Cuts like a knife

While it has been the word on the street for more than a month, everybody looks like they are surprised to see PM Ahmet Davuto?lu leave office so smoothly. Has it been in the making all along? What was the main reason? There have been many other crises between the president and the prime minister, so what made it different this time?

President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an's priorities were so different from Davuto?lu's that there was little room to maneuver. Sources close to both sides posed one question that encapsulated the whole matter: "Who would run the state?" And by "the state," one means the general security apparatus: the intelligence service, the military and the police. Erdo?an wanted the military to solely report to him and preferred to have a direct line of communication with intelligence chief Hakan Fidan. But under the current constitution, this would not be possible. So instead of changing the laws, why not change the person?

I asked my colleagues about similar cases in Turkey's political history. Former Prime Minister Y?ld?r?m Akbulut refused to be the "handyman" of late President Turgut Özal during the Gulf Crisis so he had to step down.

Former Premier Tansu Çiller's covert operation to topple the president in Azerbaijan was uncovered by late President Süleyman Demirel, and they even say he threatened to "throw her out the window" if she attempted to do something similar again.

In both cases, what is described very vaguely as "the state" has intervened. What is it anyway? Ask one Ankara insider, and he/she would say that it is a mix of the judiciary, military, intelligence and intelligentsia, with the final two usually disagreeing on many issues. 

Davuto?lu's EU negotiation tactics, as he told it, "were planned...