What motivates RT ERdogan

Islamism and Revenge: What Motivates Recep Tayyip Erdogan http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2016/09/islamism-and-revenge-what-motivates-recep-tayyip-erdogan/

September 13, 2016 | Michael Rubin

In the wake of a 1997 military coup in Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then mayor of Istanbul, was forced out of office and imprisoned. After his release, Erdogan changed his attitude but not his underlying beliefs or ambitions. He soon became his country’s prime minister and with his liberal act has since managed, writes Michael Rubin, to fool just about every U.S. secretary of state and ambassador, not to mention numerous experts; but, as he responds to the recent failed coup with thousands of arrests, it’s becoming harder to ignore his true colors:

[In the first decade of the century, Erdogan] convinced many Americans that he had turned the page. He talked about his brief imprisonment as a time for maturation, and close aides told Western journalists, diplomats, and members of Congress that Erdogan had learned the mistakes of the past and appreciated the importance of working across party lines and respecting constitutional parameters. That was rhetoric for external consumption only. In reality, Erdogan wanted revenge.
His enemy lists were long and detailed. They included not only those who criticized him during his reign but also those who crossed his friends and allies in the years prior to his holding office. He stacked Turkey’s Savings Deposit Insurance Fund, an important banking regulatory board, with party and personal loyalists and used it to target businessmen and companies with a long record of support for party rivals. . . .
He has reserved special ire for journalists. From his first days in office, he has harassed journalists and their editors with lawsuits. . . . As Erdogan grew more confident, he cast a larger net against his enemies. He often used fabulist coup plots as a reason to crack down. . . . .
With Erdogan’s opponents on the run and an iron grip on all mechanisms of state, what comes next? In 1994, while still mayor of Istanbul, he declared, “Thank God Almighty, I am a servant of the shariah” and, the following year, called himself “the imam of Istanbul.” That was the unvarnished Erdogan. He may have promoted an illusion of reform and refinement after the 1997 coup and his subsequent imprisonment, but he has now shed that pretense and embraced an agenda he has nurtured his whole life. He aims not only for power and money but seeks to achieve a larger goal: the complete reversal of Ataturk’s reforms [that made Turkey a secular state in the early 20th century].

Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/turkeys-reichstag-fire/