Erdogan Didn’t Get All He Hoped in Khashoggi Case, but His Stature Rises

Khashoggi was not an American citizen, he was not murdered in the US or murdered by Americans. Why is this such an international issue?

Erdogan is a dictator and an enemy of the free press. His concern for the murdered journalist Khashoggi is laughable.

How can you trust a dictator who jailed hundreds of decent journalists?

His stature fell in my eyes as his nation's investigation of Mr. Khashoggi's brutal move demonstrated Turkey is a servaillance nation with cameras everywhere. While those cameras helped pin the murder where it rightfully belongs, on the Saudi head of state, it make me wonder if Erdogan's police forces have cameras in their citizen's bedrooms as well as everywhere those Saudi agents went. Erdogan's own behavior as head of state isn't much better than that of Prince Salman. A pox on the lot of rulers, including our own.

Why has the news media allowed itself to be manipulated. If it was news to anyone, the Saudi government is a totalitarian monarchy which denies civil rights to the vast majority of its population. This is nothing new.

Stature and trust are two different things. Erdogan has stifled disent in his country, including massive repression of press freedom that by comparison almost neutralizes what the Saudis did however so wrongly. He even seeks to compel a Turkish dissenter who lives in Pennsylvania to return to Turkey, which would mean his sure death...or judicial murder if you will. But worst of all, Erdogan has made great strides to destroy what's left of democracy in his country and for that his sins are unpardonable.

Why on earth would anyone consider the opinions or assertions of fact of a radical Islamic, murdering head of a rogue regime, like Erdogan, credible? Turkey does not enjoy a particularly glowing history of civil liberties and, well, civilized behavior. Let's start with their genocide of Armenians. Let's proceed to their attempted genocide of the Arabs. Very few Middle Eastern nations (like 3) have sufficient moral authority to condemn anyone for acts that would be unacceptable by Western standards. Where is Erdogan on civil liberties? Where are all the people he has arrested - the guilty and the innocent. Until Erdogan and Turkey come to grips with their own uncivilized behavior, they have no role to play in discussions of international morality.

"Mr. Erdogan has successfully claimed the moral high ground vacated by the American president, and he has kept up the pressure on Saudi Arabia." This sums up the President of the United States when Erdogan is the one on the moral high ground. Trump is walking around a thug on the World stage for all to see.

Disgust with President Trump and the adoption of the old maxim "the enemy of my enemy must be my friend" seems to me to be the only way anyone can reach the conclusion that we should see President Erdogan as anything other than a ruthless despot hoping to control that region. Cozying up to President Erdogan as a way of expressing "American values" is as cynical and misguided as anything President Trump may do.

I grew up to the great minds that shaped American foreign diplomacy in the Cold War (George F. Kennan, John Foster Dulles), so when the manipulative irrationalities of the likes of David Petraeus hit (place Vietnam inside Iraq, and such), it took me several years to regain my composure and get out of the black holes (of knowledge, as came to realize). Today I know that what we have been observing with the Saudi Arabian debacles are the final throes of a foreign policy based on what in essence have been unstated and covert abortive secret operations, derived from many failures in information, reasoning and decision making. The Middle East does not consist of just two countries, the United States and S.A., locked in mutually obsessive toxic relationship. But to understand the entire map of the many countries, powers and interests (in which Turkey has a highly interesting crucial role), in order to make intelligent and informed foreign policy decisions, we do not have the acumen and intellect in foreign relations personnel at the present time.

L'Affaire Khashoggi belongs in President Erdogan's portfolio; it was his country's diplomatic courtesies that were abused to commit a murder within Turkish boundaries, and it is his resolution to seek. He does deserve the same support from the U.S. that it gave Prime Minster May after the attempted assassination of the Skripal's in the UK earlier this year, but just as we didn't throw our working relationships with Russia in the trash then, he shouldn't have expected the U.S. to burn our connection to Saudi Arabia and its ruling hierarchy now.

Erdogan is a brutal autocrat not much better than the Saudis he's opposing. His tactics and regime have extinguished what used to be a relatively functional democracy in Turkey. The idea that our President looks anti-democratic and indifferent to human rights next to this guy - while true! - is highly disturbing, disgraceful to the Presidency and embarrassing to the United States.

