Trump and Erdogan: The bringers of chaos

Trump still wanted to bring the US troops home, but now he had one condition. The Turks must promise not to invade north-eastern Syria and crush the YPG as soon as the US troops leave.

Erdogan replied that nothing Trump said or did could stop him from destroying these Kurdish ‘‘terrorists’’, who have never attacked Turkey. At which point, Trump tweeted the US ‘‘will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds.’’

All clear so far? Good.

You’d never guess, from the story thus far, that the US and Turkey have been close allies for the past half-century, but the alliance is fading fast. Erdogan has been playing his own hand in the Middle East and playing it quite badly.

The ‘‘Sultan’’, as his admirers call him, wants to secure his own one-man rule and re-Islamise Turkey, which has evolved into a secular and democratic republic over the past 80 years.

He also wants to promote Sunni Islam throughout the region. The two goals are not fully compatible, so he shifts position a lot.

When the revolt in Syria broke out in 2011 during the Arab spring, Erdogan supported it because Assad’s regime is dominated by Alawites, a Shia Muslim sect. He kept the border open and let supplies and recruits flow into the rebels, including even the Islamic State extremists.

When Russia intervened militarily to save Assad in 2015, Erdogan was so angry he even had the Turkish air force ambush and shoot down a Russian bomber. But he was almost equally angry with the US, which had made an alliance with the Kurds of northern Syria to fight against Islamic State.

The Kurds gradually choked off the aid coming in to Islamic State from Turkey and Isis has now lost almost all its territory.

So Erdogan told Trump he could bring the US troops home now and Trump believed him.

But what Erdogan actually wants to do is crush the Syrian Kurds, which he can do once the US troops leave.

Erdogan thinks the Syrian Kurds are allied with the Turkish Kurds, who make up one-fifth of Turkey’s population, live just across the border from Syria, and are at war with Erdogan’s regime. That’s why he calls them ‘‘terrorists’’. Given Erdogan’s ruthlessness and Trump’s volatility, I have no idea how all this works out. Badly, I suspect. But I actually admire Trump’s refusal to betray his allies once he realised what Erdogan was up to. You don’t see that much in the Middle East. Of course, it probably won’t last.

Gwynne Dyer’s new book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and work)