Jomhouri-e Eslami — July 19, 2016

As the Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unleashes a major crackdown after the failed coup over the weekend, criticism across the border in Iran is rising. Tehran daily Jomhuri-e Eslami ran a front-page report Tuesday accusing Erdogan of "kickstarting a full-blown coup against opponents."

The highly critical coverage contrasted with the Iranian government's official response that expressed relief at the failure of the coup, though the newspaper is one of the Islamic Republic's veteran revolutionary publications, and is not generally hostile to the government of President Hassan Rouhani.

Jomhuri-e Eslami featured a satirical photomontage of Erdogan seated on a throne, donning an Ottoman-style turban and carrying a broom as scepter, depicting him as a caricature of a despot.

It stated that the rounding up of "Gulenist" opponents "with the pretext" of their involvement in the coup had itself become an "extensive coup."

The daily's main editorial below the report, entitled "This is the real coup," observed that the silence of Western powers during and just after the attempt showed they were "waiting to see" who would win and that "they have no cordial ties" with the Erdogan camp. The paper wrote that the West was hovering between "indifference" and "satisfaction" at the prospect of Erdogan's downfall.

Jomhuri-e Eslami observed that the scope of recent arrests in Turkey show that "the real coup d"état is happening these days" and that "Erdogan's repression machine has gone into action." It adds that what "we are seeing in Turkey ... is the elimination of practically all key players in the power structure."