Turkey and Saudi Arabia have made their plans clear to an amazed world, a new Wahhabist empire, an “Islamic State,” not the one the puppet front organization ISIS is running, but a real one with up to a million men in uniform, over three thousand modern combat aircraft and nuclear weapons.

Syria will fall to them, as will Iraq. They will take Jordan in a snap, crushing it from the north and south. The Gulf States are already onboard, willing members while Egypt may hold out awhile, with Israel, as long as it survives, holding one flank while Libya is already “gone,” part of the secret Erdogan caliphate.

Erbil strongman dictator, Barzani has already split Iraq, a “done deal.” He has joined Turkey against not only the PKK but Turkish Kurds who are being wiped off the map and his Syrian brothers, who are being slaughtered to his silence, and of course the government in Baghdad that pays his salary.

Afghanistan is under attack, with ISIS recruiters and Saudi cash making significant inroads, not only there but in nuclear Pakistan as well. To his north, Ukraine is fully onboard, ready to declare war on Russia any day while Bulgaria and Romania remain silent partners, ready to knife both Russia and NATO in the back.

Georgia is a defacto client state of Turkey’s, a path for arms smuggling, the new “other silk road,” from Ukraine, by plane or Black Sea trawler from Odessa, into Georgia and through Turkey into Syria and Iraq, into the hands of Erdogan’s terror armies.

Israel

Israel woke up first and dumped Erdogan like a “hot potato.” He had them fooled the way he had Europe fooled. He even had Russia and Iran going for years with promises of trade deals and gas pipelines. Now it is clear, this is a madman bent on world domination, nothing less.

There was a time when Israel saw Syria as a threat, a modern nation allied first to the Soviet Union, then the Russian Federation, a modern army and air force, capable of perhaps not matching the Israeli juggernaut but a force to be contended with.

That Syria is in ruins today, the army stretched, winning against a “sea of foes” for sure, but unlikely to ever be a threat against Israel again, which is why Tel Aviv supported both insurgents and terrorists.

Today, Assad’s Syria is all that stands between Israel and an Islamic Empire, not the “Islamic State” of ISIS, but a Wahhabist monstrosity capable of wiping Israel off the map with ease, American backing and a nuclear arsenal notwithstanding and Israel now knows this all too well. Israel will look back on its former days of planning a preemptive strike on Iran or pouring armies into Syria across the Golan Heights as its “crazy days”.

War Has Begun

A war is already going on. Turkey has invaded Syria, ISIS is a Turkish army, Muslim Brotherhood recruits, mercenaries, underwritten by the Saudis and Qatar, aided by rogue Western intelligence agencies, the CIA and MI6.

Turkey has bombed Kurds inside Syria, not the claimed “rebel” PKK, but the US allies of the YPG, and is now shelling them in violation of a UNSC memorandum.

Turkey has invaded Iraq, sending in 1500 troops who now protect Mosul, the ISIS capitol. Their base sits on the strategic route for ISIS oil theft, protecting it until it enters the breakaway “Barzani Caliphate.”

Turkey is in a shooting war with Russia, kept in check only by a Russian naval force in the Mediterranean and Caspian Seas and by massive Russian military exercises north of Turkey’s borders.

Turkey is actively threatening Greece with continual air space violations and aggressive claims made against Greek islands in the Aegean.

Turkey is preparing for war with Iran, ethnically cleansing their common border of Kurds and through building a military base in Qatar to launch operations from.

The Burned Down Friends of Erdogan

Putin was Erdogan’s friend, with a broad commercial relationship theoretically cementing their relationship. Assad had always known Erdogan for who he is, as had Iraq. Netanyahu was surprised also, believing out of his usual hubris that Israel’s nuclear arsenal and US backing, now not so solid, would guarantee them ascendency in any relationship.

Obama and Erdogan are totally on the outs. Following Obama, as is not always the case, is the military leadership of NATO. America and NATO have, over the past couple of days, awakened to a “new cold war” of rhetoric and petty Baltic State buildups, all empty posturing based on manipulation by Erdogan and his powerful backers in Washington which include all but the Greek factions of organized crime.

