"[Joint statement announcing the signing of the] Mecca Joint Defence Agreement."

"[A] shared commitment to further strengthening collective security and to promoting peace, security and stability in the region and beyond."

Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan 

 

"The agreement does not represent an effort to establish a military axis or a sectarian bloc."

"Nor is it linked to any nuclear ambitions or arms race. Rather it is focused on building sustainable capabilities."

"[The agreement] does not constitute a threat to the security of any country in the region."

Saudi Deputy Minister for Public Diplomacy Rayed Krimly 

 

"[The alignment] is clearly oriented toward Iran and meant to address Iran's new strategic approach which is geared toward dominance of the broader Gulf region."

"[The fact that Turkey and Pakistan border Iran means they could exercise a different kind of leverage [on Tehran]."

Umar Karim, Saudi foreign policy expert, University of Birmingham, England

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif sign a trilateral joint defense agreement Friday in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.  Murat Cetinmuhurdar / Anadolu via Getty Images

 

What an alliance. Saudi Arabia, the keeper of the holiest site in Islam; Mecca. Turkey, with its second-largest military within the membership of the North American Treaty Organization. And Pakistan, the sole Islamic country that possesses nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia has been confronted by Iran over its custodianship of Mecca. Since Turkey is a member of NATO, should it be attacked by a regional antagonist like Iran, would that bring the NATO alliance into conflict to protect one of its members? As a nuclear power, Pakistan is not exactly the most stable of countries, beset by its own version of the Taliban. 

 

What an alliance of insecure, tribal, sectarian, ancient-antipathies-alive-to-the-present we have here. A trifecta of genuine Islamist Sunni states prepared to confront the Iranian Shi'ite Axis of 'Resistance'. Mind, they do have a lot in common. Each of those Sunni nations view the presence of a Jewish state in the Middle East as a grave offence against Islam's most sacred concept, that land once consecrated to Islam can never return to the aegis of another religion. Never mind that Judean ancestral heritage long predated the appearance of Islam by millennia.

 

As though to emphasize that the Sunni alliance is meant for the promotion of peace and stability in the region, only a few days earlier, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, stated that his country considers that "Israel is a threat to the entire Muslim world", calling for "a united military front" against it, just a day after Pakistan signed the joint defense agreement with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. "In the context of Israel, all Muslim countries must unite. I have no doubt about this" said Asif.

 

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis attacked a Saudi Aramco refinery on Sunday, two days after Saudi Arabia forged a defense pact with Turkey and Pakistan. The alliance pledges mutual defense, which means an armed attack on any one member counts as an attack on all. But after Sunday’s attack, it was not immediately clear whether Turkey or Pakistan would respond.  Democracy Now

 

Not to be outdone by Pakistan, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan always has an opinion about Israel, with his opinions anything but friendly in the least, despite his sanctimonious statements in support of peace and stability in the region. Obviously peace and stability does not include Israel's presence. The champion of Hamas who celebrates the terrorist group's role in 'resistance', claims that Turkey feels threatened by Israel's attacks on Syria and Lebanon. In the former event, protecting the Syrian Druze community against deadly aggression, and in the latter, fighting back against Hezbollah terrorists sending rockets into Israeli communities in the Golan.

 

But for Erdogan it is Israel that is at fault for "aggression" that poses a threat to the world, and must be stopped. "If the Israeli thuggery is not stopped, the consequences will be borne by the entire region and all of humanity", Erdogan thundered in Turkey's parliament. "Israel must be stopped; this is the duty of humanity and the humanitarian front. History must not be allowed to repeat itself", he righteously spouted.

 

And as though modelled on NATO, the foreign ministry of Pakistan explained the pact would recognize that an attack on any member would be regarded as an attack on all; a rule that was "intended to strengthen collective deterrence". One, however, "not aimed at any particular country". 

 

This image taken from video broadcast by Al-Masirah TV, a Houthi-controlled news channel, shows an explosion at the Sanaa International Airport compound during what the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said were several Saudi airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, July 13, 2026. (Al-Masirah TV via AP)

 

Saudi Arabia is being attacked anew by the Houthis in Yemen. That terrorist group is yet another Iranian proxy, doing the work for the Islamic Republic, the head of the snake that calls itself the Axis of Resistance. Yet that attack has gone unaddressed by this new coalition. Saudi Arabia has responded to the Houthi attacks by counterattacking them, and not the source of their orders, which is Iran. Iran is the sole source responsible for the agitation, fear and absolute instability wracking the region.

