Much Ado About Turkey

Anyone interested in US politics has probably heard of this already, but for those of us who are outside of America or disinterested in the bombardment of US political news may have missed something important. Erdogan, the despotic, corrupt, autocratic leader of Turkey (aren’t I impartial…) has reportedly been seeking favours from our favourite orange man.
There have been international sanctions placed on Iran, serving to damage any trade and business conducted with the country. Due to the levels of terrorism and anti-Western sentiment in the region, the international community agreed on imposing these sanctions.
Can you guess what happened?
That’s right, folks, Turkey tried to conduct business with Iran, and then wanted to dodge the penalties for doing so.
A bank, known as Halkbank,was involved in a multi-billion dollar scheme to evade the sanctions against Iran. Erdogan sought Trump’s support in the matter, and he quite happily outsourced this to Attorney General William Barr and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. These names may seem familiar. They’ve been on the news in large capital letters, but it was only when I read into the story that I actually understood why. These two men have been trying to arrange a settlement for the bank, and avoid an indictment; Barr even advised bank officials on how to work out a deal, but they were met with an unswayable opponent: US Attorney Geoffrey Berman, of the Southern District of New York. This man stood up to the pressures of his colleagues and insisted on a criminal prosecution. In the end, the bank was charged with fraud, money laundering, and sanctions offences.
The timing, however, is particularly interesting. The charges were made in October, shortly after Turkey’s invasion of Syria.
The situation overall is messy, but one thing can be said: I agree with John Bolton. Trump is doing far too many favours for autocratic leaders.