Posted on 09/05/2004 10:36:45 PM PDT by MegaSilver
“The generals must be having nightmares.” So observed a Turkish analyst after his country’s parliament passed laws last week dramatically reducing the political role of the country’s armed forces. Those laws will “revolutionize the conduct of Turkish politics,” observes London’s Daily Telegraph.
What might seem like bureaucratic wrangling has such potentially profound importance because the Turkish armed forces have long been Turkey’s main bastion for political moderation and close relations with the United States and Israel; how will the country fare absent this steady hand?
The question is the more urgent because last week’s overhaul was carried out by the Justice and Development Party (known in Turkish as AKP), an enigmatic organization that has dominated Turkish politics since its smashing electoral victory in November 2002. Since then, the key issue of Turkish public life has been whether the AKP is:
· A militant Islamic party with authoritarian tendencies and a hidden agenda of radical change (as its opponents claim); or
· A secular party with moderately conservative views (as the AKP portrays itself).
Early signs were positive. Recep Tayyip Erdoðan, the AKP leader and now Turkey’s prime minister, gave assurances that the AKP is “not a religious-oriented party” and insisted it has no intent to impose Islamic law. The party made soothing noises about putting off substantial changes until it had won the electorate’s trust. It emphasized economic development and joining the European Union, not Islamic hot-button issues.
Optimists surveyed Erdoðan’s record and concluded along with two leading Turkish professors, Metin Heper and Þule Toktaþ, that he is “not pro-political Islam.” Others went further: American journalist Robert Kaplan proposed that the AKP could “usher in an Islamic version of the Protestant Reformation,” leading to a general turn toward liberalism in the Middle East. Kaplan also raised the possibility that the AKP in power could benefit Americans by widening popular Turkish support for alliance with the United States.
But pessimists noted AKP’s origins in two political parties subsequently outlawed for their militant Islamic activism. “The people who control AKP are much more extreme than they say,” asserted one worried Turkish official. The Turkish military worried too; thus, Chief of Staff Hilmi Özkök reportedly warned the newly assembled cabinet that “the Turkish armed forces will continue to devote all of its attention to protecting secularism.”
The glow of optimism dimmed in March 2003, when the Turkish parliament, firmly in the AKP grip, voted against permitting U.S. forces to deploy in Turkey against Iraq, overnight sundering decades of mutual confidence. Initial AKP attempts to hide behind parliamentary inexperience wore thin when Erdoðan later insisted his party “never made any mistakes” on this vote.
The vote had many consequences. It increased tensions between the AKP and the military. It upset the U.S. government; Paul Wolfowitz of the Department of Defense dubbed the decision a “big, big mistake.” It prompted a reassessment among Turkey’s American friends; William Safire wrote with dismay in The New York Times how the AKP had transformed a “formerly staunch U.S. ally into Saddam’s best friend.” And it raised new fears about the AKP’s covert militant Islamic agenda.
The optimistic view further eroded when it became known that the Turkish foreign minister, an AKP leader, had instructed Turkey’s diplomatic missions abroad to support a virulent militant Islamic group called Milli Görüþ – described by a Hamburg court as the “greatest danger” to a democratic order in Germany. Nor did it help when an AKP-dominated parliamentary committee voted to multiply nine-fold the number of new government-paid mosque positions.
By May, Gen. Özkök was privately scolding Erdoðan. Publicly, he spoke of military “sensitivities” concerning the AKP and warned it against engaging in “anti-secular activities.” He even alluded to the military possibly removing the AKP from power.
In this context, last week’s vote represents the AKP throwing down the gauntlet. Ignoring the military’s objections, it passed laws in the context of preparing Turkey for European Union membership that heavily restrict the generals’ political influence.
This action raises two questions: Will the flag officers accept this limitation? And is this the start of a process that could transform Turkey, for 80 years the stalwart of secularism in the Muslim Middle East, into an Islamic republic?
The stakes are huge. Stay tuned.
I'm told that the AKP arose out of the ashes of a banned Sharia group in Turkey. If we have any weaponry in Turkey left over from the Cold War, might want to get it out. It's arguable that the AKP won't try to revert the nation back to a Caliphate so long as the military is around to stop it, but do not underestimate the strength of guerilla warfare (think Michael Collins and the I.R.A.). If an Islamic movement gains enough popular support, the Turkish military might be powerless to stop it.