 

Yet the regional powers that have been targeted by the Islamic Republican Guard Corps that really run the country now, while seeking to protect themselves and their geographic installations from the destructive Iranian missiles and drones sent their way, fail repeatedly to go on the offensive and counter-attack, putting an end to decades of insecurity wrought by Shi'ite Iran in its deliberate goal to entirely destabilize the region and ensconce itself as the Persian uber-nation in control of the Arab Sunni Middle East.  

"Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan are not trying to replace the United States. They are building the capacity to protect their interests when Washington cannot or will not do so."

"[Riyadh, in particular], wants several layers of security rather than one American umbrella [following the shock of the Iran war]."

Andreas Krieg, King's College London 

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, accompanied by their ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence, pose after signing a joint defence agreement in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, August 7, 2026. Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS

Will Israel and Turkey Soon Match F-35 Fleets at a Time of Heightened Threats?

"Since Trump entered the White House, Israel has been undergoing a steady decline in its status as the leading US partner and the only regional ally with Washington's ear."

"Following Israel's failed operation in Qatar, Doha received a US defense commitment and protective umbrella that effectively serve as an insurance policy against similar Israeli actions in the future."

"Turkey has also been drawing closer to the US, beginning with the central role it played in the agreement to end the war in Gaza."

"The status Trump granted Erdogan, including Erdogan's signature on Trump's 20-point plan, and now the sale of advanced fighter jets place Turkey in a similar position."

Zvika Haimovich,  Israel Hayom   

Trump and Erdogan   Photo AFP 

 

Qatar is privileged as a reflection of its vast treasury leading to its generosity in U.S. university investments and pleasing the American president no end with the gift of a $400M presidential jet. But it is President Donald Trump's assessment of Recep Tayyip Erdogan's persona as a strongman that elicits the president's approval of this man. It took this president no time at all to assess Syria's new (interim) president as a 'nice young man' belying his terrorist credentials, now recognizable as a dependable ally.

 

The American government's recognition of Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East, one to which it has pledged its support unremittingly in a myriad of ways, not the least of which supplying the Jewish state with technologically advanced planes and weaponry through various administrations, came full circle when Donald J. Trump was once again elected for a second term as president. The personal relationship between Mr. Trump and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu who himself resumed another stint as Prime Minister seemed forged in steel.

 

Trump and Erdogan. A challenge to Israel's national security. Photo: Reuters

 

Unfortunately that steel has not withstood the test of time -- and not all that much time to be sure -- which opened a wedge of  unexpected distance where once there was only warmth, mutual admiration, support and cooperation. Israel, moving forward with its own homegrown defensive weaponry still remains dependent on the U.S. for its planes and where at one time it was taken for granted that the U.S. would ensure Israel had the advantage in its acquisition of U.S. advanced weaponry and planes it seems that its greatest threat aside from Iran may now be deemed by President Trump to be trusted with F-35s much to Israel's and Greece's dismay.

 

Donald Trump has ears and eyes and a mind that is capable of hearing and seeing the threats emanating against Israel by Turkey's Erdogan. But here is Erdogan promising Trump that he will return the NATO-problematic S-400 missile systems to Russia. Alternately passing them off with Russia's permission to a third party. And with the S-400 out of the way so they can no longer be perceived as a risk element with the F-35s, Erdogan is discussing the purchase of the American planes for his airforce, the 2nd largest standing military force in NATO. 

 

F-35s. Photo by MANDEL NGAN /AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

 

When Turkey acquired Russia's S-400 batteries, it was barred from access to the advanced F-35 jets. According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the matter is "extremely sensitive".  He stated that Russia "Had contacts with the Turkish side on this matter, and we'll continue those contacts". As for Mr. Trump, he reiterated that he hadn't yet decided whether to permit Turkey to buy the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35 jets yet. "I haven't totally made up my mind, but my inclination is to say, look, he's done everything. He's helped us in so many different ways." 

 

That's a long way from the time that saw Turkey attempting to buy U.S.-made Patriot missiles a decade ago when Washington failed to finalize a deal. Which led to Ankara's turning to Russia for the S-400s -- and the United States acted as a result to lock Ankara out of the F-35 program, invoking the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act in 2020 to ensure that Turkey's defense industry was locked out of access to other sensitive technology.  