Erdogan stands buck naked and points out that MBS has no clothes, and we're all looking at MBS?

The fact is Erdogan pretty much did get everything he wanted. For starters, he managed to capture and hold the moral high ground, which is helping repair his highly tarnished reputation worldwide. Check. Like Trump, Erdogan is an autocrat, but unlike Trump he is sly, informed and competent. He did not want to oust MbS (better the devil you know), but he did want to clip his wings. Check. Erdogan is by far the most popular leader in the Arab street. Also, let's see how world leaders react to MbS at the upcoming G20 summit. Turkey is not pro Iran; if anything they are far more concerned with Iran than they are with SA. That said, they do not want US to start yet another ME war, this time with a large and powerful contry like Iran. The Khashoggi affair has taken much wind out of Trump's warmongering. Check. Yes, Erdogan would love to get his hands on Gulen and lock him up for good. However, Gulen no longer represents a real threat, his organization has been exposed and their members are either in jail or are on the run. No need to spend real political capital to get the man at this juncture. Khashoggi's murder was pure gold for Erdogan.

It is high time America I first came to know Fatthulah Guellen when I attended an ISNA (or ICNA) function. I thought he was a good God-fearing person. Over the years, I have gathered more information about him. Now I know that he working to degrade a progressive Islamic country. He was undermining it on behalf of non-Muslim states, institutions, and individuals. Turkish and non-Turkish, enemies of the Republic of Turkey, posing as friends had planted the germs of sedition even in the armed forces of the Republic. Fatthulah seduced even senior officers of the Armed forces. This is why when the rebellion against the elected Turkish Government fizzled these traitors sought refuge in Yunanistan. America should hand over Fatthulah to Turkey to stand trial and face the music, (and if proved a felon, be locked up). Even America had a hand in the putsch attempt. Erdogan present facts of the putsch to Trump, so even Trump is having second thoughts about Guellen. Stories about the Turkish Government offering a ‘fee’ for the abduction and delivery of Guellen are the BEST OF BEST FAKE NEWS, released by a American (Mike Flynn) working for Russia (Flynn's admission)

After reading this, I can't help but imagine how the "moral high-ground" would shift if roles were reversed? Do you really believe Erdogan would fall on his sword over Mr. Khashogi even if it meant sacrificing larger geo-political and economic concerns? At least Trump is being candid.

Erdogan is a greedy master manipulator who is playing a dangerous game with the Saudi Govt at the behest of Saudi rival Qatar for $$ support of Turkey. Turkey is in the depths of deep recession with outrageously high interest rates. Their entire economy ran on international loans that were entirely spent on vast construction infrastructure projects that artificially created a sense of prosperity but instead Turkey is mired in debt. The suspicious coup that Erdogan miraculously escaped and consolidated power to rule with an iron fist. But he will pay the piper no doubt down the road with the Saudis and others.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan chose to become an authoritarian dictator of Turkey, by sidelining independent judges, silencing journalists, and terminating public servants who opposed him. Now, he seeks to reorient power in the Middle Eastern toward Ankara and away from Riyadh. But what alternative does Erdogan offer the West? Certainly not a model of a progressive Muslim state with a strong secular government. When your selling point is that your government is the lesser of two evils, it is no wonder that Turkey’s goal of supplanting Saudi Arabia is failing.

Let's not be naive. Recep Erdogan engaged in his exercise of outing the barbarity of Saudi Arabia's rash Prince Mohammad bin Salman in order to advance his own barbarous ambitions to render 'show court' "justice" to Fatthulah Güllen. Recently, in Paris Erdogan cornered the legally and morally compromised patsy, Donald Trump, and blackmailed him into agreeing to accommodating Turkey's effort to seek extradition of this Muslim cleric, and alleged Erdogan rival, who has been in the U.S. on a resident visa granted through his application for political asylum. Since returning from his disastrous Paris trip, Trump has been trying to bully his own State and Intelligence departments to secure the ejection of Güllen, who Erdogan maintains was the mastermind of a coup attempt against his regime on July 15, 2016. Many now believe that Erdogan himself planted a false coup at that time in order to entrap his enemies and consolidate his totalitarian grip on Turkey. This is far from his first attempt to roust Güllen from his retreat in the Poconos. Convicted felon Mike Flynn was offered a $15,000,000 "fee" for his efforts to secure the cleric in an abduction operation that sounded quite similar to some of K.S.A.'s plots to 'render and secure' Jamal Khashoggi. In other words, when it comes to MbS and Erdogan, plus Trump, the sobriquet, "it takes one to know one," applies.

