Turkey’s Downward Spiral

noise said:
Not long ago it would have seemed unthinkable to add Turkey to the list of countries — including North Korea, Iran and Russia — that the United States had sanctioned for unscrupulous behavior.
As a NATO ally, Turkey has a mutual defense treaty with Washington,
benefits from American intelligence and hosts American nuclear weapons at Incirlik air base, near its border with Syria.

As August began, however, President Trump named Turkey’s interior and justice ministers as “specially designated nationals” barred from doing business with Americans and gaining access to financial assets in the United States. On Friday, Mr. Trump announced in a tweet that he had authorized a doubling of the steel and aluminum tariffs against Turkey.

The object is to force the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to release Andrew Brunson, an American and evangelical Christian pastor who has been imprisoned by Turkey since 2016 on trumped-up charges of aiding an aborted coup by Erdogan opponents.

The current tension is a far cry from the camaraderie expressed at the NATO meeting last month, when Mr. Trump fist-bumped Mr. Erdogan, previously one of his favorite strongmen. But it’s also the latest example of how dangerously frayed the United States-Turkey relationship, with its accumulating resentments, has become over the past decade, giving rise to the question: Is Turkey still an American ally?

Strong ties between the two nations go back to World War II. With NATO’s second-largest army, after America’s, Turkey anchors NATO’s eastern flank, and the country has long been viewed as a bridge between the Muslim world and the West. But Mr. Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian rule and the regional unrest caused by the Syrian conflict have tested this bond.
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Turkey has always been a fair-weather friend. US foreign policy could use more pragmatism--use them they way they use us and toss their concerns aside if it isn't in our interest. They are refusing to comply with the US ban on Iranian oil. It should cost them consequences. If you don't punish them, they won't ever suffer a cost for all the benefit they receive from us.
 
Kacper said:
Turkey has always been a fair-weather friend. US foreign policy could use more pragmatism--use them they way they use us and toss their concerns aside if it isn't in our interest. They are refusing to comply with the US ban on Iranian oil. It should cost them consequences. If you don't punish them, they won't ever suffer a cost for all the benefit they receive from us.
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Since when? Erdogan is relatively new on the Turkish scene.

China and India are also NOT going to comply with the ban on Iranian oil.
 
kudzu said:
Since when? Erdogan is relatively new on the Turkish scene.

China and India are also NOT going to comply with the ban on Iranian oil.
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None of those who stayed in the agreement should comply. Trump made his decision, the others are honoring the agreement.
 
Phantasmal said:
None of those who stayed in the agreement should comply. Trump made his decision, the others are honoring the agreement.
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Do you recall the name of a Turkish political writer about 15-20 years ago.. He was brilliant.. I want to say his name was something like Herclav.
 
noise said:
fter Mr. Erdogan took office in 2003 and began reforms, Turkey looked set to become a model Muslim democracy with aspirations to join the European Union, a path similar to that taken by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk a century ago when he founded Turkey as a pro-Western, secular republic.

Mr. Erdogan, who heads the country’s largest Islamic party, probably was never a real democrat. But over the years, he has shown his true colors as an autocrat, skilled at promoting economic populism, militant nationalism and social conservatism — all while cultivating his own cult of personality. He has all but crushed independent media, jailing journalists and other critics, and fosters corruption. He effectively took control of all government institutions when he was re-elected in June under a new, more centralized presidential system.

Experts offer a number of reasons for Turkey’s democratic implosion. Ataturk imposed democracy from above, focusing on the elite, as opposed to cultivating it organically, from the citizenry up. In June’s election, a few credible candidates emerged to challenge Mr. Erdogan. Still, in general, Turkey’s political opposition has for years been fractured and feckless, detached from much of the population and offering no compelling alternative to Mr. Erdogan, who has been the only leader to effectively appeal to religious communities that have long felt marginalized.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/...-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region
Mr. Erdogan was emboldened in 2007 when the military,......
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Ataturk never really established a democracy. He established republican and liberal institutions which he hoped would eventually catch on, but in most respects he ruled Turkey as a single party state.
 
Havana Moon said:
Erdogan is a total bastard, he needs to go.
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He has total control of Turkey for at least five years. Turkey is doomed. They had the misfortune of "electing" their Trump a decade ago, and this is the eventual end result. Erdogan will rule Turkey with an iron fist until the day he dies, just as Trump will rule America until the day he dies, and so will his appointed successor.
 
kudzu said:
I don't know.. but it hardly seem right for the US to cook up a war and Turkey to be swarmed with refugees.
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Yes, all of Europe now suffers the burden of too many refugees as a result of the Neocon's idiotic Long War.
Destroy their Homeland and they leave, it is a given, yet even now, we bomb and drone and threaten. Fools
 
Rune said:
Yes, all of Europe now suffers the burden of too many refugees as a result of the Neocon's idiotic Long War.
Destroy their Homeland and they leave, it is a given, yet even now, we bomb and drone and threaten. Fools
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That has NEVER occurred to Trump.
 
DISBAND ICE said:
He has total control of Turkey for at least five years. Turkey is doomed. They had the misfortune of "electing" their Trump a decade ago, and this is the eventual end result. Erdogan will rule Turkey with an iron fist until the day he dies, just as Trump will rule America until the day he dies, and so will his appointed successor.
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You got it! Trump is like Erdogan.
 
DISBAND ICE said:
Ataturk never really established a democracy. He established republican and liberal institutions which he hoped would eventually catch on, but in most respects he ruled Turkey as a single party state.
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Before Erdogan Turkey was very secular.. and had basically rooted out all extreme Islamic ideas. I am curious at what caused the shift.
 
Rune said:
Maybe we were wrong to invade.
Is France a reliable Ally?
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Well, it's not Islamic, so, I'm going to vote my approval for France as a reliable ally. They did knife us in the back during the retaliatory airstrike against Libya, following the discotheque bombing, though.
 
DISBAND ICE said:
Ataturk never really established a democracy. He established republican and liberal institutions which he hoped would eventually catch on, but in most respects he ruled Turkey as a single party state.
Click to expand...
Ataturk imposed democracy from above, focusing on the elite, as opposed to cultivating it organically, from the citizenry up.
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"top to down" democracy
 
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