The Question Of Staged Coup Attempts

The recent unsuccessful coup attempt in Bolivia brought back the question of how many such coups might actually be staged by the national leader that was the target of the coup. 

If you wonder why a leader would stage a coup against himself the answer is that few events boost a leader's position like an unsuccessful coup against him. It makes the leader look strong and his opponents look weak and lawless, having resorted to the coup as an act of desperation. In a democracy a leader cannot just have his opponents arrested but an illegal coup attempt against him provides justification for coming down on political opponents. 

The coup attempt in Bolivia, according to one story, was staged to strengthen the president against the challenge of former president Evo Morales. In the compound posting "Investigations", December 2018, we saw section 53) DID BORIS YELTSIN STAGE THE 1991 COUP? This does not necessarily mean a leader directly ordering a coup against himself, but it is possible to maneuver it into happening.

For a sense of perspective let's have a look today at another unsuccessful coup that had long-term implications, the 2016 coup in Turkiye. This is the country that was formerly spelled as "Turkey".

Modern Turkiye was created in the 1920s following the end and dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, after the First World War. This began in the Thirteenth Century and was one of the greatest empires in world history.

There is a persistent story that the Ottoman Empire declined because it resisted the printing press. This made the dissemination of modern knowledge much more difficult, causing it to fall behind the western European countries. It does seem that the Ottomans did not warmly receive the printing press although I do not know that it was actually banned. Possibly the Ottomans noticed how the printing press had fueled the Protestant Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, and didn't want it to similarly undermine their own rule. Rapidly printing criticism of the Catholic Church and Bibles that people could read for themselves, without relying on the Church, the printing press was like the heartbeat of the Reformation.

The founder of the modern Turkish Republic was Mustafa Kemal, commonly known as "Ataturk". Unlike the Ottomans, who emphasized Islam and ruled a vast territory, the new Turkish Republic was to have a secular constitution and would switch to the Latin alphabet for writing. The capital was moved from Istanbul to Ankara, to represent the new society, and the iconic Hagia Sophia was reclassified from a mosque to a museum. The Islamic Caliphate was to be abolished.

The Ottoman territory that was not where Turkish people lived, which amounted to most of the Middle East, would be divided up as colonies by the victorious European powers of Britain, France and, Italy. A major part of the trouble in the Middle East today is simply that it has not reached a new equilibrium since the end of long Ottoman rule.

But Turkiye was a Moslem country with a long and glorious Ottoman history and the creation of modern Turkiye was somewhat artificial in a way similar to "Libya, Iraq And, Sudan", as we saw in the posting by that name, May 2023.

Over the last twenty years President Recep Erdogan has represented the comeback of the Ottomans. There is much more emphasis on Islam. After not being given membership in the European Union the country has moved somewhat away from the west. There has been discussion of reviving the traditional Turkish alphabet and the Hagia Sophia has been reclassified back into a mosque.

As far as living like an Ottoman sultan Erdogan has built one of the largest presidential compounds in the world, in Ankara. To represent Turkiye regaining some of the global influence of the Ottomans he built one of the world's largest airports, at Istanbul.

In July 2016 there was a coup attempt by part of the Turkish military against Erdogan. The coup was apparently not well organized. It was mostly limited to the country's two largest cities and was defeated in a few days.

Erdogan gained a lot of power from the failed coup. For one thing he concentrated power in the president's office, which gave him much more authority. Hundreds of people were soon arrested, or lost their jobs, for involvement in or support of the coup.

Speculation immediately began that Erdogan himself was behind the coup attempt that he gained so much from. Not that he actually organized the coup but could have maneuvered it into happening. 

One prevailing theory is that Erdogan had a list of many people, particularly in the military, that he suspected of disloyalty. But to arrest them would mean that Turkiye had abandoned democracy and become a dictatorship. So he somehow leaked the list of who was to be arrested, causing them to attempt this hastily organized coup against him. This provided the reason to arrest and remove them, keeping the country a democracy and gaining a lot of power along the way.

Details of why many people believe that the coup was staged can be seen in the Wikipedia article "2016 Turkish Coup Attempt", in the last section of the article "Causes".

The fact that Erdogan, representing the comeback of the Ottoman Empire, can dominate the country like this for twenty years indicates that the modern Turkish Republic was somewhat artificial to begin with. I would like to direct your attention to the investigation, in the compound posting "Investigations", December 2018, 5) THE REAL STORY OF GALLIPOLI.

This is my version of how Britain and France were much more involved in the emergence of Ataturk, and the formation of the modern Turkish Republic, than has ever been made public. If the scenario of behind the scenes maneuvering that I presented there is correct, you can see how perfectly it fits with the theories about the 2016 coup attempt.

This discussion of the Ottoman Empire also relates to the posting "The Long-Ago Battle That Completely Changed The World", December 2022. 

