Turkey lost itself

Submitted by Cherif El-Ayouty (Denmark), Jun 29, 2010 at 05:36

I agree with Daniel's technical explanation that the Turkish election system is changing the political profile without any democratic merit. Nevertheless, Gates must not blame Europe when asking who lost Turkey. Europe did definitely not lose Turkey since an Islamist Turkey is in no way any attractive asset to the European Union but actually a disaster, had it been included. Turkey had all the opportunities to enter the EU had it followed the requests concerning democracy, the rule of law, human rights, secularism, Cyprus, the Kurdish situation and, last but not least, the Islamic radicalization of the country. Turkey failed unquestionably on all points and thus the EU is not to blame. Everything that happened and is happening today in Turkey by the erratic and irresponsible actions of its clearly Islamist government can be explained by the dire economic situation in the country (despite a high growth rate) and the need for Erdogan to show his only possible economic saviors (the Arabs of the Gulf) that he is anti Americans, anti Israelis and anti Westerners, pro Palestinians and pro Islamists.

I expect to witness very soon a major capital and human migration from Turkey towards the West very much similar to the one that happened in Iran when Khomeini took over. There is no way that the Westernized Turks with intellect and money can accept an Islamist regime without the protection of the military, which Erdogan has successfully neutralized. Turkey is no longer of any strategic interest to the West since the collapse of the Soviet Union and its refusal to allow access to its airspace and airports for Western military actions in the Middle East. At the same time, we should not worry about any business interests by Westerners with Turkey since business has proven to transcend any political or ideological differences.

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