Türkiye and BRICS

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/turkey-applies-to-join-china-and-russia-in-brics-economic-bloc-kremlin-says

https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/turkiye-and-brics-step-toward-more-multipolar-future

https://www.trtworld.com/turkiye/turkiyes-brics-bid-is-response-to-eu-membership-delay-18210122

Erdogan announced that Türkiye would be joining the ever expanding BRICS bloc in 2022, but just last month (September 2024) he made it official and Ankara has now officially applied for membership.

It's clear that NATO would like to expel Türkiye from the alliance. Their EU application has long been a dead pile of papers. Their membership in the Council of Europe is all but meaningless. All of these memberships and relationships are under significant strain.

The US has actively been involved in trying to overthrow and assassinate Erdogan. Since his rise to power in 2003 - just weeks before the US invasion of Iraq, he has been a thorn in Washington's side. At this point were Türkiye just another nation, the US would move to expel them from all the Western-based power organisations - but they can't. Türkiye is that critical. It is undoubtedly one of the greatest geopolitical prizes imaginable. Astride the Black Sea and Mediterranean, part of Europe and yet also touching on the Caucasus and Middle East, it is a unique nation. The Russian Black Sea fleet cannot pass into the Mediterranean without traversing the Bosphorus. The US wants to retain control of Türkiye - just as it has from the creation of NATO in 1949. They don't want Türkiye to leave - they want Erdogan dead.

He has pushed and pushed in response. The old (if informal) alliance with Israel has been shattered. The gnawing hostility emanating from the West created a historic opportunity - the unprecedented, ahistorical, and counter-intuitive friendship with Moscow. Ankara purchased Russian weapons much to the ire of NATO. And now Erdogan flirts with the SCO and BRICS - organisations established to counter NATO, the G7, and Western (largely dollar-based) institutions like the World Bank and IMF. Erdogan leads a country that is a NATO member but he acts like an enemy - at least that's the narrative. The fact that he undoubtedly knows his Turkish history and the long story of US manipulation and treachery - including the coup attempt in 2016 is ignored.

Now comes an important moment - Türkiye is joining the BRICS. What will Washington do? Apart from protests, more attempts to wreck the Turkish economy, and the like - there isn't much they can do apart from expelling them from NATO, which is unthinkable. Such a move would be a gift to both Moscow and Beijing.

I have to believe there will be some kind of further attempt to oust Erdogan. By what means? I cannot say. He has used his powers to dismantle the very networks the US has long relied on to overthrow Turkish governments that represented a threat to US hegemony. The networks failed to remove Erdogan and he crushed and eradicated them. Even Fethullah Gülen has now been removed from the scene. An arm of US Pan-Turkish policies in Eurasia and a Deep State agent within Türkiye itself, the religious leader (or by some estimates cult leader) died over the weekend (20 Oct 2024) - leaving a vacuum in an already decimated dissident community.

It should be noted that Azerbaijan (which at times has been a Turkish satellite) is also joining the BRICS - but in the case of Baku, while the move does not make Washington happy, it's not as critical as Azerbaijan is not in NATO and the move will not preclude Washington doing business with them or Israel using the territory for military purposes. If anything, it will allow Azerbaijan (which is something of a rising star) a bit more leverage and ability to play off the great powers against one another - to its advantage it hopes.

Erdogan undoubtedly hopes that joining BRICS will open up some doors and some maneuverability - allowing him to escape the financial trap that he's in and the pressures of Western finance.

Washington's tools remain limited and yet Erdogan must be losing sleep over the growing geopolitical crisis and the threat of escalation and wider war. If the Ukraine War expands into an open and direct NATO-Moscow conflict, Türkiye will face some tough if impossible decisions. Likewise if the expanding war in the Middle East continues to spread - it may reach a point in which Erdogan feels compelled to act or intervene. This could lead to a confrontation with not just Tel Aviv but Washington.

Erdogan still retains hope for his Neo-Ottoman policies - a dance between all the spheres on Türkiye's periphery. But this dance is becoming not only difficult but dangerous. However it must be said, whatever one thinks of Erdogan as a leader or a man, he's fairly bold. At 70, he has faced down his enemies and at this point has little if nothing to lose.