 

President Donald Trump, left, meets with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he arrives for the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, July 7, 2026. (Osmancan Gürdoğan, Pool Photo via AP)

"This is a person [Recep Tayyip Erdogan] who keeps his word — a man."

"He does not follow his tail. If he believes it is advantageous for his country, he goes to the end"

"There is an element of predictability, and it is very important to understand who you are dealing with."

Vladimir Putin, 2021

 

"[Putin’s words are] exactly how I have known Mr. Putin since I first met him."

"He is straightforward and keeps his word."

"It is rare to have such strong relations with any state."

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Kremlin on March 5, 2020 in Moscow, Russia/ Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

  

"On Nov. 24, 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet over Syria, resulting in the deaths of two Russian soldiers and prompting a sometimes spine-chilling war of words. At his annual press conference in December that year, Putin’s description of Erdoğan was quite different from the one he gave five years later. He said he did not “see any prospect of improving relations with the Turkish leadership,” whom he accused of trying to “lick the Americans in a certain place”."

"Sinking the knife in even deeper, Putin accused Erdoğan of betraying the secular system put in place by Turkey’s national hero, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. “The creeping Islamization would probably cause Atatürk to turn in his grave,” he said. Erdoğan, for his part, lambasted Russian “war crimes” in Syria. Russia imposed sanctions, with the package holidays that brought hundreds of thousands of tourists to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast halted and goods like Turkish tomatoes no longer welcome in the other direction."

Stuart Williams, New Lines Magazine  

Suddenly Turkey is Ukraine's best friend -- no, really. With Erdogan's courteous assistance, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy now has cordial ingress to the movers-and-shakers of the Middle East. Many of whom have been under extreme violent duress, with the Islamic Republic of Iran punishing the Gulf states for their friendliness with the United States, not to mention Israel. U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, all of whom have been, to some degree targeted by the IRGC; above all, the United Arab Emirates.

 

If any leader of any country currently knows anything about counteroffensives and self-preservation, it is the Ukrainian President, and he is more than pleased to be able to demonstrate what the Ukrainian military has learned while it has been under massive bombardment by an aggressive, much larger conventionally armed neighbour. The Iran war has enabled Mr. Zelenskyy to cultivate closer ties with Gulf states. The Shahed-136 kamikaze drones that Russia uses in Ukraine have been supplied to Iran by Russia and China.

 

At the Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a meeting with President of Türkiye Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.  President of Ukraine

 

Ukraine's answer to the devastating attacks on its cities and civil infrastructure was almost-instant devising, production and use of surprisingly simple advance drone technology which has given it longer reach into Russia itself, demonstrating what's good for the goose is fine for the gander in blowing up Russian military bases, bridges, ships, weapons storage, and oil depots. Ukrainian resistance has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands Russian servicemen monthly, dealing severe blows to Russia's troop numbers and recruitment.

 

With all that experience behind them, Ukraine was pleased to dispatch air defense teams to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Turkey, in ushering Ukraine into the comfort zone of making new contacts in the Middle East, has a new partner, as it leaves behind the old one with which its own agenda was never quite a perfect fit. After all, during the drawn-out civil war in Syria, Turkey armed the Sunni groups trying to break Bashar al-Assad's Alawite grip on the country, even as Erdogan targeted Kurds whose fighting prowess was superior to all of the regime's opponents.

 

And it was Russian warplanes out of the Russian air base in Syria that constantly flew over Sunni strongholds bombing them mercilessly. Just incidentally the very same Sunni fighting groups that Mr. Putin has attempted after the fall of President Assad, (domiciled now in Russia), to ingratiate himself with, hoping to be able to maintain both his remaining naval and air bases in the new Sunni-led government of Ahmed al-Sharaa. 

 

The Russian military presence in Syria has declined significantly over the past two years, from 114 military sites to only two bases today. [Getty]

 

In the early years of Russia's conflict in Ukraine when Moscow was isolated by the West, Turkey, though a standing member of the NATO alliance, spurned the sanctions. In the process becoming a link for Russian trade, investment and energy flows. A situation that gave Ankara greater leverage over Moscow. Russia, before the ouster of the Syrian Alawite regime, could do anything it wanted there and had hundreds of military bases; now under the new Sunni-led regime, reduced to two, albeit its major bases. 

