“Erdogan’s success has been to divide the groups that oppose him, by extending an olive branch to one while persecuting or prosecuting the other. The fault of Erdogan’s detractors is that they were never unified: when Erdogan cracked down on the secularists, the liberals and the Gulenists helped him. When he beat up the liberals, the Gulenists and the Kurds stood away. When he went after the Gulenists, the Kurds looked the other way, and the secularists basked in Schadenfreude. Once Erdogan came down on the Kurds, allies were either on the run themselves or too cowed to speak up.” Erdogan Book:The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey Source: The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Modern Turkey