I’m no Turkey-ologist, but I will pass along some observations from a Turkish-American businessman with extensive experience in the region.
First, neither the success nor the failure of the coup probably would have made much difference to immediate U.S. interests vis-a-vis Turkey. We have been frustrated by Erdogan’s lack of commitment in the fight against the Islamic State, but the military leadership, and presumably the coup plotters, have substantially similar views on the question as Erdogan. Obviously, the United States has an interest in domestic stability in Turkey, but there’s no reason to think there will be any change in our immediate and most pressing interest there even if the coup had succeeded.
Second, Erdogan now has a pretty good excuse for continuing his consolidation of executive power. Regardless of whether his argument seems legitimate outside of Turkey, it is likely to be treated as persuasive within Turkey. We can probably expect Turkey’s recent turn toward authoritarianism to continue and to accelerate.
Third, even though the coup failed, Erdogan can expect more elite opposition at home and abroad. Erdogan apologists (mainly business elites) who until fairly recently had argued that his indulgence of Islamist tendencies were not much more than ordinary political accommodation — that Erdogan’s approach to Islamic fundamentalists was in effect not much different from Republicans’ approach to the Christian Right here at home — seem to be having some second thoughts. Strongmen of Erdogan’s type often rise and fall with the economy and the delivery of public services — if you want to be Mussolini, you have to make the trains run on time, and if you want to be Park Chung-hee, you have to deliver the economic growth. Turkey’s economic weakness and domestic chaos undermine the Erdogan’s camp’s attempts to present him as a kind of Turkish Lee Kwan Yew and suggest that he is a creature of a different but familiar sort.
Turkey Coup Failure -- Three Observations