Erdogan has destroyed Germany’s Merkel, whose popularity is at an all-time low.

The Two-Edged Refugee War

Erdogan has been very successful in the refugee war. It isn’t just the upheaval that has left the European Union in ruin. He has also filled Europe with terror cells, modeled on the Gladio model NATO had inflicted on itself during the last century in response to the Soviet threat.

Europe is now honeycombed with weapons caches and terror cells while attempts to resist these efforts are derailed via claims of racist bigotry. This is where Erdogan was really clever. His terror armies, ISIS, the FSA, al Nusra, can round up tens of thousands of Syrians and heard them to the Turkish border. At will, Erdogan’s huge army trucks them to the coast and loads them onto boats, drowning some, pouring the rest into Greece, a nation he hates almost as much as he hates Russia and the Kurdish people.

Political attempts inside Europe to stem this tide are represented as neo-fascist. Moreover, funds earmarked for counter-terrorism in the EU are not only sadly inadequate to deal with the thousand fold increase in threat level but are bled off for refugee services.

Europe now lies prostrate at Erdogan’s feet.

This Is a Nuclear War, No Question About It

The combined military of Turkey, the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, the New Islamic State, or better stated, the “Islamic Empire,” can field up to 3500 modern main battle tanks, over 3000 generation 3+ combat aircraft, the most advanced air and missile defenses American could provide and put over 1 million men in the field.

When you look at what they have done with ISIS, al Nusra, the FSA and the “sister” organizations, probably fewer than 80,000 fighters, the political and economic damage, the human disaster, the suffering they have caused, and you look at what they can do, you realize that this was always intended to be a nuclear war.

Recent mainstream military publications have reported that both Turkey and Saudi Arabia are ready to test nuclear weapons. Israel reported that the Gulf States had recently approached them about buying nuclear weapons. Now that we are facing a real nuclear war at the hands of nation after nation that had been previously “above suspicion,” can we wonder why all the fuss about Iran?

Former IAEA inspector and VT editor, Jeff Smith, says that the UN became aware of Saudi Arabia’s nuclear capability as early as 1982. Smith also reports that in May 2015, Saudi Arabia attacked Yemen with a banned neutron-type nuclear weapon, the evidence is conclusive.

What is important, however, is to note that over 18,000 Turkish troops are on the Syrian border now, with another 250,000 available to move into both Syria and Iraq within 30 days, all fully mobilized. From the south, some already in Jordan on “training exercises,” Saudi Arabia has armored forces ready to move into Syria while more are staged to attack Iraq.

The Kurdish Pergmersha would join its Turkish allies against the Baghdad government, fighting alongside ISIS units they have been fighting against, in a reversal that may have seemed impossible a year ago but is much easier to accept now.

The threat isn’t just Turkey against Iraq or Turkey against Syria. It isn’t simply Russia lashing out at Turkey. The threat is the creation of an autocratic terror state run by a madman, a state of stonings and head choppings, a state of slavery and conquest, a state built on the Wahhabist extremism that created the model for ISIS but 30 times larger, encompassing North Africa, the Balkans to the Indus River.

Have we seen this all before?

When Russia announced it would wipe out any Saudi or Turkish forces moving into Syria, that looked like a nuclear threat. To counter it, Turkey was prepared to steal the NATO nuclear arsenal at Incirlik Air Base, 84 thermonuclear weapons.

This plan had long been underway with Saudi specialists trained in defeating the weapon safeguards based on stolen nuclear secrets secured from Israel, something Israel deeply regrets now, we believe.

Israel, also out of short sightedness, had upgraded Turkish F16s for service as nuclear bombers to use against Russia, perhaps not to “use” as such, but to blackmail Russia into backing down when Syria was overrun.

Of course, when Syria was to be overrun, the puppet state of “Barzani-land” would be set up, a virtual “Gaza” for surviving Kurds while the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia moved into Iraq in an ironic reversal of Saddam’s 1990 move.

Tell me I am wrong.

Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on veterans and POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues. He’s a senior editor and chairman of the board of Veterans Today, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”