A Slick Trip Down The Islamist Tubes?

The Islamist AKP has gained an apparent unassailable superiority over the armed forces of Turkey.  The shocking simultaneous "early retirement" of the military chief of staff and three other service commanders over the weekend seemed to have put the final nail in the coffin of the military's role as the ultimate guarantor of Turkish secularism and the legacy of Ataturk.

The act came on the eve of the semi-annual meeting of the combined armed forces senior leadership with the head of the civilian government, the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and has been seen by many observers, Turkish as well as foreign, as a welcome sign of Turkey having become a normal democracy where civilian supremacy over the military is a given.  In the past, there has been a great deal of discomfort in the US and Western Europe over the periodic military excursions out of the barracks and into the presidential palace.  The European Union (or at least France) demanded that the armed forces be defanged as a prerequisite for membership.

The recent mass resignation must be taken in conjunction with the ongoing trial of nearly three hundred past and present senior commanders (ten percent or so of the entire flag officer complement) on charges which are at best politically motivated and most likely fabricated in whole or major part.  The massive series of arrests over the past year or so constituted the AKP's direct attack on the military, which was the only plausible obstacle to permanent Islamist domination of Turkish politics.

The armed forces and AKP have been at daggers drawn since the once-banned AKP won power in 2002.  The military missed its chance to send the Islamists packing in the wake of the narrow electoral victory mainly out of regard for EU sentiments and a proper regard for the benefits of EU membership.  As the years slipped by, the chances for a military coup slipped away until they were lost beyond any hope in the most recent election where AKP took no prisoners at the polls.

Erdogan had made much of his stated intent to pursue EU membership even though it was more than slightly obvious that France would spare no effort to block the application.  The economic success of the AKP has been based not on trade with the EU but upon increased ties with the Mideast and the Turkish speaking Central Asian Republics.  In the process, a new class of very rich middlemen and entrepreneurs drawn from urban migrants originating in the Anatolian highlands has become a key component of the AKP base.  These new millionaires join with displaced peasants in the slums of Istanbul and Ankara and "conservative" clerics to provide the electoral majority.

The rivals to the AKP drive to the east have been the senior officers of the armed forces along with the "traditional" business and commercial elite of Istanbul.  The military has at its upper ranks men who are far more Western in their outlook, far more liberal in their views as well as far more educated than the mass of the political class and the new moneyed class.  Their instinctive perspective is Western.  That of AKP and its base runs to the East, to the Muslim marches of Central and Northwest Asia--and the states of the old Ottoman Empire.

The seemingly decisive victory of AKP over the inheritors of Ataturk is not universally welcomed in Turkey.  There are more than a few Turks who fear that without the army as a counterweight there will be no limits on Erdogan and AKP.  There is an undercurrent of apprehension that now the Islamists will be free to pursue the goal of reestablishing the old caliphate with all that implies.  Others, unsurprisingly, pooh-pooh that notion and welcome AKP confining the armed forces to a subordinate role and, thus, allowing a return to the values and norms of the pre-Ataturk era.

Very few Turks are aghast at the new diplomatic muscle enjoyed by Ankara in the Mideast and Central Asia. Likewise, very few resent the new economic options brought by the "Ost politik" practiced by Erdogan.  Other than some trepidations over Turkey's ever closer ties to Shia Iran, there have been few complaints over the foreign policy of Erdogan and company.  There is definitely majority support for the very hard line drawn by Erdogan over Israel, particularly the IDF takeover of the Mazi Marmora "humanitarian relief" ship over a year ago.

The net effect has been the tilting of the longstanding conflict between nationalist and Islamist, secularist and Islamist in favor of the latter.  For the moment this is just jake with the majority of Turks.  But, there is likely to be a quick withdrawal of support for AKP should there be heavy handed attempts to "purify" Turkish society of "infidel" aspects.  So far, the party has been sensitive to this dynamic and has moved only slowly to "Islamify" Turkey.

Almost overlooked in the political discussions of the resignations has been another, critical subject: The impact of Turkey's Muslim oriented "Ost politik" on NATO.  In as much as Turkey's membership in the alliance has been considered, it has been in the boilerplate terms of "NATO's second largest army."  As if size matters.

Turkey's large army is also quite irrelevant to NATO in the post-cold war period.  Not only is the army incapable of any effective action outside of Turkey, it has not shown any particular utility in the local "forever war" against the Kurdish defensive insurgency.  Pace NATO public statements (or those of Admiral Mullen), the armed forces of Turkey are totally irrelevant to NATO today and into the future.

