American researcher to Hawar: Erdogan spreads death and destruction to implement Neo-Ottomanism

The Turkish state has intensified its attacks in Syria, Iraq, Rojava, and Southern Kurdistan, which has resurrected discussions about Turkey’s regional strategic objectives and Erdogan’s quest to implement Neo-Ottomanism.

As a result, our agency conducted an interview with the American global conflict analyst and geopolitical specialist, Dr. Thoreau Redcrow.

The text of the conversation was as follows:

1. Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan is often described as a Neo-Ottomanist and his goals as part of a Neo-Ottoman project. Do you agree with this assessment and how would you describe it?

I would agree, but it is far more complex than traditionally presented in the media. I would posit that Erdogan’s Neo-Ottomanist worldview is an ultranationalist and Islamist synthesis of several ideologies, which he utilizes to justify his interventionism and expansionism, based on irredentist claims. The ideological tapestry that he weaves together is a mix of imperial Ottoman nostalgia, Pan-Turkism / Turanism, Eurasianism, faux-populism, neo-fascism, Takfiri Salafist jihadism, and a pathological anti-Kurdishness.

To carry out these objectives Erdogan uses historical falsification and revisionism, periodically feigns that he is standing up against the West, and deploys a wide range of shock troops, such as: hooligan Grey Wolves fascists, ISIS / Al-Qaeda terror groups, SADAT death squads, displaced Syrian mercenaries, and ethnic-based militias (Turkmen, Uyghurs, Chechens, Uzbeks etc).

It should be noted as well that Erdogan’s world view directly contradicts many of the supposed Kemalist ideals of “Republican” Turkey, such as secularism and an affinity for European culture – though to be fair, he did preserve Ataturk’s xenophobic lust for ethnic cleansing and genocide.

2. Can you elaborate more on Erdogan’s connection to Pan-Turkism?

Although he falsely presents himself as a transnational “Caliph” of the Muslim Ummah, Erdogan has stubbornly persisted with the false mythological idea that most of his nation’s forcibly Turkified citizens – who would show little to no genetic Turkic ancestry in a DNA test – are somehow ethnically-related to Mongolians. But this is primarily for geopolitical strategic reasons and because that fiction is the foundational myth of the Turkish Republic.

As one revelatory anecdote regarding the former reason, in November of 2021, Erdogan met with his MHP coalition partner Devlet Bahçeli following the eighth summit of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States (Turkic Council) in Istanbul and held up a map of the “Turkic World” or “Greater Turan”. Alongside Turkey, this preposterous aforementioned map included Thrace, Cyprus, the Balkans, northern Syria, northern Iraq, southern Russia, eastern Siberia, all of Central Asia, northern Iran, China’s Xinjiang province, and Mongolia. Erdogan utilized that Turkic Council to tell the Presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, plus the Prime Ministers of Turkmenistan and Hungary that they should officially recognize the illegal “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” and support a corridor connecting Turkey to the Pan-Turkic world through Armenia.

3. What are the regional consequences of Erdogan’s Neo-Ottoman foreign policy?

Erdogan’s Turkey arguably has the most belligerent foreign policy of any nation in the world and the vast list of his foreign interventions and subsequent war crimes is staggering. Erdogan’s Neo-Ottomanism has given him the philosophical justification to attack Kurds throughout Greater Kurdistan and various “disloyal” ethnicities throughout the wider former Ottoman Empire.

This has resulted in his regime: invading Rojava multiple times, terrorizing Afrin, shielding Al-Qaeda in Idlib, shelling Christian villages near Tell Tamer, cutting off the water to Hasakah, bombing mountain villages in Iraqi Kurdistan, using chemical weapons against Kurdish guerrillas, trying to complete the ISIS genocide against Yazidis in Sinjar, torching the forests around Dersim, burning over 150 Kurds alive in Cizre basements, destroying most of Sirnak and Nusaybin, demolishing Sur, and drowning the Kurdish city of Hasankeyf.

Erdogan has also spread death and destruction throughout the wider region, by bringing Turkmen jihadists to Artsakh to murder Armenians on behalf of Azerbaijan, shipping Syrian fighters to Libya to prop up his GNA warlord in Tripoli, smuggling arms to Boko Haram in Nigeria, and proliferating Bayraktar TB2 killer drones throughout the globe (which Ethiopia has used to massacre Tigrayans).

