THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 205, October 24, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
MR. ERDOGAN'S TURKEY
By Dr. Michael Rubin
THE THREAT OF ISLAMISM IN TURKEY: ISLAMIST INROADS INTO TURKISH POLITICS, GOVERNMENT, & PUBLIC
POLICY -- EROSION OF DEMOCRACY, THE RULE OF LAW, CONSTITUTIONALISM, & SEPARATION OF GOVERNMENT &
RELIGION IN TURKEY -- HOW INEPT & "POLITICALLY CORRECT" U.S. DIPLOMACY IS PUTTING AT RISK TURKEY'S FUTURE AS
A SECULAR, WESTERN-ORIENTED NATION-STATE & ALLY OF THE U.S.A.
FULL STORY:
Five years into the war on terror, inept U.S. diplomacy risks undercutting a key ally that President Bush once called a
model for the Muslim world. The future of Turkey as a secular, Western-oriented state is at risk. Just as in Gaza and
Lebanon, the threat comes from parties using the rhetoric of democracy to advance distinctly undemocratic and
unconstitutional agendas. Turkey has overcome past challenges from terrorism and radical Islam; always, its system has
persevered. But now, as Turkish politicians and officials work to defend the Turkish Constitution, U.S. diplomats
interfere to dismiss Turkish concerns and downplay the Islamist threat.
A crisis has simmered for months, but, earlier this month, Ankara erupted. On October 1, President Ahmet Necdet Sezer
warned Parliament, "The fundamentalist threat has not changed its goal to change the basic characteristics of the state."
The next day, as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the Oval Office, General Yasar Büyükanit, Chief of
Turkey's Armed Forces, warned cadets of growing Islamic fundamentalism and promised "every measure will be taken
against it." Usually such warnings are enough to keep those transgressing on the constitutional separation of mosque
and state in check.
Enter U.S. Ambassador Ross Wilson. At an October 4 press conference, he said: "There is nothing that worries me with
regards to Turkey's continuation as a strong, secure, stable, and secular democracy." He dismissed opposition concern
about the Islamism of Mr. Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (known in Turkish as the AKP) as "political
cacophony." Wilson's remarks were consistent with those of his State Department superiors. Last Autumn, Daniel Fried,
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, said "The development of the AKP into a democratic party . . . has
mirrored and supported the development of Turkish political society as a whole in a liberal and democratic direction." He
described the AKP as "a kind of Muslim version of a Christian Democratic Party."
Why are so many Turks angry at Washington's dismissal of their concerns? While Turkish constitutional democrats
fight for change within the Turkish system, Islamists seek to alter the system itself. This has been the case with the AKP.
Over the party's four-year tenure, Mr. Erdogan has spoken of democracy, tolerance and liberalism, but waged a slow and
steady assault on the system. He endorsed, for example, the dream of Turkey's secular elite to enter the European Union,
but only to embrace reforms diluting the checks and balances of military constitutional enforcement. After the European
Court of Human Rights upheld a ban on headscarves in public schools, he changed course. "It is wrong that those who
have no connection to this field [of religion] make such a decision . . . without consulting Islamic scholars," he declared.
Then, in May, 2006, his chief negotiator for accession talks ordered the removal, from a negotiating paper, of reference to
Turkey's educational system as secular.
The assault on the secular education system has been subtle but effective. Traditionally, students had three choices:
enroll at religious academies (socalled Imam Hatips) and enter the clergy; learn a trade at vocational schools; or
matriculate at secular high schools, attend university, and pursue a career. Mr. Erdogan changed the system: By equating
Imam Hatip degrees with high-school degrees, he enabled Islamist students to enter university and qualify for
government jobs without ever mastering Western fundamentals. He also sought to bypass checks and balances. After
the Higher Education Board, composed of university rectors, rejected his demands to make universities more welcoming of
political Islam, the AKP-dominated Parliament proposed to establish 15 new universities. While Mr. Erdogan told
diplomats his goal was to promote education, Turkish academics say the move would enable him to handpick rectors and
swamp the Higher Education Board with political henchmen.
