THE HILL - November 08, 2016
It is fair to say that most Americans don’t know exactly what to make
of our ally Turkey these days, as it endures a prolonged political
crisis that challenges its long-term stability. The U.S. media is doing a
bang-up job of reporting the Erdoğan government’s crackdown on
dissidents, but it’s not putting it into perspective.
We
must begin with understanding that Turkey is vital to U.S. interests.
Turkey is really our strongest ally against the Islamic State in Iraq
and Syria (ISIS), as well as a source of stability in the region. It
provides badly needed cooperation with U.S. military operations. But the
Obama administration is keeping Erdoğan’s government at arm’s length —
an unwise policy that threatens our long-standing alliance.The
primary bone of contention between the U.S. and Turkey is Fethullah
Gülen, a shady Islamic mullah residing in Pennsylvania whom former
President Clinton once called his “friend” in a well circulated video.
Gülen portrays himself as a moderate, but he is in fact a radical
Islamist. He has publicly boasted about his “soldiers” waiting for his
orders to do whatever he directs them to do. If he were in reality a
moderate, he would not be in exile, nor would he excite the animus of
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government.
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