Sultan Erdogan The Magnificent and Magnanimous

"The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers...."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

"Erdogan's adventurism has been quite successful so far, but it amounts to an extraordinary departure for Turkish foreign policy, and maybe even risks the destruction of the country. How on earth could this happen?"
"The background is an inferiority complex, and megalomania. For centuries, and even since the Mongols, sensible Islam has asked: 'What went wrong? Why has God forsaken us, and allowed others to reach the moon?'"
Professor Norman Stone, expert on Turkish politics
"We have the right to respond and we do not exclude any type of response until the Turks have learned their lesson ... Do they have a dream of restoring Ottoman greatness?"
"This is a great delusion and they will pay dearly for Turkish arrogance."
Badr Brigade spokesman Karim al-Nur

Supporters of Iraqi Shiite militias burned Turkish flags in Baghdad this month, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to withdraw Turkey's troops from northern Iraq.

It might have appeared logical to sane heads at one time in recent history to admit Turkey to NATO, the only Muslim country so distinguished, but the last several decades have definitely defined an increasingly Islamist Turkey, one whose president and whose Islamist party has wrenched Turkey away from its Western lean -- as unfit to be in NATO, since it is obvious that the coalition's values and goals are not reflected in those valued by Turkey's Justice and Development Party.

Turkey's wish to enter the European Union has languished for decades, with the EU citing the country's human rights abuses. Most of the abuses relate to the institutionalized treatment of its Kurdish minority. Turkey's rigid enforcement of Islamist values, its refusal to negotiate with the Kurds over an autonomous territory of their own, its brutality against the Kurds, has been responsible for the rise of militant Kurdish nationalism. To that, Turkey's response has been swift and brutal and unforgivably violent.

Since 1984, predating Erdogan's political rise, the Turkish government's response to the militant arm of the Turkish Kurds, the PKK, has been predictably vicious. Since Kurds represent twenty percent of the Turkish population, they are a minority, but a notable one whose voice has been violently stilled in the past. Only recently have they been able to find a suitable elected representational voice in the Turkish parliament, one which resulted in a diminished majority for the ruling Turkish party, enraging Mr. Erdogan.

The brutal assimilation policies that were imposed on the Kurds simply served to drive them further from the Turkish mainstream. While it seemed only a few years ago that Turkey had finally decided to negotiate reasonably with the Kurds, the volatile and unstable mentality of President Erdogan violated that relative peace with a restoration of military violence Turkey imposed on its Kurds with the excuse that two Turkish police had been murdered by the PKK.

President Erdogan's instability has been amplified of late with his orders to destroy a Russian jet firing on Syrian Turkomen rebels. Turkey's violation of Iraqi territory, where it has stationed troops without permission of the government in Baghdad has exacerbated relations between the two countries. Erdogan has alienated all his neighbours; Egypt for his support of the Muslim Brotherhood, Israel for his support of the Hamas terrorists, extolling their virtues and accusing Israel of genocidal intents against Palestinians.

Journalists have been imprisoned in Turkey at a head-turning rate, while Amnesty International has accused Turkey of mistreating the Syrian refugees encamped for haven from Syrian tyrant Bashar al Assad. The government in Baghdad has given an ultimatum to Ankara to remove all its troops it has stationed in Iraq since last year; Erdogan's response was to halt its reinforcements.

Iraq's prime minister Haider al-Abidi has stated his country is preparing to turn to the UN Security Council to condemn Turkey. While Erdogan spits venom at Syria's Assad for violating the human rights of Syrian Sunnis who have protested their unequal treatment at the hands of the Shiite Alawite president, the president of Turkey has done likewise with Turkey's Kurds.

While President Erdogan accuses Russia of having invaded Turkey's airspace for 17 seconds, Turkish troops have invaded the Iraqi landmass for over a year. That Turkey is a member of NATO, inhibits NATO and NATO-member countries from criticizing too loudly and publicly the inexplicable and reckless behaviour of a government which visits punishing violence on its citizens, just as Syria does with its.