In an effort to appear to be a friend of Turkey, Michael Rubin regurgitates the anxieties of Turkey's secular elite: Turkey is on the road to become another Iran, only Mr. Erdogan's conceals this cleverly under the guise of his push towards the EU. This is a view that is heard frequently in Kemalist circles who continue to be suspicious of the AKP despite their much better record of governance. The economy is a poster child of neoliberal reformers, and even though there is always a tendency towards economic volatility, exchange rates have been much more stable recently than in the past. On the question of joining the EU, the Europeans seem disinclined to believe the insistent protestations of the Turkish elite that they are secular and liberal. The fact that they are Muslim as well seems to count against them. The declining popularity in Turkey of the project of joining the EU could easily have been foretold, if one were mindful of the European tendency of continuously changing the goal-posts, and the finger-wagging on human rights that accompanies every move made by the "patriotic" Turkish lawyers to haul up free-thinking intellectuals for "insulting Turkishness".
Mr. Rubin should stop worrying about Islam in Turkey. Yes, the Turks are Islamic, but theirs is a far more liberal intepretation of Islam, and secularism is well entrenched in the organs of the Turkish state. The real dangers come from the increasing credence being given by the GWOT, and by Israel's actions in Palestine and Lebanon, to the basic Islamist message of Islam under siege all over the world. If Mr. Rubin is so worried about upholding democracy and secularism, should he not start with whatever country he calls home – Israel or the US? In both these countries, both democracy and secularism have been much more visibly at risk.
When Jewish historians like Tony Judt are stopped from criticizing Israel’s policies, when the Israeli government can rely on the support of rabid extremists like Avigdor Lieberman, when the US President can push through the Military Commissions Act, when the influence of religious extremists in both countries is so powerful and visible, perhaps Mr. Rubin should set an example by criticizing these tendencies than attacking a much more successful democracy that doesn’t go around attacking other countries.
If you wonder why he doesn't, see Mr. Rubin’s profile (see also here) he comes from the same stable as people like Michael Ledeen and Richard Perle, and other neocon-Zionist warmongers. Little wonder he has found time to be a visiting lecturer at three Kurdish universities in northern Iraq, where coincidentally the Israeli special forces have also been training their militia for the day when Iraq will split into three separate provinces. The ambitions of Rubin and friends seem to include instigating and furthering the bloodbath in Iraq (and possibly even beyond into Turkey), so that US-Israel friendly regimes can eventually be installed in the regions of a de-federated Iraq that have the oil.
Here's more on Rubin from Karen Kwiatkowski. Nice poem at the end, too!
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