fahrenheit451:276

Erdogan,that erstwhile ravening Turkish warmonger looks as though he's about to hit the existential jackpot in Syria.

From funding,harbouring and arming ISIS/Daesh as well as Al Qaeda affiliates, and his subsequent de-facto annexation of sovereign Syrian territory through to building walls,watchtowers and entire military supply bases and depots inside Syria and deploying a commensurate invading Army,Erdogan has doubled down like the chronic high risk gambler and demagogic chancer that he is.

And its all begun dropping apart in spectacular fashion.All his so-called NATO friends are deserting him and his allies have set a trap underneath him. The Turkish military haven't somehow heroically liberated their ethnic kinfolk from the clutches,as they see it,of Assad,but have been sucked ever deeper into a bottomless quagmire with no prospect of withdrawal.

Credit in fair measure,for helping to bring out these dramatic changes in the circumstances on the ground in Syria must go to President Trump's administration for its forthright dealings in matters of trade and commerce with the perceived abuses perpetrated by a number of its major trading competitors. Amongst the many nations targeted by these harsher tariffs is the export to the US of Turkish steel and aluminum.

The US has also gotten itself into an intra-NATO row over the sale of aircraft and missile systems to Turkey or rather the withholding of such deals at this present moment in time.

Neither of which has improved Erdogan's innately obstreperous demeanour.

And to cap it all the value of the Turkish Lira has depreciated catastrophically vis a vis the US Dollar on international markets.At the start of 2018,it was trrading at 3.76 Lira to the US Dollar by the start of August the rate had increased to 5.49 to the dollar.National economies cannot withstand 50% depreciations of their currencies against the Dollar.

Technically currency depreciations would be great for exports,but in Turkey's case domestic inflation,massive economic displacement and increased unemployment all begin to add up to Erdogan cutting nobody else's throat but his own in Syria.

Afrin, Idlib, Manbij: the entire paranoid scenario vis a vis the Kurds and their militia groups costs Turkey more in fuel and munitions and all the other logistics that have to be paid for in US Dollars.Which in turn have to be borrowed on International money markets against the sale of Turkish government bonds that in turn become increasingly junk as the screws tighten.

Ain't Capitalism wonderful ?  Schadenfreude is trading well these days.