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Is Turkey On The Path To Restoring The Ottoman Empire?
Over the past two days, we’ve documented the escalating violence in Turkey, tracing the roots of Ankara’s newfound zeal for combating Islamic State to a long-running conflict with the Kurdistan Workers' Party and, more specifically, to an electoral setback for AKP.
In short, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s push to consolidate his power by transforming the country into a presidential republic was derailed last month when, for the first time in more than a decade, AKP lost its absolute majority in parliament thanks to the pro-Kurdish HDP which won 13% of the vote.
The coalition building process has been predictably rocky, prompting Erdogan to threaten new elections in the event politicians can't "sort it out." Needing just two percentage points to regain its majority and clear the way for Erdogan’s power grab, Ankara has moved to stoke a nationalistic fervor by reigniting the conflict with PKK and drawing explicit links between the "terrorist" group and HDP politicians. Case in point (from AFP):
Turkish prosecutors on Thursday opened a probe against the leader of Turkey's main Kurdish party over bloody October 2014 protests, the official Anatolia news agency reported.
Prosecutors in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir have started an investigation against Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) leader Selahattin Demirtas for inciting people to take up arms during the protests that left dozens dead, the agency said.
If the case comes to court, he could face up to 24 years in jail, it added.
The investigation comes as Turkey presses on with a military campaign against the Kurdish militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq.
Should the investigation conclude that Demirtas should be charged, prosecutors will ask that his parliamentary immunity be removed, the report said.
Of course it helps to have a cover for a brutal crackdown on one’s political foes, especially when the result will likely amount to the nullification of a democratic election outcome, which is why the ISIS-inspired suicide bombing in Suruc on July 20 looks rather convenient, as it prompted an angry and, more importantly, a predictable response from the PKK which allowed Erdogan to go straight to the US and then to NATO with a claim that in addition to launching airstrikes against ISIS, Turkey would need to hit the PKK as well. After all, they’re both officially labeled as "terrorist" organizations.
Now, Turkey’s crackdown on political dissidents is officially sanctioned by NATO and Washington.
Against that backdrop we bring you some fantastically metaphysical excerpts from a new piece by Stratfor. The following analysis of Turkey’s role in shaping the future of geopolitics is by Stratfor’s Vice President of Global Analysis Reva Bhalla who suggests that if one simply looks "through the lens of quantum theory", Turkey may be heading down an "unlikely path" to establishing a modern day Ottoman Empire.
* * *
From Stratfor
Turkey’s unlikely path
Albert Einstein described space-time as a smooth fabric distorted by objects in the universe. For him, the separation between past, present and future was merely a "stubbornly persistent illusion." Building on Einstein's ideas, celebrated U.S. physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman, some of whose best ideas came from drawings he scribbled on cocktail napkins in bars and strip clubs, focused on how a particle can travel in waves from point A to point B along a number of potential paths, each with a certain probability amplitude. In other words, a particle will not travel in linear fashion; it will go up, down and around in space, skirting other particle paths and colliding into others, sometimes reinforcing or canceling out another completely. According to Feynman's theory, the sum of all the amplitudes of the different paths would give you the "sum over histories" — the path that the particle actually follows in the end.
The behavior of communities, proto-states and nation-states (at least on our humble and familiar planet Earth) arguably follows a similar path...
If we apply the nation-state as an organizing principle for the modern era (recognizing the prevalence of artificial boundaries and the existence of both nations without states and states without nations), the possibilities of a state's path are seemingly endless. However, a probability of a state's path can be constructed to sketch out a picture of the future.
Take Turkey, for example. For years, we have heard political elites in the United States, Eastern Europe and the Middle East lament a Turkey obsessed with Islamism and unwilling or incapable of matching words with action in dealing with regional competitors like Iran and Russia. Turkey was in many ways overlooked as a regional player, too consumed by its domestic troubles and too ideologically predisposed toward Islamist groups to be considered useful to the West. But Turkey's resurgence would not follow a linear path. There have been ripples and turns along the way, distorting the perception of a country whose regional role is, in the end, profoundly shaped by its position as a land bridge between Europe and Asia and the gatekeeper between the Black and Mediterranean seas.
