Newsweek: Turkey Trumping Islam Over Democracy, Seeks To Become Major World Power

In seeking to become a major world power, Turkey’s rapid shift towards an Islamist theocracy means we may soon see this “King of the North” make a stand on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood, the former Islamist rulers in Egypt and Turkish ally. And having one of the largest militaries in the Muslim world isn’t good news for the Egyptian military’s “King of the South” General Al-Sisi, nor for Israel …

“The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers …” – Islamic poem quoted by Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Daniel 11:40-43, “At the time of the end the king of the South will engage him in battle, and the king of the North will storm out against him with chariots and cavalry and a great fleet of ships. He will invade many countries and sweep through them like a flood. He will also invade the Beautiful Land. Many countries will fall … He will extend his power over many countries; Egypt will not escape. He will gain control of the treasures of gold and silver and all the riches of Egypt, with the Libyans and Cushites in submission.”

By Benny Avni, Newsweek – “Turkey is looking around for new allies – and that is not good news for America.

Although Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long been essential to President Barack Obama’s strategy in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, and although he boasts the second largest army in the American-led NATO, he is currently exploring new alliances with some of America’s main commercial and political competitors and long-established enemies.

By reaching out to countries like China and Iran, Erdogan is expressing his disappointment at America’s perceived withdrawal from the region, according to some foreign policy analysts. He has snubbed advances from America’s arms manufacturers, hosted top officials from Tehran and deepened a rift with Israel, its former ally. Others believe he is returning to his former policy, long considered a failure, of seeking ties with everybody in the neighborhood and beyond.

But recent dramatic shifts in policy may also be part of Erdogan’s search for a new political role, steering Turkey away from its century-long secularism and turning it towards a new model in which Islam trumps democracy and Turkey moves from being not simply one more member of the NATO alliance but a major world power in its own right with ties around the globe.

Erdogan was quick to develop a special relationship with Obama, who saw the policies of his Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) as a model for how Islam and democracy can exist side by side. But Erdogan was unhappy about Obama’s reluctance to intervene in Syria’s civil war and some of his latest diplomatic moves have raised eyebrows in Washington.

‘Relations remain good,’ said Steven Cook of the Council of Foreign Relations, a longtime Turkey watcher. But, he adds, a nagging question now arises in American foreign policy circles: ‘What is it that Turkey provides?’

As Ankara seeks new alliances, Erdogan’s opponents, both inside and outside the country, point to his ‘neo-Ottomanism.’ Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, a former academic who is the main architect of the AKP’s foreign policy shifts, often invokes the memory of the old Ottoman Empire, complete with dropping the names of the empire’s major outposts. ‘Without going to war, we will again tie Sarajevo to Damascus, Benghazi to Erzurum and to Batumi,’ he promised recently.

There are many signs of Turkey’s departure from the century-old traditions established by the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – who turned the country into an outward facing, secular, Western-friendly state in the aftermath of the Ottoman defeat in World War I. Erdogan is so hostile to Ataturk, he can’t even bring himself to utter the words Istanbul Ataturk Airport. This week, in another sign he is shifting Turkey in a new direction, he clashed with students in Istanbul who were afraid he’d outlaw mixed-sex apartment-sharing, which is seen by some in his entourage as sinful and un-Islamic.” Read more.

Flashback: Turkey’s Ottoman Empire

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