How Servers are Really Involved in Hillary’s Server-Gate

Posted on August 22, 2015August 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

Hillary admits during an interview she has an iPad and iPhone along with her NON-Government issued Blackberry.

Okay, we were told that Bill had one and it was not expandable for Hillary to use when she was a senator. She bought one of her own. Then we hear about a server that was in a bathroom, a server that was in a data center in New Jersey, yet are we sure we have an accurate could, an accurate handle on locations and what does the FBI have at this point?

Hillary’s emails WERE backed up to another server – and it may still exist – as the FBI works to figure out how well the data was scrubbed

DailyMail: Tens of thousands of emails once housed on former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s private computer server were moved to another device after a Colorado company took possession of the device in 2013, leaving open the possibility that copies of messages Clinton later chose to delete might still exist.
The FBI seized the server this week in a stunning move, signaling a new intensity in the investigation into whether Clinton knowingly send or received top-secret classified information through her private address while she was America’s top diplomat.
Bloomberg reported Thursday night that Barbara Wells, an attorney for Platte River Networks, Inc., confirmed that while the server hardware now controlled by the FBI ‘is blank and does not contain any useful data,’ its contents could still be safe and sound elsewhere.
That’s because the server’s messages were ‘migrated’ to another server that still exists, she said, before ending the Bloomberg interview without specifying where that device is located and who owns it – only that her company no longer has it.

‘The data on the old server is not now available on any server or device that is under Platte River’s control,’ Wells said.
A Monmouth University poll, released Wednesday, shows that 52 per cent of American voters believe the federal government should pursue a criminal investigation in the case.
That number might soon grow: The Monmouth survey was conducted before the server landed in the hands of law enforcement, along with three thumb drives held by her lawyer that reportedly contain raw copies of 30,490 emails she handed over to State Department investigators late last year.
A random sample of 40 of those messages examined by U.S. Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough’s office included two that contained information later classified as ‘top secret.’
Another 31,830 emails, however, were deleted at Clinton’s request after her staffers sifted through them and determined that they were personal in nature.
Republicans on Capitol Hill cried foul in March after she casually acknowledged during a combative press conference that she had made that decision without oversight from anyone in government.
Clinton and her presidential campaign have insisted, most recently in a 4,000-word explanation this week, that those messages were not work-related.

Clinton used an ‘@clintonemail.com’ address exclusively during her four years as secretary of state instead of keeping her correspondence on a ‘@state.gov’ account. That made it more likely that her emails were open to hackers, and made it impossible for the State Department to keep a complete archive.
An aide to a Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Committee told DailyMail.com that McCCullough has been pressed to give Congress regular updates if more classified information is discovered.
‘We’re not letting go of this,’ he said, while denying that going after Clinton was a political exercise.
‘I don’t care if it’s Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz,’ he said, naming a Texas senator who is running for president, but who is not a committee member. ‘If we don’t aggressively follow this wherever it leads, what good are we?’
It’s not clear if Clinton’s long-deleted data actually exists on another machine, even though Wells says it was once moved there.
But even if it’s gone for good, the FBI’s digital forensic experts may be able to recover some or all of it from the ‘clean’ Platte River server – depending on the method that was used to ‘wipe’ it.
Methods also exist to determine if traces of a malicious hack remain behind.
Hard drives store information in large sections that are separate from a ‘directory’ block – a sort of table of contents that tells a computer where to find each file’s many constituent pieces. Click here for a timeline of email facts, dates and people.

So Long to the Oreo Cookie

Posted on August 22, 2015August 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

A piece of Americana has taken the route south, Mexico. May we suggest the Hydrox cookie of yester-year?

Maybe at issue is the corporate tax structure. Maybe it is the increase in the misguided minimum wage. Maybe it is the diving work ethic. Maybe it is Michelle Obama’s attack on food. Maybe those liberal mayors like New York’s former mayor Bloomberg all regulating free choice of food. Maybe it is all that re-tooling of nutritional food labels. Maybe it is all of those.

How US Sugar Policies Just Helped America Lose 600 Jobs

The manufacturer of Oreo cookies recently announced plans to move production of Oreos from Chicago to Mexico, resulting in a loss of 600 U.S. jobs.

This should be a wake-up call to defenders of the U.S. sugar program and other job-destroying trade barriers.

The leading ingredient in Oreos is sugar, and U.S. trade barriers currently require Americans to pay twice the average world prices for sugar.

Sugar-using industries now have a big incentive to relocate from the United States to countries where access to their primary ingredient is not restricted.

If the government wants people making Oreo cookies and similar products to keep their jobs, a logical starting point would be to eliminate the U.S. sugar program, including barriers to imported sugar.

This obvious connection between the lost jobs and sugar quotas was missed by many observers. According to one online commenter: “This is why tariff[s] on products coming to U.S must be raised.”

That’s backwards. When protectionist policies like the U.S. sugar program lead to offshoring, the response shouldn’t be to pass new laws to discourage such offshoring or to raise tariffs even higher. The response should be to eliminate government policies that encourage offshoring in the first place.

The loss of Oreo cookie jobs should reinforce a lesson on the job-destroying aspect of protectionist trade policies.

According to a 2006 report from the government’s International Trade Administration: “Chicago, one of the largest U.S. cities for confectionery manufacturing, has lost nearly one-third of its SCP manufacturing jobs over the last 13 years. These losses are attributed, in part, to high U.S. sugar prices.”

That lesson appears to be lost on unions that are supposed to represent the workers losing their jobs in Chicago.

For example, The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union consistently has opposed free trade agreements with sugar-producing countries like Australia, Brazil, and Mexico—the kind of trade deals that just might protect their members’ jobs.

So that’s how the cookie crumbles.

2014….the Comeback

The Oreo-buster is back.

Hydrox cookies, those Oreo-like chocolate sandwich cookies, could reappear on store shelves as early as September, says Ellia Kassoff, CEO of Leaf Brands, which recently acquired the rights to the unused Hydrox trademark.

“The cosmic difference between Hydrox and Oreo is that Hydrox is a little more crispy; a little less sugary and stands up better in milk,” says Kassoff, who will make the official announcement later this month at the Sweets & Snacks Expo in Chicago on May 20.

Even in a new world of nutritional consciousness, there is little evidence that America’s sweet tooth is fading. Sales of packaged cookies and baked goods are expected to top $17 billion by 2017 — up from $13 billion in 2012, reports Packaged Facts. While the return of Hydrox is expected to be a hit with Baby Boomers who may fondly remember the brand — formerly owned by Kellogg’s, Keebler and Millennials who are not very familiar with the cookie brand, which hasn’t been regularly sold on store shelves in almost a decade.

“We’ll use social media to reach out to Millennials,” says Kassoff. The 46-year-old CEO says that he likes to acquire old brands or trademarks that still have fans. “We recycle brands that get left on the side of the road.”

But the Hydrox brand has special meaning to him. As a young kid raised by parents who were Orthodox Jews, he was only permitted to eat Hydrox — not Oreos — because, he says, at the time, Oreos were not kosher but Hydrox were. Today, both are kosher.

The move by Leaf Brands — which also owns trademarks to Astro Pops, Wacky Wafers and Farts Candy — comes just two years after giant Oreo celebrated its 100th birthday. Little-known, however, is that Hydrox was the original creme-filled chocolate sandwich cookie when it debuted in 1908 — followed four years later by Oreo.

But executives at Mondelez, which owns the Oreo brand, are hardly showing any signs of concern. “Oreo is America’s favorite cookie,” says Laurie Guzzinati, a company spokeswoman. She declined to comment specifically on the return of Hydrox. Oreo sales, which exceed $2 billion globally and $1 billion in North America, have grown double-digits in the U.S. for the past two years.

Its been years since Oreo had a genuine rival on the shelf. Kellogg stopped making Hydrox in 2002. Then, in 2008, when Hydrox turned 100, Kellogg briefly resumed distribution, but only for a limited time.

Hydrox still has an online fan page, and a few months ago, Bill Burnett, of Salina, Okla., posted this wishful note about Hydrox: “My brother and I loved them. I never got a taste for the inferior “Oreo,” which was far less tasty as the wonderful Hydrox. I think I’ve only bought one package of them in 50 years! Bring Hydrox back again!”

In fact, says Kassoff, it’s fans like Burnett who convinced him to bring back the brand. “I hear from all of them,” he says. “I know millions of people are waiting for the product.”

