THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 239, September 27, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
IS TURKEY GOING ROGUE?
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
WHY TURKEY MAY BE ONE OF THE MOST DANGEROUS STATES IN THE MIDDLE EASTERN REGION: TURKEY'S
GOVERNMENT UNDER THE CONTROL & DIRECTION OF ISLAMIST IDEOLOGUES IN THE AKP -- A POLITICAL OPPOSITION
THAT IS WORST THAN THE AKP -- TURKEY FACING AN ECONOMIC & FINANCIAL COLLAPSE -- TURKEY FACING ESCALATING
PROBLEMS WITH THE KURDS' CURRENT SEPARATIST REVOLT -- TURKISH PRIME MINISTER RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN & HIS
ISLAMIST COLLEAGUES LOOKING FOR A FIGHT WITH ISRAEL -- RENEWAL OF ISRAEL'S HISTORICALLY WARM RELATIONS
WITH THE KURDS & REVERSAL OF ITS COOL RELATIONS WITH GREECE, CYPRUS, & ARMENIA -- TURKEY ASSERTING RIGHTS
OVER MEDITERRANEAN ENERGY RESERVES -- TURKEY'S OTHER INTERNATIONAL PROBLEMS
FULL STORY:
In a Middle East wracked by coups d'état and civil insurrections, the Republic of Turkey credibly offers itself as a model,
thanks to its impressive economic growth, democratic system, political control of the military, and secular order.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan effectively bought the June, 2011, elections by pumping credit into the Turkish economy.
But, in reality, Turkey may be, along with Iran, one of the most dangerous states of the region. Count the reasons:
Islamists Without Brakes: When four out of five of the Turkish Chiefs of Staff abruptly resigned on July 29, 2011,
they signaled the effective end of the republic founded in 1923 by Kemal Atatürk. A second republic headed by Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist colleagues of the AK Party began that day. The military safely under
their control, AKP ideologues now can pursue their ambitions to create an Islamic order.
An Even Worse Opposition: Ironically, secular Turks tend to be more anti-Western than the AKP. The two other
parties in Parliament, the CHP and MHP, condemn the AKP's more enlightened policies, such as its approach to Syria and
its stationing a NATO radar system.
Looming Economic Collapse: Turkey faces a credit crunch, one largely ignored, in light of crises in Greece and
elsewhere. As analyst David Goldman points out, Erdogan and the AKP took the country on a financial binge: bank credit
ballooned while the current account deficit soared, reaching unsustainable levels. The party's patronage machine
borrowed massive amounts of shortterm debt to finance a consumption bubble that effectively bought it the June, 2011,
elections. Goldman calls Erdogan a "Third World strongman" and compares Turkey today with Mexico in 1994 or
Argentina in 2000, "where a brief boom financed by shortterm foreign capital flows led to currency devaluation and a deep
economic slump."
Escalating Kurdish Problems: Some 15-20 percent of Turkey's citizens identify as Kurds, a distinct historical
people; although many Kurds are integrated, a separatist revolt against Ankara that began in 1984 has recently reached a
new crescendo with a more assertive political leadership and more aggressive guerrilla attacks.
Looking for a Fight With Israel: In the tradition of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Saddam Hussein, the Turkish Prime
Minister deploys anti-Zionist rhetoric to make himself an Arab political star. One shudders to think where, thrilled by this
adulation, he may end up. After Ankara backed a protest ship to Gaza in May, 2010 -- the Mavi Marmara -- whose
aggression led Israeli forces to kill eight Turkish citizens plus an ethnic Turk, it has relentlessly exploited this incident to
stoke domestic fury against the Jewish state. Erdogan has called the deaths a casus belli, speaks of a war with Israel "if
necessary," and plans to send another ship to Gaza, this time with a Turkish military escort.
Stimulating an Anti-Turkish Faction: Turkish hostility has renewed Israel's historically warm relations with the
Kurds and turned around its cool relations with Greece, Cyprus, and even Armenia. Beyond cooperation locally, this
grouping will make life difficult for the Turkish diplomats in Washington, D.C.
Asserting Rights over Mediterranean Energy Reserves: Companies operating out of Israel discovered potentially
immense gas and oil reserves in the Leviathan and other fields located between Israel, Lebanon, and Cyprus. When the
government of Cyprus announced its plans to drill, Erdogan responded with threats to send Turkish "frigates, gunboats
and … air force." This dispute, just in its infancy, contains the potential elements of a huge crisis. Already, Moscow has
sent submarines in solidarity with Cyprus.
Other International Problems: Ankara threatens to freeze relations with the European Union in July, 2012, when
Cyprus assumes the rotating Presidency. Turkish forces have seized a Syrian arms ship. Turkish threats to invade
northern Iraq have worsened relations with Baghdad. Turkish and Iranian regimes may share an Islamist outlook and an
anti-Kurd agenda, with prospering trade relations, but their historic rivalry, contrary governing styles, and competing
ambitions have soured relations.
While Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu crows that Turkey is "right at the center of everything," AKP bellicosity has
soured his vaunted "zero-problems" with neighbors policy, turning this into a wide-ranging hostility and even potential
military confrontations (with Syria, Cyprus, and Israel). As economic troubles hit, a once-exemplary member of NATO may
go further off track; watch for signs of Erdogan emulating his Venezuelan friend, Hugo Chávez.
That's why, along with Iranian nuclear weapons, I see a rogue Turkey as the region's greatest threat.
© 2011 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
Originally Published in National Review Online, September 27, 2011
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes.org, September 27, 2011
URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/10169/turkey-rogue
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Turkey, the Middle East, & the U.S.A.
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Middle East: Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is Founder and President of the Middle East Forum,
Publisher of Middle East Quarterly,
Founder of Campus Watch, Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, a
signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a former
adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the U.S. Committee for a Free
Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and Technology, and a
former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for National Review Online, Front Page
Magazine, the New York Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and
developments in the Middle East have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington
Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network
television, as well as at universities and think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the
U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately
twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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