Erdogan

NATO is essentially a security alliance. Its preamble, however, states that the organization is founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law. The grossly autocratic one-man show in Turkey, a NATO member, features none of that. According to the 2021 Democracy Index prepared by Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), Turkey ranks 103rd among 167 countries. The index evaluation was based on five criteria: electoral processes and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties.

The northernmost region of Syria, which has a 910-kilometer border with Turkey, offers one of the world’s most complex war theaters. That is so not only because of the countless number of state and non-state actors operating in this third-world land with limited hydrocarbons, but also because of shifting alliances, conflicts with conventional and asymmetrical warfare tactics, and the surreal bedfellows that these factors often create.

The actors include countless radical jihadist groups and their 3.5 million civilian supporters; not-as-radical jihadist groups supported by Turkey, as well as Turkish, American, Russian and Syrian forces, and of course Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

While the government of Turkey continues to crush the basic human rights and freedoms of its citizens, its officials are making statements completely detached from facts. On October 17, for instance, the head of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee Çağatay Kılıç said that “racism and discrimination against religious identities in Europe have reached a peak.”

“A human being is an entity with thoughts, feelings, beliefs and social networks,” he added. “If a person is not allowed to live with these characteristics, this person’s fundamental rights and freedoms are taken away from them.”

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s Islamist president, has been invincible since he burst on the political scene three decades ago. In 1994, he was elected mayor of Istanbul, Turkey’s biggest city. In 2002, he was elected prime minister and, in 2014, president of Turkey. Since 2002, he has not lost a single parliamentary, municipal or presidential election. The dream story, however, may be over in June 2023 when Turks will vote in twin presidential and parliamentary elections.

Turks are suffering. According to the findings of the pollster Optimar, 76.6% of Turks think their top problems are inflation and unemployment.

Abused child Erdogan grew into a man who believes ‘minarets are our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers” – and Europe is theirs.

You are not the son of a Bank of Italy manager like Mario Draghi, of a neurology professor like Emmanuel Macron, of a CDU politician like Ursula Von Der Leyen, of a ministerial executive like Pedro Sánchez, of an academic like Magdalena Andersson or of a European commissioner like Charles Michel, just to name a few European leaders.

No, you are the son of a poor, overbearing sailor whose shoes you kissed to display respect and who, when you offended a neighbor, hung you from the ceiling as punishment; you are a child who was selling bread and lemons on the street corners of the popular and infamous Kasimpasa neighborhood in Istanbul, where as a boy you were already known as the “Big Brother,” you who would become the head of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Turkey is a year away from presidential and parliamentary elections. Many Turks are starving. Literally. Their per capita GDP of around $9,500 has crushed many of them under a triple-digit inflation rate and a fast-depreciating national currency, while independent economists warn that this may be only the beginning of worse torment in a country of 84 million people, excluding 9 million refugees and migrants.

Many Turks, although starving, are nevertheless proud that they have a leader who can confront the “infidel West” — including their traditional rival and neighbor, Greece. It is precisely this feeling that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose popularity has been plummeting in recent months, sees as a national weakness to stoke. Warmongering, the Islamist strongman evidently calculates, may convince the Turks to support revisionist bullying and ignore their misery.

The US and the EU should not buy Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s fake pro-Western posture (such as when he offered to run the Kabul airport, then fled) or his fake anti-radicalism (such as when he is courting the Afghan terrorists). Erdogan’s strategy, as a member of NATO, is clearly to bolster Russia’s and China’s plans for the future of Afghanistan.

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 in support of the communist Afghan government, then in conflict with radical Muslim fighters, Turkey was having its own civil war between ultra-left and ultra-right factions. In September 1980, the Turkish military staged a coup d’état and banned all political parties, including Islamist ones.

One of the hottest issues in the 50-minute discussion between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and U.S. President Joe Biden during the NATO summit of June 14 was NATO member Turkey’s acquisition of the Russian-made S-400 long-range air defense system and subsequent U.S. sanctions, including expelling Turkey from the U.S.-led multinational consortium that builds the F-35 fifth-generation fighter jet. Unsurprisingly, the meeting ended without a solution. That is bad news for the Turkish Air Force (TuAF).