 

It is Turkey that is now the power lever in Syria, helping its interim president al-Sharaa to be presented to the EU, the U.S. as the new, kinder, 'democratic' face of Syria with whom they could all do business with confidence. And in the process, Turkey has become the king-maker, which suits its future plans of greater dominance in the Middle East very well. A role that as a junior partner to Russia for so many years, Russia cultivated for itself, while it is Turkey now that has inserted itself in helping to rebuild the Syrian Army.

 

By openly giving assistance to Ukraine's President Zelenskyy, Mr. Erdogan is amply demonstrating that once again Turkey has spurned its sometimes-tenuous, but generally past-useful allyship with Russia, moreover a Russia that has, by its territorial aggression served to isolate itself, while continuing to aggravate and threaten his eastern European neighbours and needling NATO, of which Turkey is a member. Vladimir Putin and his war-wearied economy has lost the projection of global power, and Turkey for the time being has no further use of his allyship with Russia. 

 

Russian and Turkish delegations at a summit in Tianjin, China, September 2025 Vladimir Smirnov / Reuters

 

Pope Leo's Two-State Solution

"Türkiye has a number of, if you will, qualities about it; it is a country with the vast majority being Muslims, and yet the presence of numerous Christian communities there, although a very small minority, and yet people of different religions are able to live in peace. And that is one example, I would say, of what I think we all would be looking for throughout the world."

"To say that in spite of religious differences, in spite of ethnic differences, in spite of many other differences, people can indeed live in peace. Türkiye itself has had, of course, in its history various moments when it was not always the case, and yet to have experienced that and to have been able to speak also with President Erdogan about peace, I think, was an important element, a worthwhile element of my visit."

Pope Leo XIV

Pope Leo (C) was welcomed to Ankara by Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan   Anadolu via Getty Images

"Christians in Türkiye face everyday discrimination for their faith. Foreign Christians with Turkish spouses and children have been banned from entering or re-entering the country. Religion is recorded on the Turkish ID card, making it easy to discriminate against Christian job applicants. Even Greek and Armenian Christians who attend traditional churches aren't considered full members of Turkish society. Their churches struggle with legal obstacles and red tape intended to obstruct the practice of their faith."

"Historical Christian groups, such as the Armenian and Assyrian (Syriac) churches, face high pressure and hostility in the southeastern region of Türkiye. For decades, they have been caught between the rivalries of the Turkish army and Kurdish resistance groups. Most Christians from those churches no longer live in their ancestral regions but have moved to western areas of Türkiye."

Open Doors International 

"Ramazan Arkan, the pastor of the Antalya Evangelical Churches in Turkey, spoke during the meeting.

“Turkish churches face many difficulties and much discrimination, and unfortunately, when we have tried to address those issues with the Turkish authorities, we have most often been ignored because Christians are the religious minority in Turkey,” he said."

"Missionaries are also being deported. Their residence permits are not being renewed, and they are labeled as possible security threats. Fearing they could be deported at any time, many foreign missionaries in Turkey avoid participating in church meetings or activities to go undetected."

"Members of the Christian community are not free from hate crimes, either. Many of them face threats and social isolation online."

"We encounter speech filled with insults and profanity directed at official church social media accounts, church leaders, Christianity, Christian values, and Christians in general,” the Turkish Association of Protestant Churches stated in its latest Human Rights Report."

Persecution.Org. International Christian Concern 

“We will not allow you to brainwash our Muslim youth!” the man shouted from his car. “Oh, infidels, you will be defeated and swept up into hell!”  Persecution.Org

 

Pope Leo  travelled to Turkey to attend the historic Nicaea gathering dating from the Christian gathering at the Turkish city of Nicaea in A.D.325 of bishops from the Eastern and Western churches in unity with one another; Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant; where the Nicaean Creed originated. While he was in Turkey he met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, where discussions took place related to the conflict in Gaza. Pope Leo asked Mr. Erdogan to work toward bringing peace to Gaza.

 

Just as Pope Leo has exonerated Turkey from persecution of Christians in Turkey -- where significantly, ancient Constantinople was the eastern seat of Christianity under Emperor Constantine whose mother Helena, an early convert to Christianity, persuaded her son to support Christianity. Constantinople's  transition to Istanbul, Turkey's largest city and its cultural capital took place in 1080 when Seljuk Turks invaded, installing Islam and wrenching the country from Christianity -- so too does he overlook the very fact that it is Erdogan himself that supports Gaza's terror against Israel. 

