© AFP 2016/ ADEM ALTAN
This consolidation of power is raising tensions with the US and European Union, with concerns that the president's resort to repression will bring his Western partners into disrepute.
The West may be vexed by Erdogan's truculence, but the strategic importance of his regime for both the US-led NATO military alliance and the EU suggest that they will turn a blind to his excesses - even if those excesses involve further violation of democratic rights.
Comment: The US behavior towards Saudi Arabia and Israel, two allies who are well-known for their cruel human rights practices, should make it clear that the US could care less whether Erdogan turns Turkey into a dictatorship, as long as he capitulates to US interests.
Washington's NATO agenda of encircling, undermining Russia; and the EU's desperate need to halt the influx of refugees mean that Erdogan knows he can crackdown at will. The West may mouth misgivings, but in the end their priority concerns have little to do with international law or democratic rights. And the savvy Erdogan knows that.
There are reports that Erdogan private jet was nearly blown out of the skies by F-16 fighter jets flown by coup-plotters. Such reports lend Erdogan heroic kudos and greater license to crackdown on opponents.
Comment: This comes at the same time that the same mainstream sources are reporting on U.S. airstrikes killing 56 civilians in Manbij. SOHR (the British anti-Assad 'observatory', i.e., one guy on his computer) is even reporting 11 dead children. The coalition admits that Daesh takes over hospitals and uses them as command centers. Kinda puts reports that Syria and Russia 'bomb hospitals' into perspective, doesn't it (disregarding the obvious fake reporting designed to smear Assad and Putin)?
What's up with this uptick in reporting on American atrocities in Syria?