can’t I?”
The only conclusion we can draw is that many Western politicians are hypocritical and too feeble to uphold human rights laws. Their failure to support international law has transformed Britain; if they were to do so, we would see sanctions against Israel comparable to those imposed on Russia. We are left with weak leadership.
Tom,
I had the impression that the Kremlin has forgiven the UK for its support of the ‘Whites’ in the Russian civil war after Churchill’s wisdom in allying with Uncle Joe Stalin against Nazi Germany in WW2.
The current Trump mediator for both Ukraine and Israel, Steve Witkoff, appears to be quite critical of Keir Starmer’s initiative to bring together a “coalition of the willing” prepared to guarantee Ukraine’s security once a peace deal with Russia is agreed Downing Street Hits Back At Trump Envoy Who Criticised Starmer’s Ukraine Plan saying:
“I think it’s a combination of a posture and a pose and a combination of also being simplistic”.
“There is this sort of notion that we have all got to be like Winston Churchill. Russians are going to march across Europe. That is preposterous by the way. We have something called Nato that we did not have in World War Two.”
Witkoff is not inspiring much confidence that he has a mastery of his brief Witkoff interview
When is the Israeli government going to realise that the only way peace can be restored is by a diplomatic solution? Perhaps it will need a change of government to achieve this. It is a tragedy that the cessation of this civilian suffering can only be achieved when both warring sides decide that enough is enough.