US President Joe Biden meets with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 11, 2023. (Reuters)
Seymour Hersh: Fear And Loathing On Air Force One
Biden’s anxieties over the Ukraine War and the election in 2024 come into view.
Let’s start with a silly fear but one that does signal the Democratic Party’s growing sense of panic about the 2024 Presidential election. It was expressed to me by someone with excellent party credentials: that Trump could be the Republican nominee and will select Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his running mate. The strange duo will then sweep to a huge victory over a stumbling Joe Biden, and also take down many of the party’s House and Senate candidates.
As for real signs of acute Democratic anxiety: Joe Biden got what he needed before the NATO summit this week by somehow turning Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inside out and getting him to rebuff Vladimir Putin by announcing that he would support NATO membership for Sweden. The public story for Biden’s face-saving coup was talk about agreeing to sell American F-16 fighter bombers to Turkey.
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Update: Biden traded IMF aid for Turkish consent to Sweden’s NATO membership — journalist (TASS)
Update #2: Biden offered Erdogan IMF money to ratify Sweden NATO bid – Seymour Hersh (RT)
WNU Editor: Russia provides billions of dollars in natural gas to Turkey on credit. Russia also permits the export of Ukrainian grain via through Turkey. Something tells me this relationship is now going to change since it looks like Turkish President Erdogan has decided to abandon his close ties to Russia for this promised IMF credit line from President Biden.
A prediction. The IMF credit line is a stop-gap measure that will only last a short time. Turkey’s medium and long term economic interests would be better served by developing energy ties with Russia that in the end would dwarf whatever the IMF could offer.