The armed forces of Turkey, while large, are also largely immobile, poorly trained, indifferently equipped, overly expensive, a drain on the Turkish fisc, and a political drag on the alliance.  The new Erdogan ministry strongly opposed the US driven invasion of Iraq making much political hay from proclaiming the operation as a "war on Islam and Muslims."  In addition, the Turks have been a major non-participant in the NATO mission in Afghanistan.  And, the AKP government bitterly opposed the no-fly zone and its follow-on in Libya.

There is no reason not to believe that Turkey has passed along critical NATO information to Iran as a part of its charm offensive with Tehran.  The same may be true regarding the opposition in Afghanistan and, possibly, Libya.  Having Turkey in NATO today is tantamount to having the Italy of Mussolini sitting in on the Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff during World War II.

If it is true, as it appears to be, that the Islamists have won in Turkey, the time has come to restructure NATO without Ankara.  The hoary alliance is at a difficult crossroads.  There is looming, embarrassing failure in Libya joining with the rush for the exit in Afghanistan to undercut any lingering credibility accruing to it.  Given further that most NATO members have shown an ability to hit the funding targets akin to the performance of a visually impaired sniper, the time is now to rethink the alliance.  The time is now to contemplate the impossible: The dissolution of NATO.

It is questionable whether or not NATO has any utility or even relevance to the world of now and tomorrow where the major enemy of any and all civilized states are the advocates of violent political Islam.  The best way for civilized states to counter the threat resides not with NATO or any other Cold War artifact but rather with "coalitions of the willing," ad hoc structures of states with coinciding national interests which perceive the threat from violent political Islam or the challenges presented by any particular failed, failing, or hollow state in similar ways.

As George H.W. Bush showed during the Gulf War, the ad hoc coalition can work well provided the necessary preliminary diplomatic work is done with care.  Even George W. Bush's ham handed counterparts worked reasonably well.  In comparison, the NATO effort in Libya has been an example of how not to go about the task.  While this can (correctly) be blamed on the relative absence of the US from  the shooting war, the real lesson to be learned is that the effort was not undertaken by a genuine coalition of the willing.

The AKP has taken Turkey away from the West.  Its lurch to the lands of Islam is understandable and even forgivable.  It is, after all, a choice made by the Turkish electorate--at least up to a point.  We can have no beef about it.

Rather, we should embrace the Turkish policy.  We should use the stimulus to take a long hard look at the role of NATO in our alliance system, and jettison it as currently constituted unless a very strong argument can be made for its continuation.  The inclusion of Turkey was contextual to the cold war; it has no permanent root in the Atlantic community.  This is the geographical, cultural, and political reality.  We should admit it with at least as much honesty as have the Turks.

The ideological and political blocs of the world have reformed since the end of the bi-polar world.  Turkey has recognized this.  The AKP has acknowledged bluntly that religion and language ties trump the artifacts of global alliance politics.  Erdogan and company have chosen their side.

The US and Western Europe can and should do no less.

It's Time To Toss Turkey Out Of NATO

Had it not been for the accidents of geography, the limits of technology, and the plain fact that the Truman Doctrine specifically mentioned Turkey along with Greece as being under direct threat by the Soviet Union, Turkey would never have been invited to join an alliance with the words, North Atlantic, in its name. The original justifications for Turkey's membership in NATO have expired along with the cold war, but had Turkey not changed so much in the past few years, it could still play a major--and positive--role in the new cold war between the civilized states and the countries dominated by political Islam.

It is not as if the US and the other members of NATO had not known for years before the event that simple demographics assured the eventual fall of Turkey to political Islam. (Even the Geek got a timely heads up from a Turkish officer at Leavenworth some fifteen years ago. The captain told the Geek that the Islamist leaning "peasants" from Anatolia outnumbered the urban descendants of Ataturk.)

The astute warning given by the Turk proved accurate. The AKP (Peace and Freedom Party) got the votes and now is the government. To pass legal muster the AKP applied a modicum of rhetorical whitewash to its Islamist manifesto. No sooner did Erdogan and company take over in Ankara than the agenda of political Islam came roaring forth. In its conduct of affairs both internal and external the Erdogan regime has followed the political Islam playbook albeit with less bloodshed than has been the case elsewhere. (They had to be careful at least until the Army was defanged and kept to the barracks.)

To keep the Army muzzled, Erdogan's merry crew used the pending and obviously hopeless petition for membership in the European Union. The idealistic Europeans cooperated by insisting that the Turkish army be firmly subjugated to civilian control so as never again to take over the government as had been the case repeatedly when the civilians allowed too much chaos. (The Geekess witnessed this up close and personal when she lived in Ankara in the early Seventies, ducking bullets as she went to class at a local university.)

