Will the West Lose Turkey?
From Ihsan Dagi’s column:
Nationalists… increasingly view democracy as a burden.
The West challenges the Turkish status quo by promoting democracy. Thus if the authoritarian elements win the current power struggle, Turkey will be lost. This will not be similar to the breakdowns of democracy in 1960, 1971 and 1980, which maintained Turkey’s security connection with the West. In these post-Cold War conditions, the shelving of democracy will, amongst other things, be justified as necessary to stop “unwarranted interference by the West” in Turkey. That is to say that this time it is the West against which anti-democratic forces are contemplating a move.
After that the West will have to deal with a new Turkey: a Turkey that is non-democratic, deeply unstable and prone to go to war…
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