Erdogan’s Turkey would never have received an answer if it came knocking at NATO’s door

 

There was a time when Turkey’s current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, fooled people into believing he was a “reformer” while in the post of prime minister after his so-called Justice and Development Party (AKP) won a plurality of votes in 2002. Erdogan supported labor reforms that limited work weeks to 45 hours, and overtime to 270 hours a year. This was obviously an effort to gain to popular support, because at heart he was what he has always been—and Islamist with delusions of being “Caliph” of the Islamic World, as in the old Ottoman Empire.

But supporters of a secular society in Turkey knew all about Erdogan before he became first prime minister and then president of Turkey. He was a member of a number of banned parties that supported the creation of an anti-secular Islamic state. In 1999 he was arrested and imprisoned four months for “inciting violence and religious or racial hatred” in a public reading of a “poem” that called mosques “barracks,” the domes of mosques “our helmets,” and minarets “our bayonets,” and the faithful “our soldiers.” Erdogan has since toned down the Islamist rhetoric, although that doesn’t necessarily mean he has abandoned those beliefs.

Erdogan’s current effort to make major changes in the country’s constitution (numerous “small” changes have already taken place during his tenure as president) is also suspected of being an effort by himself and his Islamist party not just to undermine secular principles, but—much like Vladimir Putin has done—to insure the continuation of his authoritarian dictatorship. His current unpopularity because of his mishandling of the economy during the pandemic threatens both his party and himself in the next general elections, and Erdogan is clearly seeking to change certain parts of the current constitution to prevent his “premature” exit from office.

Erdogan was always seen as a threat to democracy in Turkey. In 2007, three hundred thousand people marched in Ankara to oppose his candidacy for president, and over 1 million protested in Istanbul. Nevertheless, the AKP received a large plurality of the vote—so large that the chief prosecutor of Turkey called on the Constitutional Court to ban the party for being an imminent threat to secular democracy. The attempt failed, and since then Turkey has slowly, but surely become what it is today—and country that can no longer be called a “democracy” in the Western sense.

After the 2013 corruption scandal involving AKP members and Erdogan’s own son, there was a wave of retaliatory arrests of police and prosecutors who apparently “overstepped” their authority.  The Stockholm Center for Freedom released a report in 2017 that accused the remarkably incompetent 2016 coup attempt to be yet another “false flag” event orchestrated by Erdogan as an excuse to impose a “state of emergency” and arrest political opponents and whatever remained of the opposition media. The report notes that the “details” of the alleged coup attempt have come from Erdogan and his supporters, which have been “inconsistent” and appear to be contrived. The report also noted that Turkey’s security apparatus went about their daily routine during the “coup” as if nothing was happening. Only a relative handful of Turkey’s armed forces were supposedly involved in the “coup,” far too few to have been effective; many who were involved claimed that it had all been a “set-up.” But the “coup” did achieve the desired results, however:

More than 150,000 government employees were dismissed from their positions on the basis of their critical views without effective judicial and administrative probes. The purges in the military, judiciary and foreign service have reached to alarming levels. 51,889 people were put behind bars, without any evidence, a trial or conviction, mostly housewives, teachers, students, doctors, merchants and journalists who were affiliated with the Hizmet movement.

Erdogan’s actions against the Hizmet or Gulen movement is that of a “jilted” lover. The Hizmet movement was once a political ally, but he blamed the movement’s “infiltration” of the police and judiciary for initiating the corruption investigation of AKP members. Further disagreements on what “Islam” meant in Turkey led to Hizmet adherents being blamed for the alleged coup attempt and then subsequently labeled a “terrorist” organization, when  in fact the movement is supposedly pacifist in outlook and supports a “reformation” version of Islam for the modern world. As evidence that Erdogan opposes this, recall the recent reconversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque, its Christian iconography covered up.