 

He cannot be unaware that President Erdogan's Sunni Islamist ideology is one of conquest achieved by violent force. Nor can he be ignorant of the fact that Erdogan has given haven to Hamas leaders, and along with Qatar, arms and supports Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups on a cohort with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet this pope has chosen to foster amicable relations with a dictator who persecutes his own country's Christians and actively engages in the jihadist Islamofascist plot to destroy Israel.

 

Catholics, in their faith creed universally recite "I believe in one God, the Father almighty...", yet give no mind to the fact that their monotheistic religion owes its existence to Judaism. In humble deference to the source of their one-God creed it might behoove the Catholic Church to recognize its indebtedness to the Judaic YHWH, the source of all they hold dear in their faith. That it was a Jewish man whose Judaic prescriptions they revere, and that the welfare of that crux of civilization would be of concern to Catholics and to the Pope.

 

Pope Francis stops to pray in front of a Nativity scene from Bethlehem in the Vatican audience hall Dec. 7, 2024. The baby Jesus is lying on a white and black kaffiyeh, a Palestinian headdress. Around the star, written in Arabic and Latin, are the words of the angels: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to people of good will." (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

 

Instead, Israel, the home of the Jewish world, is held by this Pope, as it has been by his predecessors as a condemned entity, itself persecuted throughout the ages by the Catholic Church itself, a tradition that continues, now honouring a narrative of victimhood of those calling themselves Palestinians, oppressed by an 'occupying force' engaged in the commission of genocide. Pope Francis's honouring of a 'Palestinian' Jesus before his death spoke volumes of a willing abandonment of the source of Christianity, preferring to honour an Arab pretender to a Jewish originator of the religion 1.4 billion people worship globally.

 

Insisting that a two-state solution is an absolute necessity to see an end to the 80-year old conflict between the Jewish world and that of Islam that focuses on a 'Palestinian State' when since 1947 onward that Palestinian State has been rebuffed time and again in favour of castigating and casting out a Jewish presence on land 'consecrated to Islam', yet representing Judaic ancestral land, only a small portion of which is occupied by the State of Israel, a mere sliver in the total geography of the Middle East, as an intolerable affront which must be destroyed. 

 

A two-state solution, a concept originally accepted by Israel, and offered time and again in negotiations which Palestinian leadership turned away time and again, is a purely Western-supported ideal, one which Palestinians have no interest in whatever, holding out for Israel's destruction, and a one-state Palestinian solution. Israel has surrendered its support of that elusive two-state 'solution' to achieve a longed-for peace, when its people will no longer be targets for murder by its neighbours, solidified into a stone etching reflective of the  tablets of the Ten Commandments' 'thou shalt not kill', when to protect its own it must do just that. 

The Pope met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Presidential Palace in Ankara on Thursday Reuters

 

 e

Erdogan's Nasty Little War With Kurds

"President Erdogan's style of meeting international challenges is upping the ante -- and it almost always works in causing NATO allies to blink."

"It worked in the eastern Mediterranean and in Syria in the past -- why not try again."

Asli Aydintsbas, senior policy fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations, Istanbul

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has revived an old, outdated, near-defunct concept: a Western habit of overrating Turkey's "geo-political importance." Totally blind to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's anti-Western policy calculus, the Biden administration is pushing Turkey's Islamist strongman into further stealth hostility toward the civilized parts of the world."

Burak Bekdil, Gatestone Institute

"In case of any attack, of course we will resist and fight back."

"The international community now faces an important test: will it effectively rein in Turkey?"

Ciwan Mulia Ibrahim, spokesperson SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces)

The West's appeasement will, unfortunately, only embolden Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and push him further into the Russian orbit, both politically as a covert ally and militarily as a client of critical weapons systems. Pictured: Erdoğan holds a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 22, 2019 in Sochi, Russia. (Image source: kremlin.ru)

Little surprise that Finland and Sweden have decided it is imperative that they no longer wait to see how things turn out for Ukraine with Russia's invasion. Both have committed to applying for NATO membership and partners in NATO are prepared to welcome them to the alliance with the understanding that in the special circumstances that exist, their applications should be fast-tracked. In view of Vladimir Putin's threats, his aggression and his past appropriation of other nations' sovereign territories the fear that Sweden and Finland have made clear is their own vulnerability to Moscow's decision-making.