But unlike the cookies giants, which typically must sell at least $100 million worth of a brand for it to be an even modest success, Burnett says he can sell a fraction of that and do just fine.

The pricing will be roughly where Hydrox was for years: less expensive than Oreos but more expensive than store brands. If a 14-ounce package of Oreos retails for about $4; Hydrox will be $3 and store brand sandwich cremes often cost about $2, he says.

But success won’t come simply. At least one brand guru says Hydrox has lots of work to do. “Oreo conveys round and is fun to say and hear. Hydrox sounds scientific and medicinal … not appetizing at all,” says Steven Addis, CEO of Addis. “Oreo has become part of the fabric of America. Like Coke. This makes it somewhat unassailable, even from a superior product.”

More Than Once Israel on the Cusp of Attacking Iran

Posted on August 22, 2015August 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

RFE: Israel’s Channel 2 TV reported August 21 that a plan for Israel to strike Iranian nuclear facilities was blocked on three separate occasions in recent years.

In an audio recording of former defense minister Ehud Barak obtained by the TV station, Barak said that he drew up the attack plans against Iran, and they were approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He said Israeli army chief Gabi Ashkenazi blocked one planned attack in 2010, by refusing to certify that the army was prepared to carry out the attack.

A second attack was aborted when hawkish Israeli ministers Moshe Ya’alon and Yuval Steinitz withdrew support, he said, while in 2012, Israel decided the timing was bad for an attack because of a U.S.-Israel military exercise.

The TV station said Barak tried to prevent broadcast of the bombshell revelations, but Israel’s military censor allowed it.Ya’alon and Steinitz issued a statement expressing bewilderment at the military’s decision to permit the broadcast.

The report comes as Israel has been strenuously lobbying against a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that aims to curb Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions’ relief.

TOI: According to the August 21, 2015 edition of The Times Of Israel

Israel aborted a planned military strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure in 2012 — because the time selected for the operation coincided with a U.S. military exercise in the region. Earlier planned military strikes in 2010 and 2011, were reportedly thwarted by deliberate leaks by those opposed to such an operation. Israel’s Channel 2 News, reports that the U.S. was adamantly opposed to such an Israeli strike on Iran in 2012; but, that the Israeli political leadership had decided to proceed any way. But, Tel Aviv ultimately decided to abort the mission, because the strike would have occurred at the same time that the U.S. and Israeli were conducting a joint military exercise. Israel’s Channel 2 News reported that it relied on tape recordings of former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak; and, other unnamed foreign reports — to reach the judgment that Israel had decided to strike Iran, only to abort the mission later.

“The attack [pre-emptive military strike], was being readied for January 2012; but, that [time period] coincided with the long planned, Austere Challenge 12 Exercise, the largest planned joint U.S./Israeli military exercise. “We intended to carry it out, so I went to (then U.S Defense Secretary Leon) Panetta; and, asked him if we could change the date of the exercise,” former Defense Minister Barak said in a recording broadcast by Channel 2. “So, they delayed it as much as they could….to a few days before the U.S. election (in the U.S. that November). However, The Times of Israel reports, the new date set for a pre-emptive Israeli military strike – was also not convenient.”

“You demand that the U.S. respect your sovereignty; and, decide you want to do it (strike Iran), even if America is opposed to it — and, is contrary to their interests,” Minister Barak said in the recording. “You can’t find yourself then going back on that — by trying to force America to be party to (the strike), just as it comes here [Israel], for a pre-planned [joint military] drill. That’s how it [the pre-emptive military strike] ran into difficulties in 2012,” he explained.

Israel’s Channel 2 News added that Barak’s revelation about a thwarted 2012 military strike – was only one in a series of bombshells in the tape recordings of his conversations broadcast Friday night in Israel. Defense Minister Barak also “detailed how he and then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to strike [Iran] in 2010 and 2011; but, were thwarted by opposition by the Army’s Chief of Staff and ministerial colleagues.” These new revelations “come from conversations related to a new biography of Minister Barak — being written by Danny Dor, and Ilan Kfir. The Times of Israel adds that the former Defense Minister and Prime Minister, “attempted to prevent the broadcast of the recordings but Israel’s military’s censors allowed Channel 2 to play them.”