Such tactics have become commonplace. At Mr. Erdogan's insistence and over the objections of many secularists, the AKP
passed legislation to lower the mandatory retirement age of technocrats. This could mean replacement of nearly 4,000 out
of 9,000 judges. Turks are suspicious that the AKP seeks to curtail judicial independence. In May, 2005, AKP Parliamentary
Speaker Bülent Arinç warned that the AKP might abolish the Constitutional Court if its judges continued to hamper
parliamentary legislation. Mr. Erdogan's refusal to implement Supreme Court decisions levied against his government
underlines his contempt for rule of law. Last May, in the heat of the AKP's anti-judiciary rhetoric, an Islamist lawyer
protesting the headscarf ban shouted "Allahu Akbar," opened fire in the Supreme Court and murdered a judge. Thousands
attended his funeral, chanting pro-secular slogans. Mr. Erdogan was absent from the ceremony.
There have been other subtle changes. Mr. Erdogan has replaced nearly every member of the banking regulatory board with
officials from the Islamic banking sector. Accusations of Saudi capital subsidizing AKP are rampant. According to Turkish
Central Bank statistics, in the first six months of this year, the net error -- money entering the Turkish economy for which
regulators cannot account -- has increased almost eightfold, compared to 2002, the year the AKP came to power. According
to the opposition parliamentary bloc, debt amassed under Mr. Erdogan's administration is equal to total debt accrued in
Turkey between 1970 and 2000. Erkan Mumcu, a former AKP minister who now heads the center-right Motherland Party,
accused the AKP in June of interfering in Central Bank operations. Accordingly, President Bush's Oval Office statement,
based on State Department talking points -- congratulating "the Prime Minister and his government for the economic
reforms that have enabled the Turkish economy to be strong" -- may have hampered transparency, if not reform.
In the past year, the AKP anti-secular agenda has grown bolder. AKP-run municipalities now ban alcohol. Turkish Airlines
recently surveyed employees about their attitudes toward the Quran. On July 11, Mr. Erdogan publicly vouched for
the sincerity of Yasin al-Qadi, a Saudi financier identified by both the United Nations and the U.S. Treasury Department as
an al-Qa'ida financier.
When Mr. Erdogan began his political career, he did not hide his agenda. In September, 1994, while Mayor of Istanbul, he
promised, "We will turn all our schools into Imam Hatips." Two months later he said, "Thank God Almighty, I am a servant
of the Shariah." In May 1996, he called for a ban on alcohol. In the months before his dismissal from the Mayoralty, his
cynicism was clear. "Democracy is like a streetcar," he quipped. "You ride it until you arrive at your destination and then
you step off."
Diplomacy should not just accentuate the positive and ignore the negative. When a country faces an Islamist challenge,
"Politically Correct" platitudes do far more harm than good. At the very least, U.S. diplomats should never intercede to
preserve the status quo at the expense of democracy, constitutionalism, and the rule of law. Nor should they even appear
to endorse a political party as an established democracy enters an election season. It is not good relations with Ankara
that should be the U.S. goal, but rather the triumph of the democratic and constitutionalist ideas for which Turkey is said
to traditionally stand.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Turkey, the Middle East, & the U.S.A.
Middle East: Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
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. Michael Rubin, a Ph.D. in History (Yale University) and a specialist in Middle Eastern politics, Islamic culture and Islamist
ideology, is Editor of the Middle East Quarterly and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public
Policy Research. Dr Rubin is author of Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran (Washington Institute
for Near East Policy, 2001) and is co-author, with Dr. Patrick Clawson, of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005). Dr. Rubin served as political advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad (2003-2004); staff
advisor on Iran and Iraq in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense (2002-2004); visiting lecturer in the Departments of
History and International Relations at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2001-2002); visiting lecturer at the Universities of
Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan (2000-2001); Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy (1999-2000); and visiting lecturer in the Department of History at Yale University (1999-2000). He has been a fellow at
the Council of Foreign Relations, the Leonard Davis Institute at Hebrew University, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and
International Affairs.
The foregoing article by Dr. Rubin was originally published in the Wall Street Journal, October 19, 2006, and can be
found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum.
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
October 24, 2006
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