How, then, can we explain a week's worth of events in which Turkey launched airstrikes at Islamic State forces and Kurdish rebels while preparing to extend a buffer zone into northern Syria — actions that mark a sharp departure from the timid Turkey to which the world had grown accustomed? We must look at the distant past, when Alexander the Great passed through the Cilician Gates to claim a natural harbor on the eastern Mediterranean (the eponymous city of Alexandretta, contemporarily known as Iskenderun) and the ancient city of Antioch (Antakya) as an opening into the fertile Orontes River Valley and onward to Mesopotamia. We move from the point when Seljuk Turks conquered Aleppo in the 11th century all the way up to the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War I, when a fledgling Turkish republic used all the diplomatic might it could muster to retake the strategic territories of Antioch and Alexandretta, which today constitute Hatay province outlining the Syrian-Turkish border.
We must simultaneously look at the present. A contemporary map of the Syria-Turkey border looks quite odd, with the nub of Hatay province anchored to the Gulf of Iskenderun but looking as though it should extend eastward toward Aleppo, the historical trading hub of the northern Levant, and onward through Kurdish lands to northern Iraq, where the oil riches of Kirkuk lie in what was formerly the Ottoman province of Mosul.
We then take a long look out into the future. Turkey's interest in northern Syria and northern Iraq is not an abstraction triggered by a group of religious fanatics calling themselves the Islamic State; it is the bypass, intersection and reinforcement of multiple geopolitical wavelengths creating an invisible force behind Ankara to re-extend Turkey's formal and informal boundaries beyond Anatolia.
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The No Agenda Show has been on this for well over a year http://www.noagendashow.com
Including Fatulah Ghulen, how CIA aided his escape from Turkey and houses him in Pensylvania. All his Ghulenist charter schools around the US. He is a proxy warrior against Tayip Erdogan. Follow the pipelines!
Check out http://search.nashownotes.com/ and search "gulen"
The Ottoman Empire was done in, ultimately, by department stores offering consumers matched sets of furniture including ottomans, at loss making prices on the ottomans. Maybe 21st century shoppers are into a hodgepodge look to their living rooms, or maybe Ottoman Empire will be not be ottoman-only.
We will let you build oil pipes through our country, but only if you buy this fine rug
"by department stores offering consumers matched sets of furniture including ottomans"
I've been saying it for years...IKEA is the real fucking enemy.
IKEA and their scandinavian puppet masters!
To answer the headline, no, they are in decline. I always thought the next step is Constantinople, founded by Western Europe, was going to fall back into our hands after a 600 year occupation by jihadists.
Completely wrong!
Constantinopol is far more anscient than Western Europe (states). In fact WE knights in their crusades tried several times and managed to conquer it at some time from Byzantium but their Latin Empire didn't last long.
Hey, check out that place called Palestine that I'm told doesn't actually exist.
Of course Palestine once existed. The Roman Empire conquered the Middle East, including the land that was Israel's. When those ingrates fought against the kind and benevolent Romans, the Romans said, "Well, what's all the fuss? If you don't like Rome, leave." Then our kindly Romans wanted to remove any temptation for those ungrateful Jews to return, so they renamed the province after Israel's historic mortal enemies, the Philistines. That name was Latinized to "Palestine". So when somebody wants to tell you a story of "Palestine" under brutal military occupation, make sure they're talking about the right military and the right century when that name was trademarked and for what purpose.
Nope, those eeeeeeeevil "Khazars" had nothing to do with it.
Oh, I see, the land was actually vacant for 2000 odd years until Kirk Douglas and his friends landed there in Exodus.
The ancestors of "Kirk Douglas and his friends" had to leave that land for 430 years and were exiled in Egypt before they came back and "landed there in Exodus". The purchase deal for a family tomb in the land from about 2500 years ago is documented in scripture.
Turkey is getting to be a failed state.
And so it dreams of a new Ottoman empire. Depressed people and losers always dream more
"If we could just hit the lottery we could get us outta dis trailer."
Islam is the theft that keeps on thieving.
"Islam is the theft that keeps on thieving. ..."
Or the US State dept....
Drop in the ocean compared to banking.
pods
"Drop in the ocean compared to banking."
True dat.
Islamic countries don't have banking, because Islam. And they're poor except when and where foreigners who do have banking have deployed technology and capital to extract natural resources to the profit of a handful of odious, odorous psycho clowns to whom we write the checks...some big part of which are deposited in proper banks and in various sorts of securities in non Islam infected countries. Such a blessing for the common sand person that they dont have banks the way we have banks.