A quick wave of arrests of scores of high ranking military officers, both serving and retired, on charges related to a conspiracy of such elaborate and convoluted nature as to rate as very bad fiction finished the job. The admittance of an ever larger number of Islamist recruits from both Anatolia and the urban ghettos filled with displaced Anatolians assured the army became ever more politically reliable, ever more aligned with the political agenda of AKP.

Without the army the diminishing and aging secularist population has little, if any hope of regaining political supremacy. And, absent a secularist, Ataturkian restoration, there is no feasible probability of Turkey being regarded as a civilized state on a par with the other members of NATO.

Erdogan and his supporters have lashed the fortunes and future of their country and fellow citizens firmly to the mast of political Islam. They are convinced that the future has a restored Ottoman Empire and Caliphate in store for them.

Sure, the new, improved Ottoman Empire will be far different from the one which shuffled into oblivion ninety years ago. And, unless firm alliances are made with alternative centers of Islamist power such as Iran and Pakistan, the new AKP version of the Ottoman Empire will be embroiled in war both hot and cold.

It is probable that Ankara and Tehran have an understanding currently. It is probable that the understanding--not unlike the infamous pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in August 1939 has delineated spheres of interest. Again, not unlike the referenced predecessor in cynical exploitation, the understanding will eventually evaporate.

In the meanwhile Turkey can carry the heavy freight in the battle for Iran's bomb. It can also do the pioneering in the fomenting of ever greater quantities of hate Israel sentiment among the useful fools and leftists of the West.

The Erdogan rejection of the West and embrace of the mullahs of Tehran is obvious enough to be visible even to the astigmatic Barack Obama. There is no profit in trying to cozen, bribe, or otherwise make nice to the political Islamists of Ankara. The only road to profit is the one which takes Turkey out of NATO.

The sooner Turkey is invited to hit the highway out of NATO the better for all hands. If nothing else, consider just how much information of a sensitive sort flows from Brussels to Ankara and thence (perhaps) to Tehran. Really, from a purely security standpoint, having Turkey in NATO today makes as much sense as would having Mussolini's Italy as one of the planners of D-Day.

Turkey And The EU--It Is About History--And Religion

The Islamist leaning government of Turkey is in a bit of a snit over the choice of Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as the President of the European Union. The job which is relatively lacking in any semblance of real power went to the colorless Belgian since both France's Nicholas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel wanted it that way. (Who said nationalism is dead and buried, even in the EU?)

The hair up the Turkish nether region is the consequence of some remarks made by Van Rompuy five years ago regarding the pending application of Turkey for membership in the EU. Not to put too fine a point on it, Van Rompuy is against membership.

The Belgian, who most days has the texture and piquancy of an undercooked Belgian waffle, took the position that the admittance of Turkey would dilute, perhaps even pervert, the fundamental values of the Union. These values, Van Rompuy observed, were "also the fundamental values of Christianity."

This unexceptional, historically valid point is what sent the Turks of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) into their fast boost exoatmospheric trajectory.

It probably didn't help that the Belgian also commented, "Turkey is not a part of Europe and will never be a part of Europe."

Not that the Turks haven't tried over the centuries. Just think, "Walls of Vienna." The efforts by the Ottoman Empire, by the Sultan of the Sublime Porte, to extend the sway of Koran and scimitar to Eastern and Central Europe were neither peaceful nor absent a religious as well as a political motive.

The current peaceful attempt by Turkey to "invade" Europe may have economic considerations, but it is also informed by both religion and politics. Given that the AKP seems dedicated to rolling back the secularization initiated by Ataturk gives greater weight to Van Rompuy's views.

There is a fair measure of irony in the words of the AKP's Deputy Chairman for External Affairs, Suat Kiniklioglu, during the course of his interview with the Manchester Guardian. "What is even sadder is that he (Van Rompuy) is making that argument on the basis of the supposed Christian values of the Union. The values we (the Turkish government) envisage are of democracy, transparency, human rights, and the rule of law."

Duh. Just who does the AKP parliamentarian think invented, developed, and died for these values?

Each and every one of the listed values are products of the European historical dynamic. Yes, there are those who can argue that Islam, the Koran, Muslim history can show a dedication to at least the rule of law--provided it is Sharia solely. Yes, there are those who can point to carefully selected and parsed quotes from the Koran to show concern over at least some "human rights."