Maybe Mr. Erdogan would be more successful if he bought condos and rented hotel rooms from the President and his greedy children.

Trump vacated moral high ground? When did he occupy it?

Erdogan is not exactly an ideal leader. He took the helm by coup. His country, a member of the EU, is partially populist--the Spring elections will tell how much. But by not aligning with the rules of EU membership, for borrowing money from the EU with no foreseeable plan to pay it back, and for human rights violations, Erdogan puts Turkey in a precarious position. He did get it right about Khassogghi -- the murder of an American resident committed by the Saudis. He aligns with Iran. So does the EU. Trump prefers the Saudis, who use American arms to commit genocide in Yemen, whose royal family suppresses human rights also, and, without an extradition agreement, are immune from prosecution for crimes committed. Which country is better for the EU, the US and the world? Tough call, but I think the EU/Iran/Turkey alliance is more reasonable than that of the US/ Saudi/Israeli alliance. Turkey is accessible, whereas Saudi Arabia is not. Plus, Turkey now has not only the moral high ground that Trump fled from, but the support of the anti-terrorism Middle East.

Letting MBS go away with this gruesome murder means compromising on all American values if they really ever existed. America,s uncompromising support for a gang of criminals in Saudi Arabia is really a matter of shame. To me the only value America knows is money. Liberty, democracy and human right can be found only in fools dictionary. That is crystal clear.

I find it interesting that we are now forced to choose the best among the worst in the world.

What moral high ground was vacated by Trump? When he sided with the white supremacists at Charlottesville? When he openly asked the Russian government to interfere in our election? When he refused to attend a military memorial event in France and blamed the Secret Service? The moral high ground Trump occupies is at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Snicker. Be serious. Trump has never occupied even a tiny hummock of moral high ground, so he can't be said to have vacated it.

Erdogan has the “moral high ground”?! It’s a bizarre world when that statement can be made!

Erdogan's ethnic cleansing of Kurds is a statistic, but Kashoogis death is a crime. Too bad none of the Kurds are Thomas Friedman's BFF.

I imagine that some Trump advisers will prevent his stabbing the Kurds in the back after they supported us (to the extent that anybody supports us in the Middle East). But I suspect that Gulen is different story. Let’s see how long it takes for Trump to give him up to curry Erdogan’s favor. After all, he is an enemy of the state, like Khashoggi, and Trump is nothing if not consistent in his hatred of those, don’t you think, Hillary?

The fact that Erdogan speaks about morality after showing himself to the world to be the thug and tyrant he is, is absolutely striking. As far as Turkey is concerned ... the government not necessarily all of its citizens: Until Turkey takes responsibility for the policy-driven mass murder of 1.5 million Armenians about 100 yrs ago, including restitution, it will remain outside of world trust and authentic regard. Hitler dismissed the Armenian Genocide, it’s worth noting. As for the United States of America, formally: We’re still sold out to Turkey on this account ... sort of like Trump to Saudi Arabia over its murder of Khashoggi, except for number. We should be careful when we speak about American “values.”

The most insidious aspect of this whole dismal affair and dubious alliance is the implication that Iran is the primary villain in the war in Yemen. The fact that Americans sit back and watch what MSB has wrought in that country, using the weapons we sell them, is another stain on the american character. We will condone enormous suffering and applaud, because gas prices are going down. "Thanks Saudi Arabia!".

He is destroying Turkey. His shedding light in Kashoghis murder is entirely self serving and rather hypocritical considering there is no free press left in Turkey.

