Israel Matzav

The end of secular Turkey?

On Sunday, Turkey voted a series of sweeping changes in its constitution, which, among other things, subject its military to its civilian courts and allow the government to 'pack' those courts. The changes were immediately haled by the Obama administration, as well as by the European Union, which regarded the previous situation - where the army fell outside the courts' jurisdiction - as an anti-democratic impediment to Turkey's admission to the European Union.

But what the US and the EU have ignored is the Turkish army's history as the bulwark of secularism and the ruling AKP party's bid - especially in the last four years - to turn Turkey into an Islamist state. I've already noted the vote's ominous implications for Israel and for Turkey's small Jewish community. But the rest of the world doesn't yet seem to understand the urgency of the situation.

I have tended to be an optimist about the AKP, in part because the [opposition party] CHP governments of the 1990s were so terribly corrupt. In my view, the Kemalist corruption damaged Ataturk's legacy. However, history also justifies Ataturk's concern for the threat to Turkey posed by anti-democratic Islamists.

Today, accusations of corruption tag the AKP, and the AKP's foreign policy gyrations over the last three years do not bode well of stable U.S.-Turkey relations.

After Sunday's election, I had the opportunity to chat with Gerald Robbins, senior fellow at Foreign Policy Research Institute. Robbins' take is dire. "Although the military is now subject to civilian courts and their oversight, the very composition of those courts is fraught with controversy." The court packing to favor the AKP may well occur.

Turkey Prime Minister and leader of the AKP Recep Tayyip Erdogan has, in Robbin's view "effectively scuttled the secularist-dominated military and judicial power bases under the auspices of greater 'democratization.'" Then Robbins added, "Sept. 12, 2010, might be marked as the day Kemal Ataturk's secularist vision effectively ended, and a new Islamist-influenced era began."

I told him I hope he is wrong. My gut says he isn't. The last thing Turkey and the world need is a Sultan Erdogan.

NATO? American and Israeli weapons systems? Do I need to continue listing the implications of an Islamist Turkey?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:26 PM