Does anyone notice what Turkish President Recep Erdogan did to consolidate his power after the 2016 coup attempt against him? It was very clever and might be seen as fitting with the idea that Erdogan might have maneuvered the coup into happening.

Turkiye and Iran are next door neighbors. The two countries are about the same size and both have ruled great empires. Inevitably there is some mutual gravity between the two.

There is much in common between the founder of modern Turkiye, Mustafa Kemal commonly known as Ataturk, and Reza Shah, the founder of the last royal dynasty of Iran, the Pahlavi Dynasty, and the father of the Shah who was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Both began programs of modernization and westernization under the influence of foreign powers. The major difference between the two, with regard to relations with the outside world, is that Iran has a lot of oil while Turkiye doesn't.

In 1934 Reza Shah, apparently able to speak Turkish, made the famous state visit to his friend Ataturk, in Turkiye.

We saw in the Investigation "The Real Story Of Gallipoli", in the compound posting "Investigations", December 2018 section 5), how the western Allies were behind the rise of Ataturk and his modern, secular Turkish state, following the end of the Ottoman Empire after it had been on the wrong side in the First World War. Coincidentally, at around the same time, there was a British-supported coup in Iran that brought the Pahlavi Dynasty to power, in 1921, ending the preceding Qajar Dynasty. This western support of the Pahlavi Dynasty is, of course, what would finally trigger it's end in what I refer to as "The Great Revolution Of Our Time", in 1979, as we saw in the posting by that name, January 2017.

What the western Allies wanted, as we saw in the Investigation, is a modern, secular westward-leaning state to replace the dismembered Ottoman Empire and a compliant leadership in neighboring Iran that would allow them to effectively control it's oil.

As for the inevitable mutual gravity between Turkiye and Iran if Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkiye, corresponded to Reza Shah then the current President of Turkiye, Recep Erdogan, must correspond to Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution that overthrew the son of Reza Shah in 1979. It is the revolution that we saw in "The Great Revolution Of Our Time", January 2017.

Like Khomeini, Erdogan represents a reversal of the westernization and secularism that had been imposed on the state from outside. The difference between the two, of course, is that the Iranian case was much more catastrophic and violent. Because it had a lot of oil the west had more interest in interfering in Iran. Erdogan is leading a revolution that parallels that of Khomeini and is, in fact, a reflection of what we saw in"The Great Revolution Of Our Time ". The difference is that Erdogan's revolution is much milder than Khomeini's.

Khomeini spent the first year of his exile from Iran, for denouncing the Shah, in Turkiye. The country accepted him to support the Shah. It was decided as better not to execute him because he was well-known and had a high religious rank. But he couldn't speak Turkish and was allowed to move to the Shiite holy city of Najaf, in Iraq, where he spent most of his exile.

In July 2016 there was the unsuccessful military coup in Turkiye against Recep Erdogan. Erdogan gained tremendously from this coup against him, using it to amass a lot of power for the supposed sake of security. Speculation immediately began that Erdogan had maneuvered the coup into happening himself as a reason to arrest or fire those he suspected of disloyalty, and then to amass more power.

As for the coup attempt Erdogan focused heavily on a Turkish Islamic cleric living in exile in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. The name of the cleric is Fethullah Gulen. He was once an ally of Erdogan, who accused him of being behind the coup attempt.

Gulen absolutely denied having anything to do with the coup attempt and condemned it. Erdogan's government has designated Gulen's charitable organization as a terrorist organization, and some countries allied with Turkiye have followed. Erdogan has requested Gulen's extradition but the U.S. Government remains unconvinced that he has done anything wrong.

What do you notice here, remembering the mutual gravity between Turkiye and Iran? The Iranian Revolution was led by an Islamic cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini, in exile in Paris after leaving Iraq. Although I cannot see that it was ever mentioned from a Turkish point of view Gulen thus resonates with Khomeini, who led the upheaval that happened next door.

A central part of the Iranian Revolution was the U.S. Embassy Hostage Crisis. Militants seized the embassy, on November 4, 1979, when the exiled Shah was admitted to the United States for medical treatment. They demanded that he be returned to Iran to face trial. This causes the case of Gulen, who was also originally admitted to the U.S. for medical treatment, to also resonate with the Shah.

Remembering how Turkiye is divided between the modern secular republic, represented by Ataturk whose Iranian counterpart is the Shah, and the glory days of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, represented by Erdogan whose Iranian counterpart is Khomeini, this means that Gulen can resonate with either. So following the 2016 coup attempt, for the sake of security, Erdogan seemed to be completely justified in amassing more power.

This focusing attention on Gulen even though, much unlike Ayatollah Khomeini he lives a quiet life in exile, was absolutely brilliant. Some might see it as supporting the idea that Erdogan maneuvered the 2016 coup attempt into happening. Erdogan has already ruled for twenty years and now has been reelected again. The reason Erdogan was reelected was that his version of the country is the real Turkiye and the secular republic that has existed since the 1920s is somewhat of an artificial western creation.