I’ve heard that it might have been as large as a million and a half.
Decent speech by Erdogan… Wonder if (as Macgregor was worrying about) words will turn into action
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In some ways Turkiye is in the ultimate Catch-22. Erdogan tends to be brilliant at rhetoric, and brilliant also at playing the ends against the middle. I’m not sure he can manage that balance for a great deal longer, it simply doesn’t square with NATO membership. On balance I rather suspect he would prefer Turkiye to go the BRICS way, but without too many dents to the mother ship.
I can imagine Turkish forces getting involved in any spill-over fighting in Syria, to protect their interests there and to signal solidarity with other Islamic states. But the risk of (or actually being in) conflict with US-Israel is very real. So too, they would need to signal their intent very clearly to the Syrian government AND Russia. And so would Israel.
Russia cannot permit Syria or Iran to be regime-changed.
There are simply too many variables and dependencies, which makes it a very dangerous time. I would not rule out the current Israeli regime being thrown to the wolves but in a very well-concealed way. Netanyahu is a dangerous ally to have, let’s put it that way. One way or another he will get got, to paraphrase Anthony Soprano Sr. Expecting no collateral damage would be naive.
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