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The fall of the would-be emperor

By Alon Ben-Meir - posted Monday, 24 November 2014


Erdogan's follies have severely strained Turkey's relations with the United States, going back to the Iraq war in 2003. More recently, Turkey rebuffed the US' request to use its air base near the Syrian border to aid the besieged Kurds in Kobani.

The US has openly criticized Turkey's open border policy and the "jihadist highway" that has been created as the Turkish government did little to stop the flow of fighters joining ISIS.

Presently, there is intense discussion in the Obama administration about Turkey's worthiness as an ally, its importance as a NATO member, and the extent to which the US should cooperate strategically and share intelligence with Turkey.

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As a part of Erdogan's ambition to solidify his domestic and regional power, he embarked on a systematic Islamization campaign, aggressively making Turkey an ever-more Islamic state while openly supporting Islamist groups such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Many suspect that he in fact supports the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which could explain why he refused to join the American coalition against ISIS, albeit under the pretense that the PKK and the Syrian Kurds are one and the same.

Erdogan made Islamic credentials central to high profile political and military appointments. To further imbue the educational system with Islam, he transferred more than 800 people from the Religious Affairs Directorate to the Education Ministry.

He provoked outrage when he likened abortion to murder, pushed to allow more religious schools to create a new "pious generation," annulled the ban on headscarves, and enacted a controversial law banning the sale of alcohol overnight.

He doubled the number of schools that train Sunni Islamic clerics and instructed the military to include 'basic religious education.' In addition, the number of mosques has increased by more than 7,000 throughout his tenure.

Erdogan's obsession with Islam went as far as claiming that "Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th century," which is far removed from the historic account. And his claim that "Muslim sailors arrived in America from 1178" is as absurd as his unfounded claim that "Columbus mentioned the existence of a mosque on a hill on the Cuban coast."

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In order to consolidate his power, Erdogan understood that a strong economy is key to prevent the rise of domestic opposition to his wildly unpopular social and political actions.

In the summer of 2013, he cracked down on peaceful demonstrators in Gezi Park and arrested scores of journalists who are still languishing in jail. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, there are more journalists in prison in Turkey than in China or Iran.

He instructed internal intelligence to spy on ordinary people and passed a new law that empowers the intelligence agency to collect private data without the need for a court order.

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About the Author

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

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Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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