His Brand Is Crisis

Turkey returns to the polls this Sunday just five months after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) suffered an embarrassing electoral setback, losing its once-firm majority in the country's parliament, the grand national assembly, and failing to form a sustainable governing coalition.

Amid increased violence and instability on both sides of Turkey's borders, and with a once-promising Kurdish peace process now in tatters Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pushed his country into a snap election that raises several questions about the future of Turkish growth, prosperity, and security, but one unlikely to offer clear answers to any of them. The Associated Press' Desmond Butler and Suzan Fraser report:

"The ballot comes at a sensitive time for Turkey, a key Western ally that has major issues to navigate: It faces rising instability in neighboring Syria and Iraq and a refugee crisis that is spilling into Europe. There are also doubts about the country's once-booming economy -- concerns exasperated by political deadlock and violence damaging the key tourism sector.

"With analysts expecting a similar inconclusive result in Sunday's election, the key question is whether Erdogan would allow his party to form a coalition. Doing so would effectively force Erdogan to relinquish his iron grip on power in Turkey."

Indeed, the Turkish president's increasingly authoritarian inclinations come at a time when his political capital is at an all-time low. Whereas the AKP once enjoyed a rather broad mandate across the country, these days, Erdogan's party finds itself more isolated and destined to depend upon smaller parties to help it achieve the president's political ends.

"[T]he result that could finally make Erdogan acquiesce to a coalition would be one that convinces him he has exhausted all his political tools and cannot pull it off, no matter what he tries," writes Turkish analyst Kadri Gursel. "And this could happen only if the AKP gets less than the 40.8% it garnered [on] June 7."

Such an electoral result, explains Gursel, could force the president's hand, pushing him toward fringe nationalist parties that would likely entrench animosities and political deadlock in the country.

"The Sunni side in the Sunni-Alevi polarization, the Islamist side in the Islamist-secular polarization and the Turkish side in the Turkish-Kurdish polarization would all be in power, while the opponents of the Erdogan regime -- Alevis, seculars, and Kurds -- would all be in the opposition. It's hard to imagine that such a government could rule Turkey in peace and stability," argues Gursel.

Erdogan, however, still appears to be pinning his last hopes on an impregnable parliamentary majority, and is hoping that a ramped-up war against the Islamic State group and the PKK will help him seal that victory.

The president's strategy is rather simple. Erdogan's campaign message is that "Turkey is unstable because AKP has lost its majority, and whatever negative development is taking place in Turkey right now is taking place because AKP has lost its majority," said the German Marshall Fund's Ozgur Unluhisarcikli in an interview with the Associated Press.

Behind much of Erdogan's recent paranoia and political desperation is the rise of the pro-Kurdish, upstart Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which cleared the essential 10-percent vote threshold in June, in the process depriving Erdogan of his much-coveted majority. However, a resurgence in violence in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast -- the HDP's political stronghold -- has severely altered the mood in the region, as mindsets have shifted from winning votes to war.

"Instead of enthusiasm for the ballot box there is the silence of the coffins," HDP candidate Idris Baluken told Reuters. "Less than a week to the election, and everywhere in Kurdistan is under the shadow of guns and the sound of warplanes."

Hence the dilemma Turkey now finds itself in: Should President Erdogan achieve the necessary majority required to avoid a coalition, he will likely use that pulpit to alter the country's democratic trajectory. Should, however, the president's Justice and Development Party fail to win enough seats this weekend, then the country may face prolonged instability and revanchism.

Lacking leverage at home, Erdogan is rightly wagering that his value is too high in Washington and in the capitals of Europe for him to be cut loose, giving him free rein to bomb his way back to ballot victory, much to Turkey's detriment.

Around the Region

A Saudi-Iran sit-down. Looming large over Friday's Syrian peace talks in the Austrian capital of Vienna is the growing regional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The two sides have invested capital and lives in a seemingly endless Syrian proxy war, and world leaders are now hoping that both nations can help find a way to resolve the country's bloody civil war. The Guardian's Martin Chulov has the report:

"In the runup to the talks there was no discernible change to the intractable regional positions of either side and hopes of meaningful progress appear slim. In the past four years, Iran has not publicly shifted from its insistence that Assad remain as leader and more importantly, that its influence remain undiluted in Damascus, which is strategically vital to how the country projects its power, especially concerning Israel.

"Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has insisted that Assad must go and that, in the first instance, a transitional government agreed to by the regime and the opposition should pave the way for peace. It has been flatly opposed to Iran's inclusion, maintaining that Tehran has done more than any other actor to fan the flames of the war and, in doing so, impose itself on the Sunni Arab world."

Washington's selective outrage. Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations compares the United States' responses to indiscriminate bombings by Russia and Saudi-led forces in Syria and Yemen, respectively:

"That cluster munitions are ‘not good,' except as a reliable method for killing noncombatants outside of an intended target field, is a well-known and established fact. According to one UN estimate, the failure rates for cluster munitions vary from between 2 and 5 percent (according to manufacturers) to between 10 and 30 percent (according to mine clearance personnel). They were subsequently banned by the UN Convention on Cluster Munitions, which entered into force in August 2010 and has been endorsed by ninety-eight states parties. Notable states that have refused to sign and ratify the convention include those that consistently uses airpower to achieve their military objectives, such as Russia, the United States, and Saudi Arabia.

"The latter has led a relatively indiscriminate bombing campaign of its own in Yemen against Houthi rebels and innocent noncombatants. For over seven months, the United States has strongly endorsed and supported this air campaign by providing in-air refueling, combat-search-and-rescue support, analytical support for target selection, and a redoubling of arms sales and contractor support for Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries-over $8 billion authorized by President Obama in the last seven months alone."

[...]

"If cluster munitions are ‘not good' for Russia to use in Syria, why are they acceptable for Saudi Arabia to use in Yemen, especially since there are many examples of civilian deaths caused by them? Now, that's a good question for reporters to ask at the next press briefing."

Made in China, sold in Egypt. Egyptian journalist Khalid Hassan explains how a glut of cheaply made Chinese products are affecting domestic industry in Egypt:

"Chinese goods, especially traditional handicrafts, have invaded the Egyptian market. In this regard, Atef Yaacoub, head of Egypt's Consumer Protection Agency, stressed in March 2013 the need to take strict measures to stop the flow of the goods into Egypt.

"Although the quality of Chinese products might be at times questioned, they were met with large demand because of their low prices, as the number of Chinese companies in Egypt rose from 1,000 in 2010 to 1,198 in 2015.

"The market for these products has grown considerably and become a primary factor behind the current economic downturn, leading former Egyptian Minister of Trade and Industry Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour to decree in April 2015 an import ban on all Chinese imitations of Egypt's traditional handicrafts in an attempt to curb this invasion of the Egyptian market."

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