I believe these reports are accurate. As to the reasons why Israel did not go through with a pre-emptive strike? I suspect the reasons are more nuanced and complicated than portrayed here. Some reliable reporting in Israel suggest that Prime Minister Netanyahu never really intended to authorize a pre-emptive military strike against Iran; but, was in fact bluffing – in an attempt to influence U.S. elections; and, perhaps extract additional military concessions from Washington.

Hillary’s Team Now Attacking Gowdy’s Document Protections

Posted on August 22, 2015August 22, 2015 by Denise Simon

Jake Sullivan, Hillary’s policy advisor and Cheryl Mills, the aide and lawyer for Hillary are slated to testify before the Benghazi commission the first week of September. Answering questions about the destroyed Blackberry cell phones will be among the questions.

Meanwhile, the Hillary camp is shooting arrows at the Gowdy Benghazi commission over its own protections of classified documents. Desperation and accusations are becoming a daily occurrence. Honestly, this smacks of the Benghazi co-chair, Elijah Cummings working in collusion with the Hillary team.

In July:

Politico: At least two former top aides to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have turned over documents to the State Department in response to a request sent to 10 former officials in March asking them to return any official agency records in their possession, according to a court filing late Tuesday.

Former Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills and former Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan produced “a number” of records through their attorneys on June 26, State Department records official John Hackett said in a declaration submitted in connection with a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the conservative group Judicial Watch. More here.

Hillary Clinton aide: Gowdy committee has classified docs on server, too

Politico: Hillary Clinton’s campaign, under fire over the ongoing emails controversy, is pointing a finger at House Republican Benghazi investigators, accusing the panel of having classified documents on an unsecured system just like Clinton did.

On a phone call Friday afternoon, campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said the House Select Committee on Benghazi had on an unsecured computer system at least one Clinton email that State did not consider classified — but which the intelligence community now considers classified.

“[Benghazi Chairman] Trey Gowdy treated emails, in this case, in the same way Hillary Clinton did, considering them unclassified and … storing them on unclassified computer systems,” Fallon said. “So in light of this I don’t really see what leg Congressman Gowdy has to stand on in his criticisms of Secretary Clinton on this point.”

Fallon called on Gowdy personally to confirm the allegation, suggesting perhaps he could also have to turn over his staff’s technology like Clinton has done with the Justice Department: “By the same logic that is now being applied to Hillary Clinton’s email, some could say that the House Benghazi Committee should also have its systems looked at to see if they have emails that are now considered classified.”

A Gowdy aide rejected the comparison. The executive branch has classification authorities, so if a classified document was sent to the legislative branch unclassified, Congress isn’t in a position to change the marking.

“We didn’t put it in the bathroom,” a GOP committee spokesperson said sarcastically, referring to a report last week that the small Denver-based computer company that handled Clinton’s email stored its servers in a bathroom closet. “Our system and server for handling classified information in electronic format was subjected to and passed a year of painstaking planning, documentation, and review by numerous security and IT professionals in the Intelligence Community.”

A spokesman for Democrats on the Benghazi panel said the committee was “instructed that it needed to move the document from unclassified computer systems and files to classified computer systems and files,” after the FBI discovered a line that they wanted classified.

The staffer said the panel isn’t to blame — just as Clinton isn’t. “[L]ike Secretary Clinton, Committee members and staff could not have known to treat that document as classified when we received it, because it was not marked or easily identifiable as classified information.”

The attempt to redirect questions about Clinton’s email practices back at congressional investigators comes amid a cacophony of headlines about the issue. On the heels of the bathroom report, a federal judge said this week that Clinton violated government policy with her email set-up.

Fallon was referring to one of the original Clinton emails that subsequently raised flags with the FBI: a Nov. 18, 2012 missive detailing arrested suspects involved in the attack that left four Americans dead in the 2012 Benghazi attacks, sent by State official William Roebuck, now U.S. Ambassador to Bahrain.

Fallon said the committee received copies of the email months ago because the State Department did not — and still does not — consider it classified. But the intelligence committee is arguing that the information is indeed secret and sensitive, and should therefore be classified.

“Since the State Department provided the email forwarded by [top Clinton policy aide] Jake [Sullivan] to the Benghazi Committee several months before the FBI asked for any redaction, it has seemed to us highly plausible that for several months Congressman Gowdy’s staff may have been treating the email as unclassified just as we did and handling it on unclassified systems on Capitol Hill,” Fallon said.