But Erdogan and the AKP’s attempts to flout democracy and turn Turkey into a de facto authoritarian state like Putin’s Russia--apparently for the purpose of creating an Islamic state with the pretensions of “empire”—may not even be the most “troubling” issue concerning its continued membership in NATO, although it certainly is the reason why it has been refused entry into the European Union. Turkey appears to be becoming a virtual client state of both Russia and China—mainly because of its current economic crisis, but also because its erstwhile allies in the West no longer trusts Turkey to be a reliable partner in advancing its interests, with its “attentions” now firmly east-leaning rather than west-leaning.

After years of being a haven for China’s persecuted Muslim Uighur minority—even calling them the victims of “genocide” by the Chinese government—in 2016 Erdogan inexplicably switched “sides.” According to Foreign Policy, “Turkey and China signed an agreement allowing extradition even if the purported offense is only illegal in one of the two countries. Since 2019, Turkey has arrested hundreds of Uighurs and sent them to deportation centers.” Because of the lack of an independent media that is not controlled by Erdogan and his party, there has been no internal debate about this change of direction supporting China’s human rights abuses.

But the reasons are simple enough: Turkey’s economy is in “crisis” and it is willing to become a Chinese economic “client” state since international financial institutions in the West are demanding political, judicial and media reform before it lends financial assistance.  Of course Turkey also sees commonality with China’s Uighur “problem,” given its own belief that its oppressed Kurd and Armenian populations are harboring “terrorists.” This suggests that Turkey will cooperate with China against western and NATO interests if it means billions in financial aid to Turkey while allowing the country to continue on its downward spiral toward dictatorship.

Already, this “cooperation” involves, according to FP, “deepening bilateral military and security ties, including in intelligence and cyberwarfare.” Given that China has been accused of committing cyberwarfare and technology theft in the U.S., this brazen “alliance” clearly has “troubling” implications. Furthermore, if Turkey is supposed to be a member of NATO, why would it be allowing Chinese military to participate in military exercises on its territory as it did in 2018, under the “watch” of Donald Trump—who along with William Barr offered to help Erdogan in preventing the investigation into massive fraud and money-laundering by the state-owned bank Halkbank. Trump’s interest in help Erdogan goes beyond just being “friendly.” Like Putin and Trump, Erdogan appears to wish to establish a state along the lines of the “cult of personality”—mainly, his. What direction this ultimately will go is not yet clear; it could go toward “Trumpism” or “Putinism,” or toward a country like Iran, given Erdogan Islamist past that he currently is trying to conceal.

And then of course there is Russia. Erdogan has also angered its NATO partners by purchasing weapons from Russia, including the S-400 missile defense system, which could be secretly used by Russia to reconfigure its advanced radar system to help it to overcome anti-missile defense counter-measures used by NATO weapons. The U.S. refusal to sell Turkey advanced F-35 fighters is simple enough to understand: Turkey simply cannot be trusted. Like China, Russia sees Turkey as a way to gain a foothold and cause disruption that harms Western interests. Russia has signed many economic and security “cooperation” agreements with Turkey, unheard of by a NATO country when Russia is still presenting an adversarial posture. Its investments in Turkey’s energy infrastructure can potentially be used to pressure Turkey to act against Western and NATO interests.

So why is Turkey still allowed to be in NATO? The U.S. still maintains a military airfield in Turkey which is used for NATO operations, and there is the fear that kicking Turkey out would mean there would no longer be a means to influence or control its turn towards the East and becoming a dangerous foe to Western interests. Better a “frenemy” than a full-blown “enemy.”

On the other hand, the Council on Foreign Relations notes that U.S. and Turkish interests under Erdogan have diverged “radically,” and the U.S. should begin withdrawing its tactical nuclear weapons from the country, reduce its military reliance on Turkey, and relocate its airbase to Jordan or other Gulf states. The Cold War ended 30 years ago, writes the Council, and unlike former Soviet-controlled countries, Erdogan doesn’t see Russia and China for what they are: using Turkey as a gullible pawn for their own geopolitical aims, mainly to harm NATO and Western interests.