Erdoganistan: The New Islamic Superpower?

by Giulio Meotti • March 28, 2021 at 5:00 am

Erdogan was promoting his global campaign of victimization by "Islamophobia", while in fact it is the critics of extremist Islam who are in danger and frequently killed.
In the Caucasus, Turkey has just supported the Azerbaijani war against Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh in order to create a Turkish Islamic corridor between Azerbaijan, Turkey and other Muslim countries.
"It began in 1989 with the fatwa against Salman Rushdie: no Western country reacted except with words – as if they thought a verbal spell might work!.... The battle lost in Armenia is the first of a war waged in the West against the Judeo-Christian civilization". — Michel Onfray, Reveue des deux mondes, February 1, 2021.
While the new sultan extends his influence to Syria, Libya and the Caucasus, he also extends it to the Mediterranean. For pacifist Europe, that sea only exists when it comes to bringing in migrants.
"What the Turkish regime is doing is using its diaspora as a Trojan horse." — Michel Sifaoui, europe1.fr, February 7, 2021.
In Turkey under Erdogan, school textbooks have been rewritten to refer to Jews and Christians as gavur, "infidels." Earlier Turkish textbooks referred to the members of the two religions as the "people of the Book".... The curriculum adopts an anti-American stance, and shows sympathy for the motives of ISIS and al-Qaeda. — Report by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), March 2021.
"We are a large family of 300 million people from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China". — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Minval.az, October 18, 2018.

Europe, the US, NATO and the Free World might start worrying. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems aiming to be the new Islamist wolf in sheep's clothing. Pictured: Erdogan speaking in Ankara on September 17, 2020. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)

"It was a very special day, July 24 [2020]," said France's leading expert on Islam, Gilles Kepel.

"It was pilgrimage time to Mecca and, due to the pandemic, no one was there! It was the anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne, the origin of modern Turkey within its current borders. Erdogan was about to twist the arm of the secular Ataturk, who had turned the old Hagia Sophia basilica into a museum that he had donated 'to humanity'. Erdogan... turned it back into a mosque".

This was the moment, remarked Kepel – who just published a new book, "Le Prophète et la Pandémie" ["The Prophet and the Pandemic"] -- that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the new leader of the umma, or global Islamic community. "Erdogan is trying to appear as the champion of Islam, just like Ayatollah Khomenei in 1989".

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Lessons from the Middle East

by Pierre Rehov • March 28, 2021 at 4:00 am

If appointing Antony Blinken as Secretary of State was enough to reassure Israelis and Saudis, the designation of Robert Malley as special envoy to Iran only rekindled their concerns. Malley was not only involved in the conception of the JCPOA, he was "kicked off of Obama's first presidential campaign after reports emerged he had met with members of the Hamas terror group," and has reportedly asked that Hamas be included in talks in the future. Senator Tom Cotton tweeted that the appointment was "deeply troubling... Malley has a long track record of sympathy for the Iranian regime & animus towards Israel. The ayatollahs wouldn't believe their luck if he is selected."
The Israeli government, whose secret service has managed to demonstrate Iran's willingness to acquire nuclear weapons, also warned: "The deal gave Iran a highway paved with gold to build the critical infrastructure for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs. That deal gave Iran the resources to significantly escalate its aggression and terror across the Middle East."

The Biden administration's designation of Robert Malley as special representative for Iran has rekindled the concerns of Israelis and Saudis. Malley was not only involved in the conception of the JCPOA, he was "kicked off of Obama's first presidential campaign after reports emerged he had met with members of the Hamas terror group." Pictured: Malley (right), then Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz (center) and then Secretary of State John Kerry during a negotiation session over Iran's nuclear program in Lausanne, Switzerland on March 20, 2015. (Photo by Brian Snyder/AFP via Getty Images)

Far from the memory of the too numerous wars that have marked the Middle East, the temptation is strong to think that diplomacy should replace force, and that a good negotiation, even if it means coming out a loser, is better than a conflict. This is more or less the philosophy that seems to inspire the "not so new" American administration, such as that for former US President Barack Obama.

Former President Donald J. Trump, for his part, had no doubt learned some lessons from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and more from the miserable double-cross offered by Hitler to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier, which would lead, a year later, to the Second World War. Daladier and Chamberlain were so opposed to the use of force that they preferred to sacrifice Czechoslovakia to Nazi appetites rather than stand firm while there was still time. The rest, unfortunately, is well known.

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