Not so fast, however. Turkey has an agenda of its own under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, arguably the most enigmatic and volatile of NATO's 30 members, whose playbook has diverged widely of late from that of NATO. He has stated baldly that it is his intention not to approve the two applications. He has an ax to grind with Sweden over its support for Kurds and he has a plan that risks alienating the most powerful country in NATO and he wants it understand that he is prepared to engineer an exchange.

 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan | Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images

 

In that he will give the green light to the NATO applications to welcome Finland and Sweden as long as NATO agrees not to interfere in Erdogan's plan to build a buffer that would remove any Kurdish presence in Syria from alongside Turkey's border with Syria. The dilemma is that no application submitted by any nation to join NATO can be accepted without unanimous assent of all NATO members. Of course, should all 30 NATO members, less Turkey, agree to turf Turkey from NATO, the problems of Turkey's intransigence would be solved...

And Turkey's president's plan is the launching of military operations across its border into Syria yet again, but on a firmer, larger scale that would cleanse border villages and farms of their Kurdish inhabitants and rout the presence of Kurdish militias from border proximity. Sweden and Finland have been accused by Turkey of nurturing links to the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) whose ongoing war with Turkey in the interest of forcing the release of Kurdish ancestral land it occupies for a recognized sovereign Kurdistan, has led Erdogan's intent on destroying the PKK.

Since 2015 Turkey has seized hundreds of kilomtres of land, 30 km deep into Syria, its operations targeting the Syrian Kurdish YPG milita, backed by the United States, for its aid in combating the Islamic State Emirate. Turkish troops have increased military operations against PKK fighters in northern Iraq as well. According to Turkey, both groups are linked as terrorist entities; whereas only the PKK is considered a terrorist group by NATO, not the YPG. 

The People's Defence Units (YPG) represent the foundational element of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led coalition hugely depended upon by the United States. For its part the SDF accuses Turkey of efforts planned to "destabilize the region", by its military action threats in northern Syria. In a sinister statement that simply indicates that Turkey is an unsuitable partner within NATO ranks, Erdogan claims that his planned military operation would serve to reveal which countries 'respected'  Turkey's security concerns and which did not.

 

Kurdish protesters take part in a demonstration holding Kurdish flags in Stockholm, Sweden | Frederik Sandberg/AFP via Getty Image

Sow Instability ... Live With It ... Or Deal With It

"Russia is not the dominant power in any of the regions of the former Soviet Union."

"[The current trio of upheavals] really shed light on the situation."

"[The Kremlin may not have stretched itself too thin with its foreign policy agenda, but] it certainly has to pay more attention to its neighbourhood now, more attention to its alliances."

"The people in Belarus are very close to the people in Russia -- basically you have the same language and very much the same culture."

"So I think that on that score, people in the Kremlin are looking very closely at the techniques used by the organizers of these demonstrations."

"They're studying it very, very closely because they believe something like that could be used, will be used, in Russia when the situation is appropriate."

Dmitri Trenin, director, Carnegie Moscow Center 

"Russia's influence there [Central Asia] remains extremely high."

"The new post-Soviet generation does not suffer from nostalgia for the Soviet times and does not consider Moscow a political trendsetter."

Arkady Dubnov, political analyst, expert, Central Asia

Antigovernment demonstrators gathered in Minsk, Belarus, in August.  Credit...Sergey Ponomarev for The New YorkTimes

 

Vladimir Putin is fast closing in on 70 with two more years to go, but he plans on many more long years of active executive administration of the Russian Federation. He has gone to great manipulative lengths to change the constitution, forcing 'democratic' votes where he has garnered a huge majority of assent from Russian voters to enable him to reign undisturbed by nuisance contenders for a position that looks remarkably like a Czarist throne. These are irritatingly contentious efforts on the part of challengers who feel an obligation to Russia to dethrone Mr. Putin.

Alexei and Yulia Navalny. Photo: @navalny/Instagram

They have a following, but the authority to charge them with putative offences and send them to prison sits in the Kremlin,which can choose alternately to have them assassinated which usually puts them out of contention. The latest such disabling adventure went badly for Mr. Putin when political opponent Alexci Navalny failed to die of Novichok poisoning, to be rescued by German medical science, the poison identified by British forensic science and the wrath of additional sanctions on Russia, Putin and other notables invoked as a lesson that will never be learned.