The same exercise in intellectual masturbation can be undertaken with, for example, the Soviet Constitution adopted in the shadow of show trials and lethal purges during the late Thirties as the Smiling Dictator, Joe Stalin, directed the combined productions. The take away is simply that words can be real pretty--and equally meaningless.

What counts is the effect of the words. The actions taken on their behalf, under their imperatives. What matters is taking the words and making them realities in the street. The history of Europe is a record of taking high sounding words and transforming them from lifeless symbols to street actualities by blood, persistence, and the passage not of years, nor decades but generations, centuries.

While the influence of Judaic thought, Judaic concepts of justice, of law, of duties are far more present in the European cultural matrix and have exercised far greater power on the evolution of European trajectories than many good "Christian" Europeans have cared to admit over the long, long centuries, the primary root of European values are, as Van Rompuy stated, those of Christianity.

The process by which secularism as the leitmotif of government emerged in Europe was one driven by religion. This paradox germinates in the profound ambition on the part of legions of Catholic Popes to be supra-national secular rulers using the force of religious belief as their primary weapon to subjugate or at least control the nascent national rulers of the several coalescing European states.

Secular government must proceed the full flourishing of democracy, transparency, genuine respect for the rights and dignities of the individual as well as the rule of impartial law. It is ironic to say the least that it was Christian ideas, Christian ideals, Christian values which provided the basis to successfully oppose a Christian political institution with theological roots and imperatives--the Catholic Church--so as to bring about the triumph of the secular state.

(It must never be forgotten that organized religions of all stripes are political institutions. That is to say organized religions, even if lacking a centralized and hierarchical structure, pursue political power--defined as the authority, the capacity to materially and directly affect the perceptions, beliefs, and thus the behavior of adherents. Or even non-adherents. But, this is a subject for another post.)

While Christianity, its theology, its many belief systems, carries the seeds of its own removal from institutional political authority, Islam does not. Unlike Christianity, Islam is a total system in which there is no split between the faith and politics, the creed and the legal system, the doctrine and economic activity, the strictures and science. There is no possibility of a state being simultaneously secular (and thus extending benefits, privileges, immunities and rights to all citizens equally) and authentically Islamic. There is absolutely no daylight between the faith and the polity, the community of believers and the community comprising the society.

To put it bluntly: There is no room for the Second Amendment or at least that part relating to the relationship between church and state in the Koran. In the sayings and deeds of the Perfect Man, Mohammad. In Islam.

The Turkish yowls prove that the shoe fits. That the reality, the history of Van Rompuy's comments pinch.

Fortunately M. Van Rompuy is not alone in his views. They are shared by both M. Sarkozy and F. Merkel. They are shared by many, many Europeans even if deprecated by members of the EU's elites, the chattering class, the academics, the Euro-philes for whom the hoi polloi of the many, many streets of Europe are nothing but rude bumpkins, rough peasants, unenlightened, unwashed masses.

In the West, in the US, the notion of "tolerance" like that intellectual perversion of Einstein's mathematics, "cultural relativism," has been raised to the level of a fetish. Our self-appointed elites wave the fetishes of "tolerance," "diversity," and "cultural relativism" while accusing those who do not worship the fetishes as "xenophobic," "Fascist," or simply "prejudiced," "Islamophobic."

It can only be assumed (hoped) this phase of self-loathing will pass before more harm is done by its lamentable existence these past few decades. The West, the US, has much to be proud of, many profound (and profoundly Christian rooted) accomplishments to celebrate.

Not least of these are the very values espoused by the AKP Deputy Chairman of External Affairs: democracy, transparency, human rights, and the rule of law. And, the one he didn't mention but is basic to the others: the triumph of the secular state.

The US and Turkey--Go For the White Meat, Not the Dark

Right now, the US is almost, barely, kind of winning on the military front in Iraq. At the present, our "ally" in the global war on terror, Pakistan, is suspended on a string over the Islamist maw. As I write, the current Administration and many in the mainstream media are casting narrowed eyes and making not-so-veiled threats at the mullahocracy in Iran (with the favor returned on steroids.) Our other "ally," in the region, Saudi Arabia, goes on exporting wannabe jihadists and suicide bombers as it becomes China's number one oil supplier.

Just another fun filled day in the whacky world of US foreign policy.

None of these business-as-usual manifestations bother the Geek. What's annoying him is the situation in Turkey. Well, to err on the side of accuracy, not what is happening in Turkey so much as the possibility that the US will create another completely avoidable mess for itself.