‘Moral high ground’ Please tell it to Erdogan’s dismissed Civil Servants,Jailed dissidents,Innocent civilians,Armed forces personnel’s rotting in Turkish Jail. What’s Khashoggi case by the way. A media driven frenzy of misreporting at its best.

"Secular military leadership of Egypt ? " I guess you meant "Secular military dictatorship". Is their opposition to political Islam sufficient to save the government of Egypt from the observation that they had overthrown an elected government, that they have been ruling Egypt against the wishes of the country's population and hence , they are dictators. Why to fail even in making this simple and straightforward observation? And , why is the double standard ? Is being secular, more important than being democratic ?

<..Mr. Erdogan’s biggest ambition — sidelining his rival and realigning American policy in the Middle East..> This claim by the author does not hold up. In his statements about the murder Erdogan has stressed that it is not the state of Saudi Arabia and its standing in the region or the king who he praises, but rather the facts that are known. The outrage of this horrible killing cannot simply be swept under the rug. There are multiple sources claiming that the U.S. was prepared to turn over Gulen in exchange for Turkey backing off of its criticism of the apparent Saudi position that MBS had no role in the murder. Turkey refused the saying the there is no connection. In 2016 Erdogan blamed Gulen for organizing the coup from exile in the U.S. When Turkey sought to extradite Gulen from the U.S. in 2016 the administration refused on grounds that evidence presented by Turkey was insufficient to justify extradition. The murder of Khashoggi has not made the evidence against Gulen more compelling. Ankara has now presented a list of 83 names including Gulen that it now wants extradited. Apparently, there are questions whether U.S. courts would permit this on legal grounds. The U.S. has the option of standing by Saudi Arabia as an ally and expressing confidence in the king to resolve this matter as an internal issue without criticizing MBS. If the U.S. rejoined JCPOA the EU could then join with the U.S. with Saudi Arabia to address issues with Iran such as Syria.

Knowing and understanding the ethnic sectarian historical roots of conflict in the Middle East is critically essential. Jamal Khashoggi was not an American nor a journalist. Khashoggi was a Saudi propagandist and ally friend of Osama bin Laden, the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabi clergy and the Saudi royals. The Saudis have slaughtered wounded, displaced and made refugees of thousands of Houthi men, women and children in Yemen The Saudis are the root cause of 9/11/01, al Qaeda and ISIS. The Saudis are ethnic sectarian supremacist state sponsors of terrorism. Saudi Arabia is a theocratic royal fossil fuel misogynist autocracy. Saudi Arabia is engaged in ethnic sectarian cleansing terrorism in Yemen and Syria against Shia Muslim Arabs that has killed, wounded, displaced and made refugees of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. The Saudis are at war with Shia Muslims of all ethnic backgrounds particularly Persian aka Iranians but their fellow ethnic Arabs as well. The Saudis are the enemies of Sunni Muslim Kurds and Turks. While the Sunni Muslim Turks are also opposed to Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslim Arabs and Kurds. Turkey yearns for the glory of it's Hittite and Ottoman Empire past power and relevance. Kemal Attaturk's separation of mosque and state in Turkey is unique in the Middle East Muslim world. Erdogan's populist ethnic sectarian appeal has eroded that civil secular innovation. But for the Turkish military and the EU and NATO there would be no brake.

The regional battle between Turkey, Iran and SA is a battle between three regimes of equally despotic and odious intent. Meanwhile, democratic and liberal forces in those countries are being persecuted and driven underground while the West cynically picks and chooses which one of these nations it believes guard its "strategic interests" - policy dictated by advisers to the President and never with the overall goal of improving regional democracy or stability. This is not new. It has been going on for decades and any alternative voice has been squashed out or ignored. Where is the voice of reason in our country, or the whole West? Currently the only potential presidential candidate that has been willing to criticize Saudi Arabia for years and not months is Bernie Sanders. What will it take to get some moral decency and backbone instead of crude self-interested Realpolitik out of the West? The sad truth is many people do not care what goes on there, the region is "too complicated" and they give up on understanding. But, to me, a new message of democratic values would at least give a chance of a different way of doing things.