President Putin yearns for the lost days of the Soviet Union, when Russian power and influence was at its height and neighbouring near-abroad countries were but colonies embraced by the tentacles of the great political octopus that was the USSR. When Soviet Russia held sway in the Middle East, and held the balance of power that accompanies the status of a world-class superpower, a status it shared with the United States through decades of conflicted relationships marked by suspicion, distrust, propaganda and tension in the competitive atmosphere of nuclear threat.

It has been a great disappointment to the Kremlin that former satellite states in eastern Europe, in Russia's near-abroad continue to feel so ill-done-by that they shrink in fear at the very notion they would wish to continue a firm alliance that would surely grip them with an iron vice. They have turned toward the West, looking for NATO membership, an alliance that would purchase them a guarantee of military defence against the memory of the giant that once strode the world stage.

Still, the consanguinity of closely-shared geography, ideology and a continuation of totalitarian-style governance continues to link Russia with a number of its former clients, and that a number of them are experiencing political-social upheaval with stirrings of democratic ambition is a worrying sign that there is an impending breakaway from the solid footing Russia has maintained in Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Following in the determined footsteps of Ukraine and Georgia, a dreaded apparition of sovereignty and democratic choice.

Absence, in Russia's attention turned elsewhere did not make hearts fonder of the Russian Federation's position in eastern Europe. Where former satellites still shudder at the prospect of military invasion and the spectre of the Crimean Peninsula looms large as a warning. Just how thin can a country whose petroleum and gas industry was struck a blow in the double whammy of falling prices and a world oversupply, faltering under sanctions and a restive population, spread itself? 

Well, when ambition to make friends and influence nations leads to entering the fray in the mid-abroad as when Mr. Putin committed to aiding his Syrian counterpart in destroying the lives of Sunni Syrians and airbombing hospitals, medical clinics, schools and civilian enclaves of Sunnis in exchange for an air base and a deep seaport in the Mediterranean, reclaiming its former high profile position in the Middle East, it constituted a distraction from its near-abroad.

Now, the Kremlin faces a backyard rebellion with former Soviet republics and regions from Central Asia through the Caucasus and into Eastern Europe, in a turmoil of mass dissent and a turn toward the West.  Even as competitors, from Turkey to China challenge the once-dominant role of the former Soviet territory with their very similar ambitions. Nagorno-Karabakh presents a dilemma for Russia between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Russia's military treaty with Armenia, it specified, refers only to Armenia proper, not the breakaway, majority-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh. So it was quite inconvenient that Azerbaijan admitted to bombing inside Armenian borders in their violent fracas.

Keeping a watchful eye on Russia's “near abroad   Reuters

With Turkey fully in support of Muslim Azerbaijan, a threat to Russia's interests in the region hovers with the arrival of Syrian mercenaries to fight for Azerbaijan, recruited by Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Russia's foreign intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin warned the situation could introduce Islamist militants entering to infiltrate Russia. After all, Russian air power entered Syria to bomb not only Syrian Sunnis involved in a civil war, but terrorist militias that threaten the Alawite regime of Bashar al-Assad.

When Turkey shot down a Russian jet it claimed had entered its airspace from Syria, conditions were tense between the two nations, but soon enough smoothed over, as each side saw benefits from ongoing collaboration. A collaboration that eventually turned from lukewarm to frigid in competing positions over Syria and Libya. In Belarus embattled Lukashenko's rival, opposition leader Svetlana Tikhnovskaya, exiled from Belarus, living in the haven Lithuania has provided for her is increasingly turning to the West for help and future support. 

The 2014 political uprising where Ukraine disposed of Viktor Yanukovych as a Russian stooge, installing their own choice for president and doing so democratically in two elections to follow, the country's firm and growing relationship with the West is the feature of the Kremlin's worst nightmare.

The disputed election in Kyrgyzstan, along with that of Belarus are following in a familiar path. As is Armenia's growing warmth with the West, fed largely by its large and politically active diaspora.