Certain US Secretaries of State have done some thieving on their own account, but it has been a while since the State Dept got involved in taking foreign territory for the USA.
Who gives a sh.t?
Let them have it and drown in their own crap!
Turkey fear porn today.
I hope I meet a covert scumbag face to face someday.
Turkey, along with Jordan and others train ISIS to overthrow Assad.
USA funnels money and arms supporting the training of ISIS
Kurds fight ISIS
Turkey wants to kill Kurds and is asking NATO's support...
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/07/28/turkey-asks-for-nato-aid-in-war-...
....yet Drudge says we need to be on the alert for ISIS in USA.
Is that clear now?
Bingo. The goal of US interst in Turkey (NATO member state BTW) is to keep enough chaos to allow the pipelines but not so much that the pipelines get rubbleized. Same goes for the entire ME.
Broad brush, it sounds like the sand peoples are causing each other the same old problems they always do.
Turkey was allied with the US in the creation of ISIS.
Now it wants NATO support to fight ISIS.
Karma is a bitch
ISIS: The jihadist movement stamped “Made in America”
For three years, the US, along with the Gulf states and Turkey, poured billions into “opposition” groups, supposedly to unnamed “moderates,” but in reality to Al Qaeda-linked Sunni groups such as al-Nusra and ISIS to spearhead a sectarian war. The US, Turkey and Jordan have operated a base in Jordan where US instructors trained dozens of ISIS members. In an article last year, the New York Times confirmed that the CIA assisted Arab governments and Turkey by airlifting weaponry to these groups in Jordan and Turkey. The Guardian reported last March that British and French instructors were also involved.
Other ISIS members were trained near Incirlik Air Base near Adana, Turkey, where US forces are based. After completing their training, they went to Syria and later Iraq
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/07/30/isis-j30.html
Ummm, no.
I know, it sounds like a football game in a stadium with 6 teams playing 6 games all at once on the same field.
Clear as mud.
John Kerry can clarify things. He speaks a little bit of French.
Of course this has been known for more than 5 years
Not to threadjack, but somewhat related... Can you believe this shit?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/07/30/army-recruiting/309...
The Army is having trouble recruiting people. Why not just scoop up all the scumbag ISIS fucks we've trained for the last four years and enlist them. Win / Win situation here folks... a no brainer. Excellent Job security for Domestic Law Enforcement....great "diversification" and all that shit too.
Ok, sorry, back to Talking Turkey...
Would you sign up to be under the current commander-in-chief? How about being there for Hillary or Jeb?
Even if I wanted to join, they wouldn't take me. I checked.
We may be reaching - may have already reached - a point where even intelligence agencies, let alone the average news-reading bear, simply can not be certain what is going on as to "ISIS" and it's kissing cousin "Al Nusra/Al Qaeda."
The thing about entropy is - it tends to grow.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_%28information_theory%29
Also, Stratfor?
https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/
The notion Turkey is trying to revive the Ottoman Empire, or that Putin is trying to revive the USSR, stands in marked contrast to the TOTAL SILENCE re Likud/Shas drive for Greater Israel based on bible myths and a kingdom that never existed at all.
http://www.ahavat-israel.com/eretz/future
-------------
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/davidjer.html
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/david.htm
Another ancient stupidity at work here is Islam, an insidious cult designed to enrage and motivate lots of young males.
plenty of violence in the Koran for sure - but most "Muslim violence" is likely orchestrated by the US, UK, and Israel.
There's little doubt the US and UK stoked the Shia-Sunni civil war in Iraq, SAS troops at one point being caught red-handed.
Iraqi intelligence and military officials have point blank said that the US is supporting and giving log support to ISIS.
So is Iranian intelligence, the Syrians, and some of the Kurds.
They're not wrong.
It is a common enough delusion among members of pathetic loser cults to systematically blame their failure on nefarious outsiders. These are paranoid delusions, alas, and as psychiatrists know and practice, it doesn't help to dispute the afflicted person's deluded statements, but it is harmful and unethical to comfort them in their delusions, nevermind to enthhsiastically go along with them. Just some kindly advice how to better handle your encounters with leftists and the Islam infected.
Religious fanatics fighting wars based on the promise of divine reward is crazy, right?
