(WASHINGTON TIMES) -- As President Recep Tayyip Erdogan begins his third decade in power, he has solidified his place as Turkey’s second-most consequential leader after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded the republic a century ago.
With the opposition disempowered if not in disarray, Mr. Erdogan now seeks to fulfill his lifelong ambition: the complete and permanent reversal of Ataturk’s legacy of modern reforms.
American and European officials who believe, with the election in the rearview mirror, that they can return to business as usual with Turkey are dangerously mistaken. The issues that concern Mr. Erdogan most are neither interest rates at home nor Swedish NATO accession abroad, but rather laying the groundwork for the renewal of an Islamic state if not formal caliphate.
Just as Russian President Vladimir Putin considers the downfall of the Soviet Union the 20th century’s greatest “geopolitical catastrophe,” Mr. Erdogan believes it was the Ottoman Empire’s collapse.
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