Turkey's majority party is called the AKP. After recent elections, the ruling AKP was returned to power with forty-seven percent of the vote giving it 341 of the 550 seats in the parliament. That was a significant (12 percent) improvement over the preceding election. The Prime Minister, a gentleman named Recep Erdogan, for the second time has proposed his foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, to be the next president of Turkey.

That's the situation. Simple. It's made a little more complex by the requirement that the successful candidate for president receive a two thirds majority in parliament. Last time around, before the most recent elections, Gul didn't get the super-majority. Neither did he get the magic number last week when the parliament had its first round vote.

Still, that is not the problem. Gul will be elected. No doubt about that. Under the Turkish constitution, all he needs is a simple majority when parliament votes a third time.

Here is the problem. The AKP has its roots in an old Islamist party. Turkey is a secular state. Many Turks fear that somehow Gul, Erdogan, and the AKP will roll back the secular reforms which date back to Kemal Ataturk more than seventy-five years ago.

Not only do many (but not most) Turks fear this worst-case outcome, so also do some in the west, particularly bloggers who post on sites such as Maverick News Networks and the Gathering Storm. Looking at the history of Turkey as well as its pivotal geographic and ideological position between the Islamic crescent and the West, the Geek does not share these dark shudders.

No. What the Geek finds worrisome is the probable reaction of the US and the European Union membership (particularly France) to the emergence of a slightly less robustly secular Turkey.

While other, earlier Islamist leaning parties in Turkey have either self-destructed, been totally rejected by the Turkish voters, or been banned by judicial decree, the AKP restructured itself as a secular, European oriented, economic progress seeking party. In this new variety, it received impressive endorsement by the less than monolithic Turkish electorate.

It is true that Gul's wife is a devout Muslim who wears a headscarf. That's a headscarf, not a burka she wears. It is true that AKP has made some mild criticism of some aspects of the Ataturk legacy.

That scarcely makes the AKP or Erdogan or Gull a screaming supporter of Tehran. It does not begin to make them enemies of the West.

The Geek has long held that geography and history have served to make Turkey one of the key if not the key ally of the United States in the region. He has made this judgement on the basis of what is in the relationship for the US. The benefits for us have been the same whether back in the Cold War or during the more recent days of Islamist threat.

Turkey is both a bridge and an outpost. It is a bridge between Europe and Northwest Asia, between the West and the Islamic regions stretching across central Asia and down to the Persian Gulf. It is likewise an outpost, allowing easier collection of vital information, providing a base for soft-power (and perhaps hard-power) projection. In short, it is for the current regional dynamics the equivalent of West Germany during the Cold War.

Erdogan and the AKP well understand that the economic future of Turkey depends upon its role as a bridge. Turkey needs effective regional trade with Iran, Iraq, the Central Asian Republics. Turkey needs better relations with Europe including membership in the European Union.

The AKP has a historic chance (and the Geek does not use that term lightly) to alter the basic nature of Turkish politics. Given its broad mandate, it is possible that AKP will replace the Army as the ultimate guarantor of democratic processes in the country. Given the same mandate, it is possible that AKP will spark a badly needed process of reformation in Islam by showing that a state can be fundamentally secular without destroying the beneficial impact of religion, specifically Islam, on matters of social and economic justice.

If AKP is to have the chance to prove itself, some outside help is needed. The US must, absolutely must, help the Turks in countering the PKK (Kurdish insurgents) operating from the Kurdish region of Iraq. We must do this in our own interests. Currently, only nine percent of the Turkish public sees the US favorably. (A much higher percentage sees Osama bin Ladin favorably.) More shocking, nearly three-quarters of the inhabitants of this fellow NATO nation, whose troops fought and died alongside ours in Korea, think it is likely that the US will invade Turkey.

Beyond giving effective aid in countering the PKK terror attacks, Washington must accept Ankara's attempts to reach commercial and diplomatic understandings with both Iran and Syria, much as the current Administration detests both regimes. Turkey has coinciding national interests with both Iran and Syria many of which are spelled k-u-r-d-s. Others involve oil and water, two critical fluids both in the region and around the world.

The European Union would be very well advised to act quickly and favorably on Turkey's pending membership application. It would go a long way to settle long standing frictions regarding Turkish national employed and living in European countries. Mr Sarkozy, who maintains he is more pro-American than his predecessors as French President. should pay attention to both European and American better interests and support the Turkish application.

Many critics of Islam including some Muslims have argued that Islam needs a reformation similar to that which hit Christianity five hundred years ago. Turkey, because of geography and history, has the best chance of bringing a reformation into existence.

Give the Turks a chance. Give the AKP a chance.

It's in the world's best interests.