Sunday, July 17, 2016

Chris Trotter: Erdogan lives – and secular Turkey dies | Stuff.co.nz

Chris Trotter: Erdogan lives – and secular Turkey dies

OPINION: 'When you strike at a king, you must kill him." This, the first and most important rule of regime change by force, is the rule which the military units rebelling against Turkish President, Tayyip Erdogan, failed to follow. It was their biggest, but very far from their only, mistake. Observing the unfolding debacle through the all-seeing eyes of CNN, an old CIA hand informed viewers that it had all the appearance of a "colonels' coup" – not one planned and executed by those at the summit of the military hierarchy. The relative ease with which civilian and military forces loyal to the President crushed the uprising proved him right.

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