RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19942/erdogan-putin-doctrine

Since Turkey’s economy is undergoing an unprecedented dive, Erdoğan needs European loans and investors.

Erdoğan seems to have a lot of wants…. [And] he wants the US Congress to endorse the sale of F-16 Block 70 aircraft to Turkey.

What to do? Erdoğan has resorted to his old trick of launching a hoax charm offensive hoping to deceive, once again, a few naïve Western minds. Too little, too late. He has been dancing within the Russian orbit to Putin’s tunes for several years so that, like a junior mafioso, he is being reminded by the capo that “once you’re in, you cannot get out.”

“We take Russian missile attacks as a Russian warning that reflects Russia’s discontent over a few Turkish initiatives… A Putin way to say ‘Hey, behave or else…'” — Senior Turkish diplomat to Gatestone, on condition of anonymity.

Once again, Western optimists are misreading Erdoğan, that he is “rekindling fraught relations with the West.” He just needs Western money, a few pats on the shoulder and legitimacy for his sultanship.

The Turkish company Beks Ship Management… help[s] Russia ship out its oil despite the Western sanctions, according to The Wall Street Journal.

An elephant painted in stripes does not make it a zebra. Erdoğan has never hidden his anti-Western ideology, or its depths.

Erdoğan comes from the ranks of Turkey’s militant political Islamism that emerged in late 1960s under the leadership of the ideologue, Necmettin Erbakan, Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister and Erdoğan’s mentor. In Erbakan’s rhetoric universal politics is simply about a struggle between the righteous (Islam) and a coalition of Zionists and racist imperialists — all else is just details. In his thinking, the Zionists support Turkey’s membership in the EU in order to “get Turkish Muslims to melt in a pot of Christianity.”

In a 2016 speech, Erdoğan talked of European countries: “These are not just our enemies… Behind them are plans and plots and other powers.” Also in 2016, he said that jihad is never terrorism. “It is resurrection…. It is to give life, to build… It is to fight the enemies of Islam.”

Also in 2020, Erdoğan wished that “God grant this nation many more happy conquests” at a celebration where he recited from the Quran, a salute to the Ottoman invasion of Christian lands. To European leaders, he said: “You are fascists in the true meaning of the world. You are veritably the link in the Nazi chain.”

Erdoğan’s anti-Western ideology has not changed. What changes from time to time is how much Western money and favors he needs.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19946/china-preparing-for-war

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping is rapidly militarizing his country and has instructed its army to “prepare for war” and “fight and win” it.

“Chinese ruler Xi Jinping replaced the senior leadership of China’s Rocket Force, which is responsible for almost all of China’s 400 or so nuclear warheads. These personnel changes are part of what is almost certainly the most ominous development of this time. It looks like Xi is contemplating using or at least threatening to use his most destructive weapons. In other words, China is planning to go to war.” — Gordon Chang, China expert, Newsweek, August 14, 2023.

“Xi sacked Rocket Force commander, Li Yuchao, and its political commissar, Xu Zhongbo. Neither has been seen in public since. Li’s deputy, Liu Guangbin, has also disappeared, along with Zhang Zhenzhong, a former deputy. At about the same time, Wu Guohua, deputy commander of the Rocket Force, reportedly took his own life in early July.” — Gordon Chang, Newsweek, August 14, 2023.

Xi is doubtless weighing the risk-reward ratio of launching an aggressive operation against Taiwan during US President Joe Biden’s term of office. Xi is doubtless aware that his “window of opportunity” may be closing in 18 months, accompanied by a felicitously distracting US presidential election.

The timing of any Chinese assault on Taiwan will most certainly be determined by Xi’s assessment of the domestic political strength of the Biden administration as well as the possible need for a strong diversion from his own imploding economy. Xi is also doubtless assessing the US president’s resolve to back up his repeated declarations that US forces would come to the defense of Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, as opposed to the US State Department’s immediate walk-back of the promise.

The Chinese Communist Party claims that the US is treating Taiwan as an independent state and these VIP visits violate its “One China Policy.” The truth, most likely, is that the CCP’s repeated transgressions against Taiwan’s air and maritime sovereignty, after then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s August 2022 visit to Taiwan, are actually just part of the CCP’s military invasion exercises on its way to an all-out assault.

The CCP’s Eastern Theater Command has, in addition, established a Joint Operations Command Center, responsible for coordinating all phases of an actual invasion of Taiwan. Military moves suggestive of the CCP’s hostile intent toward Taiwan, included recent deliveries of wheeled armor vehicles to China’s coastal province of Guangdong, an area with several natural launch points for an invasion of Taiwan.

Xi Jinping and former Foreign Minister Qin Gang both warned the US about interfering in what China claims is an internal problem, and Xi added: “Western countries led by the United States have carried out all-round containment, encirclement and suppression of China, which has brought unprecedented severe challenges to China’s development.” Xi has stressed that “the Taiwan question is the core of China’s core interest” and has described as “wishful thinking” any expectation that China might compromise on the eventual incorporation of Taiwan into Communist China.

China has also rolled out a campaign of intimidation that shows China calling the shots. These began with the berating the US in Alaska, to which the State Department’s response was “deep concerns” and continued with smuggling over the US border fentanyl and other drugs that have killed an estimated 200,000 civilians.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/iranian-regime-on-edge-as-protest-anniversary-looms/

As Iran edges closer to the anniversary of the September 2022 uprisings laden with historic significance, the regime faces an unsettling reality: the prospect of renewed massive street protests reminiscent of the seismic upheavals of September 2022. Within Tehran’s inner sanctums of power and among its suppressive forces, an uneasy apprehension looms.

Against this backdrop, an intricate web of orchestrated actions and narratives by the Iranian regime against its principal opposition, is captivating global attention. The regime’s strategic orchestration of these narratives unveils a profound storyline—one that crumbles under the weight of scrutiny, exposing the regime’s underlying vulnerability and growing desperation.

Implicit in this tense atmosphere is the understanding that the oppositional group, the MEK, remains a potent catalyst behind such monumental social movements. During the 2018 uprising, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself conceded, based on internal intelligence assessments, that MEK activists had meticulously planned for months to orchestrate the widespread demonstrations that reverberated across the nation.

The subsequent 2022 protests further underscored the MEK’s influence, as the commander of Iran’s State Security Force candidly asserted that “rioters, led by the MEK, are willing to instigate chaos.” Such declarations, along with acknowledgments of MEK-orchestrated protests, expose Tehran’s alarm and its recognition of the MEK’s role as the main architect of unrest.

As the Iranian regime stares down this impending milestone, it artfully maneuvers its tactics to counteract the potency of the MEK during this critical juncture.

Among the recent measures, the regime has invoked INTERPOL mechanisms to apprehend MEK members. July bore witness to Tehran’s announcement of summoning 107 MEK leaders and officials for prosecution, while spreading rumors that the MEK is unsafe and scrambling to relocate to Canada. A thread of “suspicious deaths” among MEK members at Ashraf-3, the group’s residence in Albania, was deftly woven into the regime’s propaganda. Even Iran’s Judiciary Chief publicly proclaimed the regime’s determination to repatriate MEK members from foreign jurisdictions.