Re-evaluating Turkey (And US Foreign Policy)
This past Tuesday, the Guardian, Britain’s left of Mosley “newspaper” reported that the terror-sponsoring, Holocaust-denying government of Iran had asked Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to play the role of mediator between it and the United States. With even the IAEA having conceded that Iran has enough nuclear material to build a bomb, the Western patience with the backwards Islamist nation that executes homosexuals when it isn’t too busy denying their existence to foreign audiences is running out. And there is good cause for this growing displeasure, for as a financial partner of terrorist organizations including Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran menaces not only its own people with the brutal tyranny that is sharia law, but threatens global stability. Their gestures to the West, including their calls for dialogue, must therefore be viewed with extreme skepticism. In all probability, it is little more than a ploy to advantage them in the construction of their weapons of mass destruction, buying time under the false pretense of an interest in peace and cooperation. Still, in listening to their proposal, however shallow and suspect it may be, the devil truly is in the details.
A a member of NATO for more than five decades that has also displayed an interest in ascension to the EU, Turkey enjoys the image of being a moderate Muslim state. In years past, that may well have been the case. Shedding the Ottoman legacy, Turkish society was re-shaped at the start of the 20th century under the guidance of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Presently labeled a “crypto-Jew” and “free-mason” by conspiratorial Islamist websites of Turkish origin, Atatürk instituted secular law in place of the religious variety, and emphasized national unity over religious factionalism. He greatly improved the status of women and minorities, and helped make education accessible to the masses on a scale never previously witnessed in his homeland. His legacy, though still held in great reverence by a number of Turkish citizens, has lost significance in recent years. Starting with the 2002 election wherein Erdogan’s Islamist Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi won more than two-thirds of the seats in government, the dynamic has changed. Even in 2007, when presented with the opportunity to remove Erdogan’s party from power, the Turkish public overwhelmingly endorsed the AKP, giving them 330 of 550 seats, allowing their retention of single-party control of government.
Students of Turkish politics may recall that when Erdogan’s AKP first achieved victory in the 2002 election, he was unable to assume office. This is because in preceeding years he had earned a ban from holding political office, the consequence of having been convicted and jailed for illegally inciting religious rhetoric. At the same time, the Islamist party he had used to establish himself on the political scene was banned as being a danger to the secular and progressive character of the state. It required an alteration of the law to excuse his career of religious fundamentalism, illustrated by his emphasis on implementing segments of sharia law bit by bit, as was the case with his ban of alcohol when he served as Istanbul’s mayor. While Erdogan talks a good game and avoids any of the obvious foreign policy blunders (e.g.: NATO withdrawal) that might cause Western diplomats to view him askance, he has been equally cautious in making sure that other anti-modern Islamic states such as Iran and Saudi Arabia know that he is a reliable enough ally for them to continue pouring money into Turkey. Simultaneously, the recent resurgence in the imposition of free-speech limiting court verdicts and the massive growth in madrassa education over the once standard secular variety suggests that the disturbing political realities of Turkey are a reflection of a much greater cultural shift away from Kemalism and towards Islamism.
In view of this, the United States and its Western allies must change the way they regard Turkey. The nation with whom strong military and political ties were formed decades ago is dead, replaced by a religious regime whose bedfellows of choice are those nations whose values are most wholly antithetical to our own. To continue regarding Turkey as a friend, and more importantly as viable partner in Middle Eastern diplomacy, is to make a profound error. If the situation on the ground there was not cause enough for concern, surely the endorsement of the bloodthirsty nation of Iran ought to be.
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