Anyone with Middle East, Islamic, WOT, etc. ping lists out there?
The secular Kemalist state, by definition, can not escape the militarys veto by some political shift. It is however in everyones best interest to appear otherwise.
Perhaps, a_Turk can answer this.
UNDOUBTEDLY TRUE. They tried a couple of times with a more radical islamist public agenda but those parties were ruled illegal. They finally figured out how to hide their goals so they could take power, and now they're slowly shifting the setup so that radical Islam can take over without military intervention.
The secular Kemalist state, by definition, can not escape the militarys veto by some political shift. --nky
First they neuter the military, then they turn the country to Islamic government.
Another thing they got from Clinton - triangulation.
Its the old non sequiter that the tick can somehow grow bigger than the dog.
Turkey gave women the right to vote before we did, and banned the veil in government places decades before any european country tried.
BTTT
Turkiya's military has been political for so long, the generals will not submit to being summarily de-fanged by a piece of legislative paper. Who's gonna take their guns away from them? The military has a political agenda which they will compromise, but only to a point.
>> If an Islamic movement gains enough popular support, the Turkish military might be powerless to stop it.
That's a laff.. The Turkish Military IS the nation. And the nation, male or female, likes the political system.
Going from a monarchy to a fundamentalist dictatorship is no biggie. Turkey is a democracy where all executive and legislative positions are elected. I'd like to see some chump try to take away the women's right to vote in Turkey. LOL!
Daniel Pipes is a jerk, imo.. But he has an audience in people who are able to ask questions like "If we have any weaponry in Turkey left over from the Cold War.."
Turks have enemies in the US, who'd like to see her broken up. It's in their interest that articles such as this one are published to keep sowing the seeds of uncertainty among the quasi-educated readers in the US..
Robert Kaplan, though, is right - yet that "protestant" movement has happened 80 years ago.
Nothing to see here, move along..
time for a coup
That's actually not true. Majority of Mullahs oppose religious theocracy, at least the high-ranking ones. For instance, there are 12 grand ayatollahs in Theocratic Iran, but 10 are oppossed to the current regime and prefer a separation of mosque from state. However, those that do support it do through violence and roasing up sentiment among the poor; typically they blame outside influence for all their ills instead of themselves.
Perhaps... but I hope you'll forgive me if the election of the AKP makes me a little wary.
I dunno. I just look at what's happening in the West, with second-generation minorities (and I'm not just talking about Muslims, either; in the U.S. we have a rising tide of Mexican gangs) being even more attracted to gangs than their parents. If something drastic enough were to happen, it's certainly possible to radically transform the political climate of a country very quickly. The Vietnam War is an excellent example; the particular subculture that rose out of that is now a part of the American mainstream, and the consequences for our lives have been... not pretty.
Daniel Pipes is a jerk, imo.. But he has an audience in people who are able to ask questions like "If we have any weaponry in Turkey left over from the Cold War.."
Turks have enemies in the US, who'd like to see her broken up. It's in their interest that articles such as this one are published to keep sowing the seeds of uncertainty among the quasi-educated readers in the US.
Though I readily concede that I'm "quasi-educated," with only a year of college under my belt.
Thanks for your points of correction, I guess.
College won't help with this..
I had a history prof at a us college with whom I had to argue that Turkey is not an islamic republic. That was 20 years ago. He gave me a very hard time after that, but f him.
Web search engines won't help either, unless you weed out all the hateful anti-turk propaganda. As Turkey and the US are very similar in many ways albeit at different points in time (economic powers, expansionist, multi-ethnic, multi-religious) there are those who are anti-American or Anti-Turkish all over the world. Watch what you read, most of what's out there is absolute crap.
You may want to look at the history of the articles by Robert Kaplan, who by no means started out as pro-Turk. Yet as the decades went by, his level of education on the topic was elevated.
There also quite a few books you'll find, yet many of them just plain suck, still influenced by the centuries of warfare driven by competing trade interests with the Europeans.
College will do little to help..
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