Fallon also praised Gowdy for complaints the South Carolina Republican made in July about over-classification of documents. On July 8, Gowdy sent a letter to the Obama Administration asserting that overly aggressive classification of documents was hindering his information gathering.

“It’s not just the Clinton campaign saying that there’s a lean in favor of over-classification in government… it turns out that Trey Gowdy himself agrees with us,” he said.

Turkey, ISIS, Kurds and the Why

Posted on August 21, 2015August 21, 2015 by Denise Simon

U.S. confirms ISIS chemical weapons use against the Kurds

MilitaryTimes: U.S. military officials in Iraq have issued preliminary confirmation that Islamic State militants used mustard gas in a mortar attack on Kurdish forces in August, a Defense Department official said.

After an Aug. 11 attack that reportedly sickened dozens of Kurdish troops, the Kurds provided U.S. officials with fragments of shells that later tested positive for the presence of “HD, or what is known as sulfur mustard,” said Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Killea, chief of staff for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.

The attack occurred in the town of Makhmour in northern Iraq near the front lines of the Kurdish forces’ fight against the Islamic State, according to Killea, who briefed reporters at the Pentagon on Friday.

Killea cautioned that this was a “presumptive field test,” and further analysis is needed to possibly determine the source of the chemical weapon.

Both Iraq and Syria have in the past maintained stockpiles of chemical weapons, and U.S. officials say it is unclear whether the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, has seized any of those weapons.

The HD strain of mustard is listed as a “Schedule I” chemical weapon and is strictly banned under the international treaty known as the Chemical Weapons Convention. When sprayed or released from artillery shells, mustard agents blister skin and can damage lungs if inhaled.

Killea said the potential confirmation of the Islamic State’s use of chemical weapons will not necessarily have any impact on U.S. policy.

“We really don’t need another reason to hunt down ISIL and kill them wherever we can and whenever we can,” he said. “Any indication of the use of a chemical warfare agent, purely from our perspective, reinforces our position that this is an abhorrent group that will kill indiscriminately without any moral or legal code or restraint.”

***

What is Erdogan and Turkey really doing as a NATO country…

Politico: On July 23 virtually every news outlet in the United States ran some version of the following headline: “Turkey Joins the Fight Against ISIL; Opens Air Base to Coalition Forces; Washington and Ankara Agree to Safe Zone in Syria.” The media, being what it is, dubbed Ankara’s decision to order up airstrikes on Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s forces a “game changer,” which is what journalists say when they have nothing else to say, do not understand a situation and are itching to get back to covering Donald Trump. The only game that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is actually interested in changing is the political one that he has been uncharacteristically losing since mid-June when his Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost the parliamentary majority it has held since November 2002. Erdogan’s military actions against the self-proclaimed Islamic State are best understood as one part a desperate, highly complex attempt by Erdogan to win back the power he lost. If his plan fails, the risky multi-front war Erdogan has just launched may become his undoing.

It’s hard to believe that Erdogan took a fresh look at what was happening in Syria and Iraq and came to the conclusion that joining the American-led fight against the Islamic State was in Turkey’s national interest. The prevailing theory among Turkey watchers instead is this: Ankara agreed to fight against the Islamic State so America would allow it to attack the Kurds (who are also at war with ISIL) and therby improve the AKP’s political prospects in parliamentary elections that will be scheduled for the fall. This may sound like Turkey geeks inside the Beltway have watched “Wag the Dog” one too many times, but the rationale and rationality of Erdogan’s moves are hard to dispute.

In exchange for granting American and coalition forces access to Turkish bases, the Obama administration stood aside as Turks renewed their fight with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)—a terrorist organization that has been waging war on Turkey since the mid-1980s. The U.S. government also publicly agreed to help Ankara set up a “safe zone” for Syrian refugees in northern Syria, which makes it impossible for the Syrian Kurds to establish a territorially continuous independent canton in northern Syria. Conflict with the Kurds is very good politics for Erdogan as he seeks to shore up his nationalist base, which regards Kurds as mortal enemies. Erdogan is clearly calculating that turning up the heat on the PKK and dashing the hopes of Syrian Kurds for greater autonomy will reverse June’s electoral outcome and reproduce another parliamentary majority for the AKP by weakening Turkey’s legal Kurdish-based party, which he accuses of being an extension of the PKK.

The “Islamic State-Turkish Bases-Safe Zone-Fight the Kurds-Boost Erdogan’s Political Position” theory is not a bad one even if it seems to come perilously close to conspiracy mongering. Why else would the Turks change their position on the fight against the Islamic State? For the past year, Ankara has had a dim view of America’s strategy, which they believed was half-assed given that it did not address what Ankara considers to be the root cause of the Islamic State problem—Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. They were also quite rightly concerned that, unlike New York City, Istanbul is relatively close to the Islamic State and that if Turkey signed up with the United States, blood was more likely to flow in Taksim rather than Times Square. Most importantly, the Turks have been worried that the violence and instability that has enveloped Syria and Iraq has improved the prospects that Kurds in these failing states will seek independence. Those concerns fuel fears that Turkey’s 14 million Kurds will do the same. To the extent that the Islamic State and Kurds were battling each other in northern Syria and Iraq, Ankara was content to watch them damage each other.

The idea that Ankara joined Washington’s anti-Islamic State effort in order to fight the Kurds has some added weight from anonymous U.S. military sources telling the Wall Street Journal that they believe the Turks snookered the White House. The whole explanation hinges on the fact that since the media declared a “game changer,” the Turkish air force has undertaken a single airstrike on the Islamic State while attacking PKK positions in southeastern Turkey regularly. The Iraqi government has also complained of Turkish raids against Kurdish fighters in the Qandil Mountains. As with everything, there seems to be some missing context. American commanders asked the Turks to hold off until American personnel could arrive at Incirlik and everyone could sort out what was likely to become a crowded airspace. That is certainly reasonable and explains why there have been so few Turkish warheads on ISIS foreheads, but it does not alter what seems to be Turkey’s overall strategy in service of Erdogan’s unbounded ambition.

Erdogan has proven himself to be a shrewd cat over many years, but there are risks for him everywhere in this strategy. It seems entirely possible that despite spinning Turkey up on a war footing, the outcome of new parliamentary elections will be the same as those held June when voters flocked to the AKP’s nationalist competitor and the party’s religious Kurdish constituency abandoned the party in droves. The result would be exactly the opposite of what Erdogan intends, permanently compromising and marginalizing the president. It is also possible that the current skirmish with the PKK becomes a lengthier and bloodier battle. Turks will, of course, place blame on the PKK first, but as the number of body bags increases and more Turkish soldiers are laid to rest, the public may very well turn against Erdogan and the AKP. There are scattered signs that this dynamic is already underway as Turks wonder why they are suddenly at war again after a two-and-a-half year lull. Finally, even if the Turks don’t fire a shot at the Islamic State, the very fact that Ankara has opened up its bases to coalition aircraft puts Turkey in the Islamic State’s crosshairs. In response to Turkey’s decision to allow coalition aircraft to use Incirlik and other bases, the Islamic State released a video on Tuesday vowing to conquer Istanbul and calling the Turkish leader an “infidel and traitor.” If, after carefully avoiding a confrontation with the terror group for the better part of a year, Turks are killed in Ankara’s Kizilay or along Istanbul’s Istiklal Caddessi, Erdogan would most likely be held responsible for this bloodshed.

The politics of the current moment represent the biggest challenge Erdogan has faced since his leadership of the country formally began in March 2003. Almost everything that Erdogan cares about is at stake—the executive presidency he desires, the future of the AKP and his legacy of peace. It is unclear how Erdogan resolves the crosscutting political pressures to his advantage. Any move to settle one creates another problem for him. It is hard for him to go back to the well and blame the United States—he invited them in—or any of Erdogan’s favorite bogeymen that have been used so deftly in the past to deflect the government’s failures. The president has no such luxury this time given how painfully obvious the multiple threats Turkey confronts are the result of both violent terrorist groups and Erdogan’s own political machinations. It is a sign of a weakening politician desperate to reverse his slide. If Erdogan solves the puzzle, he will get his executive presidency and he will continue his vision for the transformation of the country. If he does not, Turkey is in for an extended period of instability and violence. Either way, Turks will pay a steep price.