Turkey's Coup

Submitted by Mark in St. Louis MO (United States), Jul 20, 2016 at 10:05

Thank you for the column. I too was rooting for the ouster of Erdogan because presently I am reading Eric Staklebeck's second book, "The Brotherhood" (Muslim Brotherhood that is) and both Erdogan and Gulen are members and happen to be reading the chapter on the situation in Turkey; both of these individuals are discussed.

I surmise the reason that Erdogan wants Gulen extradited from the USA back to Turkey is that they are both vying to head up the re-establishment of the caliphate. Erdogan wants to re-establish the Ottoman Empire and he sees Gulen as competition that needs to neutralized, in other words, eliminated.

If Erdogan is successful, there goes Turkey and just more trouble for us, Israel, and the rest of the world. And this is another foreign policy failure of the current administration because Erdogan was the one leader that was HUGGED by Obama when they met at a meeting some years ago; the other leaders were acknowledged with just a handshake - further evidence that this administration has a disdain for the nation of Israel.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".