In this essay for The New Yorker, written after an attack on the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, Elliot Ackerman examines how President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's A.K.P. has used the fight against ISIS, and a new offensive against Kurdish forces, in an effort to reclaim the parliamentary majority it lost in Turkey's June, 2015, elections.
Two Consulates, Two Turkeys
Ackerman frames the essay around Istanbul's old and new U.S. consulates, one now a Soho House frequented by cosmopolitan Turks, the other a fortified compound attacked by a Marxist-Leninist group, as emblems of the progressive and regressive currents running through Turkish politics.
The Kurdish Gains That Threaten Erdoğan
Ackerman details how the pro-Kurdish H.D.P.'s strong showing in June's elections cost the A.K.P. its majority, and how Kurdish battlefield successes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq have given Turkey's Kurdish minority new leverage and international support.
Bombing Both Sides of the War
Ackerman describes how, after an ISIS-linked bombing in Suruç, Turkey launched simultaneous strikes against both ISIS and P.K.K. positions from the Incirlik airbase, a strategy he argues is less about fighting ISIS than about weakening the Kurds ahead of any new election.
Read the Original Article
This essay originally appeared in The New Yorker.