Turkey's senior military leadership resigned en masse last week in protest of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's policies. Turkey's military, the second largest military force in NATO, has long been the protector of the secular state created by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923. It has conducted three coups since 1960, and pressured an Islamist-led government to resign in 1997.
Having learned from these prior examples, Erdogan took on the military early in his term, jailing many senior officers for plotting against the civilian, Islamist government (over 250 senior officers have been indicted and are awaiting trial). This tactic put the military on the defensive and inhibited their ability to keep Islamic extremists in check.
As with Egypt and other Islamic countries in turmoil this past year, the rise of fundamentalist Islam will significantly change the Middle East--and not for the better. The difference with Turkey is that we now have a nation with a capable modern military which will become increasingly more hostile to western beliefs and values. Elections do not necessarily equate to freedom--as we will discover in Egypt later this year.
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