The motor-mouth of the Near East

Conrad Black writes in the National Review On-line about Turkish Premier Erdogan. After being snubbed for years by Europe, as Turkey tried to become a member first of the Common Market, then of the European Union,

Erdogan, in current American parlance, “pivoted” to the Near East, put on the airs virtually of the theocrat (he wears a western suit and tie, but his wife wears a long dress and head scarf), and has poured forth an almost nonstop torrent of racist abuse of Israel. The persecution of the Kurds has been escalated, after a brief move toward conciliation. Erdogan’s enforced Muslim obeisances are starting to irritate a long-secularized people, with prohibitions on couples’ making out in public, encouragement of traditional attire, the insistence that couples have at least three children, discouragements of abortions and contraception, and restrictions on the sale of alcohol. The government has also taken over one of the largest newspapers, through Erdogan’s son-in-law, and has fined one media group $2.5 billion for covering a corruption scandal.

Erdogan claims to have synthesized the best of Islam, capitalism, and democracy, and to be running the only Muslim democracy. He has produced ten years of 5 percent economic growth, and got the army’s fingers out of the cookie jar, but his prediction of making Turkey one of the world’s ten leading economies is moonshine. His foreign policy, furthermore, has been that of a Frankenstein monster, pandering to Turkey’s former subjects in the Arab world, swearing Muslim vengeance on Israel, while affecting to remain a serious NATO member. Erdogan joined with former Brazilian president Lula da Silva to try to legitimize Iran’s nuclear program. He has been everywhere saying everything; the sick man of Europe is now the motor-mouth of the Near East.

A small environmentalists’ protest on May 27 against the building of a military barracks and a shopping mall on one of central Istanbul’s few green spaces was attacked by police with tear gas, pepper spray, and the torching of the protesters’ camp-tents, without much thought of whether they were occupied at the time. The protests grew and spread to 50 Turkish cities and involved tens of thousands of demonstrators, and forced Erdogan back to his default comment on anything disagreeable: As he had described Zionism (which he seems to equate to the existence of the State of Israel), on February 27 in Vienna, as “a crime against humanity,” he so described the protesters in his own country on May 27 (he also called them “undemocratic”). In these demonstrations, at least four people have been killed, 5,000 have been injured, and thousands have suffered throat and lung damage from heavy tear-gassing.

Black has some advice for Erdogan:

Erdogan should seek a just resolution with the Kurds, stop treating fairly innocuous dissenters as dangerous revolutionaries, stop being a cat’s paw of the conservative Islamic clergy, behave as a loyal NATO ally or be expelled from that organization; stop shouting mindless insults at Israel; and play a constructive role in the region. Rather than pandering to Arab extremism and hobnobbing with unfeasible charlatans like Ahmadinejad, he should reassert Turkey’s status as at least a gentle suzerain over the amenable Arabs and counter and repel the insidious influence of the Iranians among the Arabs. And he should kick this process off by devising and urging and leading the imposition of a solution in Syria. If he doesn’t do at least a significant part of this, he will be just another Middle Eastern windbag and underachieving Turkish leader.

Update: Kathyrn Jean Lopez interviews Barry Rubin at National Review. Rubin gives his views on Erdogan, Turkey and Obama.