The Coupfather

"Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment." - The Godfather.

Is Erdogan the Coupfather, as even the mainstream media claims, or did he simply outsmart his enemies and buried the coup before it hatched?

The two articles below describe why Putin's Russia could be the biggest geopolitical benefactor of Erdogan's triumph over the coup plotters.

An excerpt from, "Why The Failed Turkish Coup Attempt Wasn’t A “False Flag” Power Grab By Erdogan" By Andrew Korybko, Global Research, July 18, 2016:

Additionally, Moscow’s diplomatic support for Erdogan’s presidency is also driven by the pragmatic need to prevent the Gulenists from seizing power. If the US-based and Clinton-connected religious leader of this shadowy transnational network were to become Turkey’s next leader or had controlling influence over whichever of his proxies ends up doing so instead, then Russia has every reason to believe that they’d redirect all state instruments to promoting the network’s terrorist agenda in the entire post-Soviet territory. This could create dozens of “mini-Chechnyas” for Russia to respond to on behalf of its CSTO allies, thus putting it permanently on the strategic defensive and reversing all the relative gains that it’s achieved worldwide since 2008.

An excerpt from, "Putin May Be Turkey's New Buddy after the Failed Coup" By Nikolas K. Gvosdev, The National Interest, July 19, 2016:

The United States has continually denied that it played any role in encouraging or supporting a coup attempt. No matter. Putin can easily play on Erdoğan’s suspicions that the Obama administration was open to seeing Erdoğan’s removal. It fits a narrative that Putin himself has articulated: that the United States preaches partnership with other nations while looking for the first available opportunity to replace their problematic governments (Putin’s own interpretation of the abortive “White Revolution” against his decision to return to the presidency in 2011, and his insistence that then secretary of state Hillary Clinton had given the “signal” for action). It is easy to envision how Putin, in his phone call to Erdoğan on Sunday, might take up this line of interpretation—and find a ready and receptive audience on the other end of the phone. No doubt a similar message is being conveyed to Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, who will be meeting with Putin and Iranian president Hassan Rouhani for a trilateral summit in several weeks.

Will the coup attempt push Erdoğan closer to reaching a compromise deal with Putin on the future of Syria? Does it put the Turkish Stream project back on track, and with it, Russia’s efforts to finally rid itself of the need for Ukraine as a transit state? We’ll have a better sense of how those questions will be answered in the coming weeks.

Video Title: The Heat— Attempted Coup in Turkey 07/19/2016. Source: CCTV English. Date Published: July 19, 2016.