Turkey: Erdogan’s New ‘Ottoman Region’

Daniel 2:28,41, “But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and He has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days… Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay.”

Daniel 11:43-44, “He shall have power over the treasures of gold and silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt; also the Libyans and Ethiopians [shall follow] at his heels. But news from the east and the north shall trouble him; therefore he shall go out with great fury to destroy and annihilate many.”

By Harold Rhode – “Erdogan’s recent electoral victory speech puts his true intentions regarding Turkey’s foreign policy goals in perspective. He said that this victory is as important in Ankara as it is in the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sarajevo, under Ottoman times, an important Ottoman city; that his party’s victory was as important in a large Turkish city, Izmir, on the Western Anatolian coast, as it is in Damascus, and as important in Istanbul as it is in Jerusalem.

What does all this mean? At the very least, this victory speech signals a wish for Ottoman cultural colonialism and imperialism. The places Erdogan names were all part of by the Ottoman Empire; the territory of the modern Turkish Republic is what remained after World War I and Turkey’s War of Independence from the occupying Allied forces. Turkey forms only the central part, and relatively small fraction, of what had been the Ottoman Empire, which at its height extended deep into southern Europe, and included most of today’s Arab world and even beyond.

In saying that this victory is as important in all of these former Ottoman cities, Erdogan apparently sees himself as trying to reclaim Turkey’s full Ottoman past. In religious terms, the entire reason for being of the Ottoman Empire was to spread the Sunni form of Islam prevalent there. Sunnis, who make up about 85% of the Muslim world, believe that when Mohammed died, the leadership of Islam was passed down through what amounted to the Meccan artistocracy, and not through Mohammed’s family — which is what the Shi’ites believe. The cities Erdogan mentioned are almost all Sunni, with a few non-Sunni ones thrown in.

The Ottomans had two major rivals: the non-Muslim Europeans to the northwest, and the Shi’ite Persian Empire to the east. Although the Ottomans saw each enemy as presenting a different set of problems, they saw their own role in traditional Sunni Muslim terms: Continuing the Jihad, namely the conquest of the non-Muslim world…

Shi’ites, as opposed to non-Muslims, have always been seen by Sunnis as an existential threat to Sunnism. Shi’ites, who make up about 12-15% of the Muslim world, believe that the only true rulers of Islam are Mohammed’s direct descendants, not merely local ‘aristocracy,’ as the Sunnis believe; these rulers they call Imams…

In spite of the historical animosity between Turkish Sunnis and the non-Sunni rulers of the neighboring countries –- such as the Shiites in Iran and Iraq, and the Alawis ruling Syria — Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria tried to forge a loose political and economic alliance, which lasted until the beginning of what the Arabs called the ‘Arab Facebook Revolution,’ and which we in the West call ‘The Arab Spring.’ But Erdogan’s Sunni inclinations seem to have overcome his political ambitions with his neighbors as the Sunni-non-Sunni basic differences re-emerged, as well as for political and economic reasons.

At the moment Erdogan is threatened by other problems that Iran is bringing to his doorstep…” Read more.