>Did Erdogan stop the coup with CIA help, or is he playing heel to lend credence to US Defender efforts?
no.the US intelligence probably knew what was going on, and the US would have recognized the coup government had the coup attempt succeeded…but Erdogan got a tip from Putin what's going on …
so the situation is problematic for the US. It can ill afford to lose Turkey for geopolitical reasons, but on the other hand throwing the Kurd commies under the bus looks bad.