 

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

Neither Face Very Commendable

"At a time when Canada needs strong relationships more than ever, Justin Trudeau's poor judgement, lack of professionalism and love of drama continues to weaken Canada's position on the world stage."
"We saw this just yesterday at the NATO summit."
Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, Parliamentary Opposition

"He's not paying two percent and he should be paying two percent. It's Canada. They have money and they should be paying two percent [in military preparedness]. So I called him out on that and I'm sure he wasn't happy about that, but that's the way it is."
"And honestly, with Trudeau he's a nice guy, I find him to be a very nice guy but you know the truth is, that I called him out on the fact that he's not paying two percent and I guess he's not very happy about it. [Canada is] slightly delinquent."
"Trudeau is two-faced."
U.S. President Donald J. Trump

"I think he hit a nerve. If you look a the tape and you look at the reaction, it was hard not to think about high school where you have the two good-looking rich guys gossiping about the big powerful other guy."
"The relationship is deeper and has guardrails around it, in a sense, that doesn't allow that sort of stuff to happen easily [actual damaging fall-out or related consequences]."
Eric Miller, global fellow, Canada Institute, Wilson Centre, Washington, D.C.

President Donald Trump meets with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Winfield House, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2019, in London. (The Associated Press)

As a judge of good character it's hard to credit President Trump with a keen objective sense of what even constitutes good character. He is not himself an example by any means. And he's cut Justin Trudeau a lot of slack; generous to a fault. But it is a faulty conclusion. He's not a nice guy by any means, but rather a pretentious, egotistical, vain, entitled charlatan. Oops, that is Trudeau, but those traits also echo Trump, so little wonder he approves of the former's persona.

There were serious issues to be discussed at the NATO conference, even if it purported to be a celebration and consolidation of its 70 years of international cooperation among NATO allies. One issue that failed to pass the test of serious consideration was the appropriateness of Turkey's half-century of membership that might have been countenanced when it was an Ataturkian-secularist-reform-governed proto-democracy, an entirely different administration than the current Islamist autocracy headed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey now shares none of the concerns of NATO. Its ruling Justice and Development Party, which proves more than adequately that words have lost their intrinsic meaning to be manipulated by tyrants and autocrats to serve their personal purposes, has an agenda that is abhorrent for many reasons to other NATO members. With the sad exception of the U.S. whose president gravitates happily to strongmen since he models himself as one. Turkey's membership in NATO, an unspoken grievance by many members, should be under discussion.

Emmanuel Macron was a little precipitate in declaring NATO 'brain dead' on the basis of having been abandoned by Trump, whose volatile, puzzling and intemperate statements and choices have suddenly resurrected U.S. interest in NATO. Donald Trump imagines himself the elder statesman of NATO by virtue of his powerful country's having created the union as a bulwark against the-then Cold War with the Soviet Union and its powerful Eastern European bloc. As the most influential, wealthiest country on the globe, he is conferred with exceptional status.

His pique is spontaneous, his decision-making lacking deep knowledge to guide him, his arrogance is monumental, and defying the man when for a change he has a legitimate point to make in holding other NATO members to the agreed-upon pact all made to spend 2 percent of GDP to acquiring and sustaining a robust national military complete with military hardware in the interests of unity and a reliable military capacity both singly and collectively in an increasingly unsettled world order, can be given the respect it deserves.

When President Trump chastised Prime Minister Trudeau for Canada's lack of commitment to acquiring adequate military hardware, and for failing to live up to its troop-number commitment to NATO, he had a legitimate point to make in urging Canada to follow the example of less-wealthy NATO members who do take their commitment seriously. That Justin Trudeau was incapable of responding like a mature adult and chose instead to mock the president of the United States speaks to a monumental failure on Trudeau's part in representing the best interests of the country he governs.

Choosing to behave like an adolescent rather than an adult to anticipate the frisson of pleasure he would experience in making himself yet again the centre of amused attention by his political international peers, he once more disgraced himself, pandering to his theatrical, drama-princeling aptitude and greed to be the centre of notice, while enjoying the opportunity to laugh at someone he grovels before in face-to-face contact.

On the other hand, Trudeau happened to be in the company of heads of government who chose themselves to behave like adolescent clowns. It is most unfortunate, but Trump seems to have this effect on people who consider themselves to be superior to a man whose manners and values are deplorable and in their distaste for him and choosing to demean the man who holds the position of the most powerful man on Earth, however temporarily, they more or less reflect some of his unsavoury attributes....

PM Justin Trudeau, France's Emmanuel Macron, UK PM Boris Johnson and other VIPs shared a few words at a Buckingham Palace reception Tuesday - and seemed to be talking about U.S. President Donald Trump's lengthy impromptu press conferences earlier in the day.  CBC