Turkey’s Prime Minister Recip Erdogan—whose fantasies about restoring Turkey as the hub of a Neo-Ottoman Empire have been shattered by a one-touch punch from Syria and Egypt—has now received his just desserts.

Earlier this year, Erdogan unleashed his shock troops to put down peaceful mass protests in Taksim Square, declaring: “The police were there yesterday, they are there today, and they will be there tomorrow.” First apologizing for the heavy-handed treatment of protestors, then promising a plebiscite, but later justifying even more brutal repression, Erodgan stigmatized as “terrorism” democratic protests against his increasingly authoritarian rule—including show trials of journalists, judges, and military officers, sentenced to long jail terms on often trumped-up charges.

One might think that Erdogan would understand the situation of the new Egyptian regime which also resorted to riot police to curb far-from-peaceful Muslim Brotherhood protests over the ousting of dictatorial President Morsi. Of course, Erdogan did just the opposite. In a variation on George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” principle that some protests are more equal than others, Erdogan declared that the armed Egyptian Brothers were martyrs—pressuring President Obama’s vacillating administration to do the same—while stifling peaceful dissent in his own country. In other words in Erdogan’s eyes, violent protests in Egypt’s Tahrir Square equaled “Islamic democracy” in action, while truly democratic protests in Istanbul’s Taksim were an anti-Muslim, Israel-engineered conspiracy.

Indeed, the Turks first charged that the Israelis were using a bird—a kestrel—as an avian James Bond. The fine feathered friend—with a ring on its foot inscribed “24311 Tel Avivunia Israel” by Israel naturalists— was freed only after X-rays showed it was not also embedded with surveillance equipment.
Now, the new Egyptian government has, so to speak, put a ring through Erdogan’s nose. Egypt’s interim president, Adly Mansour, twittered: “Our representatives at the United Nations will sign the international document that acknowledges the Armenian Genocide, which was committed by the Turkish military, leading to the deaths of one million.” (more…)