Like:
The crusades were a series of holy wars called by popes with the promise of indulgences for those who fought in them ...
The promise of material reward and social ascendance was a far greater motivation than papal indulgences from what I've read. As for the Church, what better way to protect yourself from political rivals than to send them off to a distant land from which they'd most likely never return.
Good post.
Stratfor, enough said.
They are only slightly less openly Zionist than The Diplomat.
Could not agree more. You have to be brain-dead for decades to not know that Stratfor is pure propaganda
Which begs the question:
What is it doing here?
The main Kurdish party will be a blast unless it runs low anatoili paper.
Hey Don't Knock This Idea, It Has Merit!
This could fix the Greece Problem, give Greece back to the Ottomans (aka Turkey)!
Solves everything!
OE was to big to manage and it died - nothing new
Ok So it was to big. I agree with you. But...
Turkey + Greece = Tiny OE.
That surely can work. And think of all the advantages:
- No more Greek problem for EU,
- Greeks learn to work
- Greeks learn another language (you know how everyone says learning a 2nd language is good for you)
- Greeks don't have worry about running a country, they've never been able to anyway.
- Cyprus issue is resolved
So many positive things!
It has merit! no?
As long as US Gov be funding, Turkey will pretend to be restorin. Patsies never learn.
Patrick J. Buchanan.
Turkey situation
Hell yes, Turkey would love to form another Islamic Caliphate!
Erdogan became a hardline Islamist so he wouldn't be left behind that whole movement. That is what the Muslim Brotherhood is all about -- their reason for existing since 1928 is to reform the Ottoman Empire. The MB are the most frequent ('unindicted') visitors to Obama's WH so they are well on their way courtesy US taxpayers.
Right now, Turkey is happy to lurk and let ISIS do the dirty work of getting rid of the Shia interlopers, like Assad, but they will endeavor to co-opt the Islamist Caliphate movement from ISIS as soon as convenient.
Reminder: it's been less than 100 years since the Brits and Fench brought down the Ottoman Turk Empire and carved up MENA after WWI. And the Ottoman Empire lasted a whole lot longer than the article would suggest, insofar as it began in 1299 and reached it's peak between 1453-1566 before being torn apart in 1918 at the end of WWI (good riddance!). They never got over it.
The real reason and primary goal of Turkey's recent activities are the Kurds.
They are an eternal problem to Turkey which officially does not recognize their existence (the official name in Turkey is " mountain turks") and they have always been a thread by their will to form a Kurdish state.
Besides, at present they obstruct the normal communication between Turkey and ISIS.
After them comes Assad and I highly doubt Turkey is really planning to fight and defeat ISIS.
The real questionis when ISIS finishes off Assad do they turn their attention to Iran, or to Isreal... or both....
I would say washington and telaviv would want a good old fashioned Sunni shiite war... be best for business.
The following article speaks to the incremental distancing from the Saudi kingdom and the incremental elevation of Turkey as proxy errand boy to the empire; initial moves for the time being, but these are interesting developments. -- Eric Dubin, Managing Editor, The News Doctors.
# # # #
Turkey – America’s New Sweetheart
http://thenewsdoctors.com/?p=488190
I think Turkey will be happy if they keep what they got.
You lost me at "Stratfor."
Hysterical not metaphysical.
The 'Cabal' is desperate to access an anomaly in the areas of TURKEY, SYRIA, GREECE, YEMEN:
EXCLUSIVE:
Read more: http://www.messagetoeagle.com/articles1/artificialstructureshatay.php#ixzz3hVCTJtqw Gulf Of Aden: The Magnetic AnomalyExtraordinary Unexplained Ancient Artificial Structures Discovered In Hatay, Turkey:
Another Mysterious Ancient Doorway
http://www.marine-knowledge.com/magnetic-anomaly-in-the-gulf-of-aden-real-or-not/
Take note:
It was said here on Zero Hedge:
"...it turns out the tin-foil-hat wearers were right all along..."
turkistan united
As long as Palestine (including Israel) becomes part of the Ottoman Empire again, I am good to go. The dismantling of the Ottoman Empire was the cause of most of the troubles in the world today. However, the Turks do need to be kicked out of Constantinople.
Not the Ottoman empire. Erdogans are cryptojews.
Oh yes they are.