Murmurs are growing louder that Turkish president Recep Tayyip ErdoДџan may be a dead man walking.

According to scholars Michael Rubin, MetinGurcan, and others,  there are whispers that a third coup is coming.  It would be brought on by the struggle for control of the military, the intelligence service, and the police.  That struggle is going on among the ruling party, the Gülenists; the Turkish mafia; and other unsavory characters against the backdrop of the Syrian civil war next door, millions of Syrian refugees, ISIS, and the Kurds' struggle for a place at the table if not independence.

July 15, 2016 saw the first weak coup attempt, which ErdoДџan blames on his former ally, Fethullah Gülen (the imam living in rural Pennsylvania – see the documentary Killing Ed), whom the Turkish government wants extradited.

Rubin, writing for the American Enterprise Institute, says,  "ErdoДџan had learned of the plot hours before it unfolded."  In a September 2016 Commentary article, Rubin called the coup "Turkey's equivalent of the Reichstag fire, a manufactured crisis meant to allow a dictator to consolidate power."

He calls the Turkish president's subsequent purge of 100,000-plus civil servants, military, intelligence, education, media workers – all considered possible enemies – the second coup and labels it "ErdoДџan's autogolpe," or self-coup.  This ongoing purge, according to the Rubin and Gurcan, is setting the stage for a third coup.

Rubin in AEI:

What few talk about openly but certainly have started whispering about privately, is a third possible coup on the horizon. While ErdoДџan shed his long alliance with Gülen in 2013, the Turkish leader has not been without allies.

Those allies include Sedat Peker, an ultra-nationalist widely reported to be Turkey's most powerful Mafioso, and Mehmet AДџar, a former True Path Party official, also with a checkered past.

Just as ErdoДџan used Gülen's network to do his dirty work, it is possible that Peker and others may now believe they are using ErdoДџan to do their dirty work.

Rubin:

After all, as ErdoДџan targets Gülenists, ethnic Kurds, liberals, feminists, and the political opposition, he is eliminating not only his own enemies but also those of Peker and his closest allies.

Soon the key question will need an answer:  If neither ErdoДџan nor some of the more shadowy figures of the Turkish mafia and deep state can tolerate competition, what happens when ErdoДџan and the Turkish mafia are the only powers remaining? If there is a showdown, will it be violent?

Metin Gurcan in Al Monitor:

One hard reality is that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), despite its 14 years in power, has not developed a senior bureaucratic team that deals with security and intelligence affairs. Hence, a power struggle was inevitable at the senior echelons of the National Intelligence Service (MIT), the Gendarmerie Command, the Ministry of Defense and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), where two distinct schools of thought or cliques are competing to fill the vacancies.

Gurcan cites as another dubious ErdoДџan ally Dogu Perincek of the small but powerful Homeland or Patriotic Party, known as the Perincek Group.  He says:

[The party is r]enowned for its staunchly secular, isolationist, ultranationalist, socialist, anti-US, anti-West, pro-Russian and Euroasianist characteristics – has no strong standing as a popular political party, but its influence in the upper echelons of the state's security and intelligence services is steadily growing.

Gurcan points out that when the Gülenists were riding high in 2006-2013 doing ErdoДџan's dirty work, they targeted "high-level military police and intelligence personnel" affiliated with Perincek.  Now the Perincek Group is striking back, doing ErdoДџan's dirty work, targeting suspected Gülenists.  ErdoДџan is relying on the Perincek Group to also purge the state of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Gurcan:

Perincek's deputy, retired Col. Hasan Atilla Ugur, recently made headlines when he declared, citing his sources in security and intelligence units, "[A] second coup attempt is very close. [Gülen's group] is after a new coup together with the PKK and foreign powers."

In an article entitled "Are Islamists being pushed out?" in the pro-government Yeni Safak, Kemal Ozturk writes that another group, the conservative Islamic-nationalist clique known as the Virtuousness Bloc, is worried that the Perincek Group is gaining too much power filling vacant, police, military, and intelligence jobs.

Gurcan:

How ErdoДџan will manage this power struggle in the security-intelligence structure will determine the transformation of the state bureaucracy[.] … ErdoДџan feels a vital need for the Perincek Group in his struggle with Gülenists and for his personal security. But if the Perincek Group, benefiting from ErdoДџan's dependence on it, exaggerates the purges in the bureaucracy, that could threaten ErdoДџan's longtime close circles and even his personal future.

Today, when Turks feel safe, they will talk about the upcoming coup.  But one must remember that the culture is one of conspiracy, speculation, and gossip – no doubt left over from the Sultan's palace rule – which makes it difficult to divine reality from chimera.