{"id":1953,"date":"2008-08-04T23:35:58","date_gmt":"2008-08-04T20:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=1953"},"modified":"2012-09-19T15:43:40","modified_gmt":"2012-09-19T12:43:40","slug":"ice-warrior-poised-to-repel-rise-of-islamic-rule-in-turkeyjon-swain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2008\/08\/04\/ice-warrior-poised-to-repel-rise-of-islamic-rule-in-turkeyjon-swain\/","title":{"rendered":"`Ice warrior’ poised to repel rise of Islamic rule in Turkey …. Jon Swain"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
From The Sunday Times<\/span>, August 3, 2008
\n<\/strong>
\n<\/span>As a result, Turks know the commander of the armed forces has the
\nfate of their nation in his hands every bit as much as any elected
\nprime minister<\/span>.<\/p>\n

So the appointment of a new chief of the general staff<\/span> is always a
\nclosely monitored event. Seldom have Turks watched more closely than
\nat this moment.<\/p>\n

The next chief of the armed forces is being chosen this weekend at
\nthe end of a tumultuous week. Two terrorist bombs exploded last
\nSunday night in Istanbul<\/span>, killing 17 people, including five children
\nwhose bodies were riddled with shrapnel.<\/p>\n

Erdogan makes unity plea after bombings<\/p>\n

Turkey managed to step back from the brink of political chaos last
\nWednesday after the country’s highest court rejected an application
\nto close the governing party on the grounds that it was seeking to
\nintroduce Islamic laws in violation of the secular constitution. Even
\nso, a majority of the judges found the party guilty of eroding
\nsecularism.<\/p>\n

Adding to the crisis, two senior retired generals are in jail pending
\ncharges of involvement with a group dedicated to overthrowing the
\ngovernment.<\/p>\n

To choose a new armed forces supremo and make other senior military
\nappointments, Recep Tayyip Erdogan<\/span>, the prime minister, is chairing a
\nmeeting of the supreme military board at army headquarters in Ankara<\/span>,
\nthe capital.<\/p>\n

The meeting started on Friday and will last four days. The name of
\nthe general who is to be promoted to the top job will be announced
\nwhen it ends tomorrow.<\/p>\n

He is widely expected to be General Ilker Basbug, commander of the
\narmy, who is called in military circles the “ice warrior” because he
\nhas a reputation for being calm and pragmatic.<\/p>\n

Sandhurst-trained Basbug, 65, will have the top job for the next two
\nyears. He is a formidable military figure and an ideological
\nhardliner who will ensure that Erdogan’s government – which was
\nelected last year with 47% of the vote but is mistrusted by the
\nmilitary, which sees itself as guardian of a secular society – walks
\na narrow political line.<\/p>\n

For these reasons Basbug is almost certainly not the general Erdogan
\nwould choose to promote. The outgoing chief of the general staff,
\nGeneral Mehmet Yasar Buyukanit, was also a hardliner but he was
\nimpulsive and could be outmanoeuvred by the prime minister.<\/p>\n

“Erdogan will find Basbug is a much more formidable opponent than his
\npredecessor. He is a lot more subtle,” said a military source.<\/p>\n

The prime minister has the constitutional authority to oppose
\nBasbug’s appointment – this authority has been invoked in the past
\nbut has almost always backfired – and Erdogan knows last week’s
\ndramatic events have left him politically vulnerable.<\/p>\n

“Erdogan is wary of Basbug and would have preferred to have appointed
\nsomeone else, but I’d be very surprised if he would be stupid enough
\nto try to stop Basbug. This is no time to upset the armed forces’
\nhierarchy,” said the military source.<\/p>\n

Last Wednesday Erdogan narrowly survived legal moves to ban him and
\nthe president Abdullah Gul<\/span> from politics and to close his governing
\nparty on the grounds that they were steering the country towards
\nIslamic rule.<\/p>\n

After three days of deliberations, the 11 judges of Turkey’s
\nconstitutional court decided against an indictment accusing the
\nJustice and Development party (AKP) of pursuing an Islamic agenda and
\nundermining Turkey’s secular constitution.<\/p>\n

The court punished Erdogan’s party for its Islamic tilt by cutting in
\nhalf its public funding for next year, but a verdict against the AKP
\nhad been widely expected.<\/p>\n

The court had already overturned AKP efforts to lift a 1989 law that
\nbanned women from wearing Islamic headscarves in universities.<\/p>\n

Erdogan’s secularist opponents, who dominate the military and
\njudiciary, claim his policies mask plans to make Turkey more like
\nIran<\/span> or Saudi Arabia<\/span>.<\/p>\n

In Turkey, the military has traditionally had multiple pressure
\npoints on the civilian government, through the chief of the general
\nstaff’s weekly meetings with the prime minister and president, and
\nthrough the twice-monthly meetings of the national security council<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Manipulating the civilian government, sometimes through thinly veiled
\nthreats<\/span>, is a subtle art that Buyukanit was not good at.<\/p>\n

However, Basbug is expected to be more effective in influencing
\nErdogan’s government without giving the prime minister the excuse to
\ncomplain he has come under undemocratic pressure. Basbug is known for
\nwell-crafted public statements that do not alienate the government.<\/p>\n

The decision of the constitutional court not to ban Erdogan and his
\nparty clears the way for the prime minister to pursue democratic
\nreforms and his goal of European Union membership<\/span>. As a prerequisite
\nfor membership, the EU has demanded a reduction in the military’s
\ninfluence in Turkish politics.<\/p>\n

Erdogan is expected to start work on a new constitution, but the
\ncourt’s verdict has served notice that it and the military will be
\nwatching his party closely for any signs of Islamic activity and he
\nwill have to be careful how he goes about constitutional reform.<\/p>\n

If he tries to go too far there is no doubt, regardless of the EU’s
\ndisapproval, that Basbug and the military will come down hard, just
\nas the armed forces have in the past.<\/p><\/div>\n

Turkey calls itself a democracy but the military has always hovered
\nin the wings. Military coups have removed elected governments from
\npower three times in the past 50 years.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erdogan is expected to start work on a new constitution, but the
\ncourt’s verdict has served notice that it and the military will be
\nwatching his party closely for any signs of Islamic activity and he
\nwill have to be careful how he goes about constitutional reform. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":782328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,34],"tags":[4259,200,2101],"class_list":["post-1953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","category-usa","tag-ataturk-features","tag-democracy","tag-ottoman-empire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}