When Erdogan is not deploying his new-aged Janissaries throughout his lost vilayets, he has been making destabilizing actions by: sending naval ships out to threaten Greek Islands in the Aegean Sea (such as Kastellorizo), spreading his absurd theory of a “blue homeland” (Mavi Vatan) granting Turkey huge portions of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, violating Cypriot waters with seismic exploration ships, expanding the 48-year occupation of north Cyprus into Varosha, and pushing for a Zangezur corridor cutting through Armenia to connect Azerbaijan with Turkey.

All of these actions are matched by a wider foreign policy, where Erdogan has let his 1,150 room Ankara Palace convince him he is a Sultan of a lost Caliphate, leading him to: antagonize Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood, host Hamas leaders in Istanbul, exploit post-explosion Beirut for influence, denounce Bahrain, colonize Somalia, interfere with Kashmir in favor of Pakistan, pursue an alliance with the Taliban through control of the Kabul Airport, and give tacit support to extremists carrying out beheadings in France. From Algiers to Somalia and from the Balkans to Baku, Erdogan sees the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East as his own Topkapi Palace tulip garden.

But the common variable throughout all of these criminal actions is an arrogance for Istanbul’s former subjects on Turkey’s periphery, mixed with a loathing for non-Turkish or non-Sunni elements within Turkey itself, such as: Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Alevis, Yazidis, Christians, and Jews.

4. What makes Erdogan’s behavior specifically Neo-Ottoman instead of just being traditional authoritarianism?

The symbolic fingerprints of Erdogan’s Neo-Ottomanism are numerous. Anecdotally, his AKP Party referred to their supporters as “grandsons of the Ottomans” (Osmanli torunu), and he transformed the Hagia Sophia into a Mosque based on an argument that it was seized by and belonged to Sultan Mehmed II. Erdogan also transformed Parliamentary Turkey into a centralized “Presidency” (more accurately a Sultanate) with an official seal of the Turkish Presidency bearing 16 stars – representing 16 Turkic Empires over the last 2,200 years, even predating the conquest of Anatolia.

In the case of the latter, Erdogan displayed this delusion of grandeur in 2015, when hosting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for a state visit to his Palace. On that occasion Erdogan ceremonially dressed up 16 guards in historical Turkic warrior costumes, adorned with golden helmets, spears, and fake mustaches. Now while it is tempting to view such a display as a clownish Halloween spectacle, it should more accurately be seen as a revisionist projection of how Erdogan views himself and the Turkish state – not as a modern quasi-European country, but the cultural inheritor of every historical Turkic entity from Siberia to Hungary.

Another issue is that Erdogan finds historical justification from Ottoman history for his current occupations. For example, the last Ottoman Parliament in 1920 set out a National Pact (Misak-i Milli) containing six decisions, of which number one spoke of how the Arab-majority areas would have their future determined by referendum, but that any territories with a Turkish majority at that time “are the homeland of the Turkish nation.” As a Neo-Ottomanist, Erdogan uses this to claim areas where Turkmen now sporadically live in northern Syria and north central Iraq, including Tel Afar, Mosul, Erbil, and Kirkuk – which he views as Turkmeneli (Turkmenland). Since many of these areas overlap with Western and Southern Kurdistan, which are governed by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) and the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), Erdogan is using the claim of “protecting” Turkmen as justification for further invasion and a potential future annexation of these areas.

5. What role does the poor economy in Turkey play in these Neo-Ottoman policies?

This outsized view that Turkey is the former “center of the world” helps fuel Erdogan’s imperial belief that Turkey is welcome to interfere to recapture this lost continental glory, especially at a time when Turkey’s economy and lira currency is collapsing. Such militarism acts as a consolation prize and cathartic outlet, at a time when most nationalist Turks cannot afford to buy enough food. Rather than a Marie Antoinette inspired “let them eat cake”, Erdogan’s motto could be summarized as “let them fill their hunger with dead Kurds, Armenians etc.”

Moreover, in 2023, Turkey will celebrate the centenary of the Turkish Republic and Erdogan is falling drastically short of his “2023 Vision” economic goals. For instance, the goal was for Turkey to have at least the 10th largest GDP in the world, and they are still 20th. Furthermore, the goal was for Turkish citizens to have a per capita income of $25,000 USD and it is only around $9,000. And lastly, Turkey hoped to attain full EU membership by 2023, but instead Turkish Airlines is the de-facto official carrier for most of the international terrorists to the Middle East and Ankara is alienating Brussels by threatening to block Sweden and Finland from NATO.

Bio: Dr. Thoreau Redcrow specializes in geopolitics, stateless nations, and armed guerrilla movements. He is a frequent speaker before the United Nations Human Rights Council and holds a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution with specializations in ethnic conflict and terrorism.

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ANHA