In a country which straddles the Bosphorus unevenly yet can seem figuratively split down the middle between religious fanatics and strident secularists, it is often left to the armed forces to uphold some semblance of secular order in Turkey.
It is an institution as important as the Presidency, Congress, and Supreme Court are for the separation of powers in the United States, the Commons and the Lords for the separation of Houses in the United Kingdom, and the mighty State Duma in Russia as it wrangles with the sometimes excessive machismo of Vladimir Putin.
Expressing their devotion to the Order of The Most Blessed Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the Turkish army is no stranger to coups when things aren’t going their way. Successful coups were carried out in 1960 and 1980, followed by purges the latter of which saw more than half a million people thrown in jail. Military memorandums in 1971 and 1997 forced the installation of new governments, in what have variously been described as ‘coups by memorandum’ or ‘post-modern coups’. And some have alleged that a series of suspicious deaths in 1993 also effectively amounted to a military coup.
So Turkey is in a sorry state indeed when the military can’t even muster enough resources to orchestrate a successful coup. Those uncomfortable with military aggression and military rule may have heralded the failure of last week’s attempt, but as tens of thousands are purged from the police, the judiciary, and overwhelmingly from the education and media sectors, the current state of affairs scarcely seems to leave Turkey better off.
Aside from the eternal enemy Fethullah Gülen, some governmental ministers loyal to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have alleged American involvement in the attempted coup. Turkey briefly put a stop to operations at Incirlik Air Base – from where the United States carries out all of its strike missions against so-called Islamic State – citing a role in the coup played by top Incirlik officers.
Of course others would argue that the Turkish leadership has a vested interest in the survival of ISIS. And whatever some rogue officers at Incirlik were up to, surely the Americans weren’t involved this time round. And if they were and the coup still failed, is there really any hope left?
