Daniel Pipes - Israel Hayom
I nominate Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the most inconsistent, mysterious and
unpredictable major politician on the world stage. His referendum
victory this month formally bestows him with near-dictatorial powers
that leave Turkey, the Middle East, and beyond in a greater state of
uncertainty than ever.
Here are some of the puzzles:
Mystery 1: Holding the
referendum. The Turkish electorate voted on April 16 in a remarkable
national plebiscite that dealt not with the usual topic -- floating a
bond or recalling a politician -- but with fundamental constitutional
changes affecting the very nature of their government: Should the
country continue with the flawed democracy of the past 65 years or
centralize political power in the presidency? Under the new
dispensation, the prime minister vaporizes and the president holds vast
power over parliament, the judiciary, the budget, and the military.
Turks generally saw the
18 proposed changes to the constitution as a momentous decision. Famed
novelist Elif Safak spoke for most when she wrote that Turkey's
referendum "could alter the country's destiny for generations to come."
After the referendum passed, some of those opposed to it cried in the
streets. "Turkey as we know it is over; it is history," wrote Yavuz
Baydar, a journalist. Defense & Foreign Affairs assessed the
referendum as perhaps "the most significant and transformative change
in Eurasia, the Middle East, and parts of Africa since the collapse of
the USSR in 1990-91."
But there's a catch:
For years, Erdogan has held the powers the referendum gives him. He is
the boss in Turkey who can bend the country to his wishes. Anyone --
cartoonist, cafeteria manager, or Canadian -- accused of "insulting the
president" can be fined or jailed. A former prime minister or
president who dares disagree with Erdogan vanishes from public life. He
alone makes war or peace. What Erdogan wants, he gets, regardless of
constitutional niceties.
Erdogan's fixation on
officially imbuing the office of the presidency with the vast powers he
already has in practice prompted him to steal an election, fire a prime
minister, start a near-civil war with the Kurds, and provoke a crisis
with Europe. Why did he bother with all this for a mere superfluity?
Mystery 2: The
referendum results. Erdogan brought enormous pressure to bear for a
momentous victory in the referendum. He made full use of his control of
most media. Mosques were mobilized. In the words of one international
organization, in several cases, "No" supporters "have faced police
interventions while campaigning; a number were also arrested on charges
of insulting the president or organizing unlawful public events."
Opponents also lost their jobs, met with media boycotts, faced
electricity outages, and got beaten up. A week before the referendum,
Erdogan even announced that the "No" voters risk their afterlife. Then,
according to a Swedish nongovernmental organization, "widespread and
systematic election fraud, violent incidents and scandalous steps taken
by" the election board "overshadowed the voting."
Despite this, the
referendum passed by a perplexingly meager 51.4 to 48.6%. Were it fairly
conducted, why would Erdogan take the chance of losing, thereby
diminishing his stature and reducing his sway? Were the referendum
fixed -- entirely possible, given his party's record -- why was the
affirmative vote so low and not a more imposing 60, 80, or -- why not --
99%? The unimpressive 51.4% majority virtually invited opposition
parties, supported by the European Union and others, to challenge the
legitimacy of the referendum, raising awkward questions that Erdogan
surely preferred not discussed.
Mystery 3: Gulen:
Erdogan wantonly ended a key alliance with fellow-Islamist Fethullah
Gulen, transforming a stalwart ally into a determined domestic opponent
who challenged Erdogan's primacy and revealed his corruption. In his
political war with Gulen, an elderly Muslim cleric living in the
Poconos of rural Pennsylvania, Erdogan implausibly claimed that Gulen's
movement had planned and led an alleged coup attempt in July 2016; then
he cracked down on Gulen's followers and anyone else who met with his
displeasure, leading to 47,000 arrests, 113,000 detainments, 135,000
firings or suspensions from jobs, and many, many more entering the
shadows of "social death." Erdogan went further, demanding that
Washington extradite Gulen to Turkey and threatening a rupture if he
did not get his way: "Sooner or later the U.S. will make a choice.
Either Turkey or [Gulen]."
Why did Erdogan pick a
fight with Gulen, creating turmoil within Turkish Islamist ranks and
jeopardizing relations with the United States?
Mystery 4: Semantic
purism. The European Union reluctantly agreed to visa-free travel for 75
million Turks to its huge Schengen Zone, a benefit that would
potentially allow Erdogan to push out unwanted Kurds and Syrian
refugees, not to speak of increasing his influence in countries like
Germany and the Netherlands. But the EU made this access contingent on
narrowing Turkey's vaguely worded anti-terrorism laws; it demanded
"revising the legislation and practices on terrorism in line with
European standards." Erdogan could have made this meaningless
concession and arrested anyone he wanted on other charges, but he
refused to ("It's impossible to revise the legislation and practices on
terrorism," intoned one of his ministers) and forewent an
extraordinary opportunity.
Mystery 5: Canny or
megalomaniacal. Erdogan became prime minister in 2003 and for eight
years governed cautiously, overseeing remarkable economic growth,
mollifying the military leadership that held the country's ultimate
power, and successfully pursuing a policy of "zero problems with
neighbors." In contrast to the hapless Mohammed Morsi, who lasted just a
year as president of Egypt, Erdogan timed his moves with such deftness
that, for example, hardly anyone noticed in July 2011 when he subdued
the military.
That was then. Since
2011, however, Erdogan repeatedly has fomented his own problems. He
gratuitously turned Syria's Bashar Assad from his favorite foreign
leader (the two and their wives once even vacationed together) into a
mortal enemy. He shot down a Russian fighter plane, then abjectly had
to apologize. He lost out on a pipeline transporting eastern
Mediterranean gas to Europe.
He illegally built
himself on protected land an absurdly large palace, the largest in the
world since Nicolae Ceausescu's disastrous People's Palace in
Bucharest. In a particularly ignoble farce, Erdogan showed up at the
funeral of American boxer Muhammad Ali to give a speech, deliver
presents, and have his picture taken with family members, only to be
rejected in all these requests and slink back home.
He makes enemies
everywhere he goes. In Ecuador, Erdogan's bodyguards handcuffed three
pro-Kurdish Ecuadorian women and roughed up a parliamentarian who tried
to protect them. When asked about this incident, the deputy speaker of
Ecuador's legislature replied, "Until Erdogan's bodyguards assaulted a
deputy, our public was not aware of Turkey. Nobody knew who was a Turk
or a Kurd. Now everybody knows and naturally we are on the side of the
Kurds. We don't want to see Erdogan in our country again."
What happened to the cunning leader of a decade back?
Erdogan's Islamist
supporters sometimes suggest that he's on his way to declaring himself
caliph. As the 100th anniversary of the Istanbul-based caliphate's
abolition approaches, he may find this tempting; depending on whether
he uses the Islamic or Christian calendar, that could happen,
respectively, on either March 10, 2021 or March 4, 2024. You heard it
here first.
Sadly, Western
responses to Erdogan have been confused and weak-kneed. German
Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to hauling comedian Jan Bohmermann into
court for ridiculing Erdogan. U.S. President Donald Trump actually
congratulated Erdogan on his tyrannical victory and rewarded him with a
meeting next month. And Australians defer on account of the Gallipoli
commemorations.
It's time to see
Erdogan for the dictatorial, Islamist, anti-Western egomaniac he is,
and protect his neighbors and ourselves from the damage he is already
causing and the greater problems to come. Removing U.S. nuclear weapons
from Incirlik Air Base would be one step in the right direction; even
better would be to put Ankara on notice that its active NATO membership
is in jeopardy pending a dramatic turnaround in behavior.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário