Saturday, July 11, 2020

A Long History of Conflict is Trump's Fault?

Turkey under Erdogan has been pursuing a vision of an Islamist empire for a long time. And Egypt--which has fought four wars with Turkey over the centuries--is worried about Turkey's more direct imperial goals in Libya and is thinking of directly resisting Turkey's new military effort in Libya,

Turkey has already pulled several thousand Syrian mercenaries out of Libya as the cost for that is biting. So Turkey apparently isn't trying to win the civil war and just wants to keep their GNA friends--who conceded lots of Mediterranean energy-rich waters to Turkey--in power in their corner, but reliant on Turkish support to survive, it seems.

The Turks say they aren't afraid of Egypt but even if true, perhaps the Turks are afraid of the cost of fighting Egypt in Libya.

It isn't just Libya where Egypt backed by the Saudis are unhappy with Ottoman Empire 2.0. The Turks have found that their former colonial subjects aren't eager for Turkish "leadership."

Yet failing to derail a possible fifth Egypt-Turkey war is somehow Trump's fault. Huh?

Life really has gotten simpler for a lot of people these days. Just toss in Trump to a story and all is explained--national interests and history be damned. Sure, "Europe" is tossed in as an aside, but Egypt and Turkey are both American allies, so naturally a phone call from Trump could solve the issue. But he won't. Because he's disinterested or distracted.

But "Europe" is not a single actor no matter how much the EU wants that to be true. Why aren't individual sovereign European states with a far greater interest in what happens in Libya acting? Why do they get a pass?

Oh, and the author wrote that Trump has close relations with Erdogan. Really? Trump halted F-35 sales to Turkey. Obama by contrast celebrated Erdogan as a "tame" Islamist to be supported as an alternative to al Qaeda-style jihadis.*

*Because apparently Obama's whole Cairo speech outreach to the Islamic world to inform the jihadis and Islamists that Bush 43 was no longer president didn't eliminate their hatred