Suddenly, Greek Premier Mitsotakis becomes an ultra-nationalist, talking about national sovereignty and territorial integrity, the same person who fully agrees to the entry of millions of Afro-Asiatic illegal migrunts who are supported by the cuts in salaries and pensions by the Greek people who are becoming a minority day by day in their own country.
Mitsotakis crossed the big blue pond and even gave a speech to the American Congress. For years now the Americans have been at odds with Turkey. At first they were pressured to enter Iraq on their own behalf as invaders. When they gave up official combat operations in Iraq, the Americans supported the Kurds, which is a red cloth for the Turks. The Turks were supported when they gave aid to guerrilla groups against Assad. Then they advanced a feud with the Russians when they fired their fighter jet. When Erdogan flew to Mosco and grovelled to Putin the Americans went so far as to organize a coup d'état against Erdoğan, who was saved by Putin's intervention.
U.S. bases in Greece have been upgraded which Turkiye considers a threat. A year ago the French fleet threatened Turkish ships that were searching for hydrocarbons in the Aegean. So what is Greek PM Mitsotakis sudden nationalist turn at play? The only given is the war in Ukraine. The Americans are losing and are not happy with the attitude of Turkey that does not want NATO extension to Sweden and Finland. So can the Americans use Greece to organize any provocations to expel it from NATO?
The Karamanlis faction of New Democracy (ruling party of Greece) speaks that Mitsotakis essentially wants to cede the Aegean. This is problematic since it would mean that they are giving more power to Erdoğan at the same time that they blocked his purchases of the F16 fighther jets and while he asks to get F15 (since these will be procured by Greece) and the S400 systems do not help to stop them. The Turks inaugurated this summers political football with a tourist advertising campaign calling it ‘TurkAegean’ with Greece not complaining to any official copyright bodies in other words acquiescing to it.
Turkey has built an aircraft carrier as a sign of future power projection to threaten the Near East eg Libya or Syria but they don’t have the adequate fighter jets to use on them so its more of an internal propaganda tool as with most things Erdogans does. But it does show a growth in industrial manufacturing to be able to produce an aircraft carrier even if limited in scope.
PM Mitsotakis showed maps in the US Congress about Erdoğan's Blue Homeland (essentially Greece under Ottoman rule) and if he were to concede the Aegean this would help Russia, but they are fanatically at odds with Russia.
So what is at stake only from the point of view of American politics and what does it intend to do in the near future? It’s difficult to tell but of course this isn’t the USA of the 1960’s or the USA of the 2010s? Do they want a military confrontation since politics and economics have failed? Applying the Clausewitz doctrine that war is the continuation of politics by other means are we at the stage of a new conflict in the South eastern Meditterrean?
They also put a Greek American as US Ambassador to sell it as they it as they had done in the past with our 'own' Prince who married the Queen of England who… married us. Did any of that nonsene save us from the civil war?
The Americans have beefed up security in the port of Alexandroupolis and are focusing on having forces there to be able to block the exit of Russian ships from the Bosphorus, but they require Turkeys acquiescence.
The Obamaites in the Biden administration who obviously have a strong influence circulated a piece stating Turkey has become an uncertain ally implying what precisely?
Turkish economy in freefall
With official inflation raging at 75% and true to form Erdogan having imposed tough Covid restrictions in the last two years, its almost impossible to survive nowadays in Turkey hence the fact that if Turkey imposed full blown anti-Russian sanctions as demanded by the PM of Greece then it would have meant it would have been over for Erdogan.
In one way PM Mitsotakis was virtue signaling his American obedience, but it’s a known fact they both (Greece & Turkey) don’t tread on each others toes so openly and blatantly (prior to previous big power agreement) and therefore there must be an ulterior motive.
We are told Turkey which has become Turkiye (another pseudo-nationalist turn by Erdogan) is an anti-imperialist behemoth when the reality is it tries to straddle both Big Powers (American and Russian) but its actual heart beats with the West from the 1920’s when it housed all the expelled Russian aristocrats and became a staunch proponent of the anti-Communist Cold War when it agreed to house US nuclear weapons instigating the Cuban Crisis in the early 1960’s.
Then we had Turkiyes incursion into Syria and Libya propping up US positions there. What they don’t realise is that America does not have friends. It only has servants like big time mobsters do. At any moment in time after spending a lifetime walking on eggshells they can drop you and you can become another Noriega, Milosevic, Saddam, Gaddafi…. Buying into the Cosa Nostra does not secure you indemnity, it only implies your indemnity can be erased at the drop of a hat. Of course the USA is no longer what it used to be and its sudden death signatures don’t have the value they once did, as shown with the attempted failed coup against Erdogan.
Elections in Mind
With both Mitsotakis and Erdogan entering electoral cycles in 2023 it’s a race against time who will survive politically. Taking a leaf out of the Trump playbook going ‘nationalist’ despite both being hyperglobalists is part and parcel of the charade. Erdogan came into politics to enter the EU, Mitsotakis comes from the quisling Greek crime family that’s been politically active since WW2 and are staunch defenders of the EU and NATO. Only if the Americans want to dump Turkiye will there be a military conflict with Greece, as Erdogan does not have much more to gain and more to lose. Any shooting war, even of limited duration, will destroy tourist income which has Germany as a big player in both countries. In an ideal world they could both gain from a shooting war the issue is how to pretend they have both won and no one has lost.
It's an irony of history that once Greece acquiesced to Turkish entry to the EU it all started unravelling for Turkey and now Greece has started to show a backbone in official statements (that it does so with US backing) what will be the endgame? A removal of Erdogan and a new anti-Russian turn of Turkiye? We can only await and see….
Curteousy from banned on social media (one)world press
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