[tw]

Erdogan finally decided to call his enemy an enemy. But it took hundreds of victim in an airport to make that power broker appreciate his mistake.

Apparently he did not do enough. Erdogan demonstrates what happens when a leader is corrupted by power - typically after ten years. He began favoring religious extremist rhetoric rather than adult logic. He gave tacit support to Isis rather while literally destroying any restored and productive relations with the Kurds. He had difficulty deciding who was a threat and who was an ally.

In his early day, while acting secular, he had done so much good for the Turkey economy by continuing reformed initiated by his successor many years previously. Named European of the year in 2004. He restored relations with Greece including a pipeline and a settlement of the Cyprus dispute. He banned the 4th ID from using Turkey to invade Iraq in 2003. He addressed major problems in Turkey's health care. He made peace with the Kurds. Applied to join the EU.

Starting in 2010, he began preaching concepts based in religion - that even American wacko extremists would appreciate. Repeated censorship caused Turkey's EU bid to be withdrawn. In 2013, a suspected $100 billion fraud involved many in his government including his own son. Erdogan was number two on Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of anti-semetics. In 2014, laws were created to censor internet access and web sites - even Twitter was specifically listed as a threat to Turkey. Censorship permitted without an court's approval and even in contradiction to court orders. Also discovered were details of many cooperative meetings between Erdogan officials and ISIS leadership by American special forces in 2014. Even a statue dedicated to reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia was destroyed on Erdogan's orders.

One would think this would have cause voters to turn on him. He even promoted hate declaring that being Armenian was uglier than being Georgian. Instead he was reelected in 2014 by an overwhelming 51%. Significant voter fraud has since been confirmed. An unexplained power outages occurred in many areas where Erdogan had little support. Outages throughout the country blamed on cats getting into transformers.

By 2015, 74 of 100 US Senators had signed a letter accusing Erdogan of deviating from the principles of democracy. Obviously those deviations were that severe. He went to northern Cyprus in July to celebrate the of Turkey's 1974 invasion.

By 2016, peaceful anti-Erdogan demonstrations were banned. Imprisoned journalists remained jailed after ordered free by the Supreme Court. People were being imprisoned for public criticism of Erdogan.

Once a terrorist attack killed 100 in Istanbul, then he decided to relent on some of his dictatorial decrees. He (it is assumed) orders support of Isis suspended. He ordered relations with Israel to be restore. He even apologized to Russia for shooting down a plane that had violated Turkish airspace - after it had left that airspace. In short, he realized he needed some allies.

Probably much more to this story to justify a military coup. The transition from reformist and progressive leader to dictator is typical of what happens when one is enthralled by too much power for too long - and discovers he is no longer as popular. Clearly in Syria since 2009, he has only made thing worse by not joining regional powers to resolving the situation - by literally playing everyone against another for self serving purposed. And so a military coup has started.

Does it have universal support? Depends on how much we still do not know about his change from benevolent leader to a corrupt and misguided one.