Category: Turkey

DC transit police officer charged with aiding IS group

A Washington, DC transit police officer was arrested on Wednesday on charges he attempted to provide material support to the Islamic State (IS) group, the US Justice Department said, in the first such case involving a member of law enforcement.

Accordıng to reuters In July, Nicholas Young, who lives in Virginia, sent codes for gift cards worth $245 to an FBI informant. The gift cards were intended for mobile-messaging accounts that the IS group uses to recruit its followers. Young believed the informant he was messaging was an acquaintance who was working with the militant group, according to court records.

Young, who had worked for the transit authority since 2003, had been on the radar of federal law enforcement since 2010, according to an affidavit in the complaint filed in US district court in Virginia on Tuesday.

Metro authorities said Young was fired immediately after his arrest on Wednesday.

The 36-year-old US citizen is the first law enforcement officer charged with attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organisation, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The Justice Department has brought IS group-related charges against more than 90 people since 2014.

Young did not pose a threat to Metro train riders or employees during the six years he was under federal surveillance, according to Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the Eastern Virginia US Attorney’s Office.

“None of the things that he said, none of the things he wanted to do related to anything here. His interest was totally in how he could get overseas and what he could do over there,” Stueve said.

In 2014, he met several times with an undercover FBI agent who was posing as an eager recruit of the IS group, according to the affidavit, and advised the agent about how to evade law enforcement as he left the United States to join the militant group.

Young sent the gift card codes after the informant told him that the group needed help setting up mobile messaging accounts, according to the affidavit, and then promised to cover his tracks: “Gonna eat the SIM card. Have a good day.”

“Metro transit police alerted the FBI about this individual and then worked with our federal partners throughout the investigation,” said Metro general manager Paul Wiedefeld, calling the allegations against Young “profoundly disturbing.”

Young had travelled to Libya in 2011 to support rebels trying to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi, the affidavit said.

That year, he also discussed with informants ways of smuggling guns into the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, where he will appear on Wednesday, according to the Justice Department.

August 4, 2016
Stratfor: Egypt and Turkey, Aligned but out of Step

Geopolitical Weekly

Turkey’s embrace of Islamism — and Egypt’s rejection of it — has driven a wedge between them. (PETER MACDIARMID/SASCHA STEINBACH/Getty Images)

By Emily Hawthorne

When Egypt opened its 2011-12 election season, the first election to be held since the end of the Arab Spring, the country’s political atmosphere came alive with promise and debate. At the time, I lived in the coastal city of Alexandria, where “let’s give them a try” had become the refrain of my religiously conservative Egyptian friends. They were referring to the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood candidates who were flooding the parliamentary tickets, figures who had never before been able to challenge the military leaders who had ruled Egypt with a tight grip since the 1950s. “But they’re not experienced,” was the common retort of my more secular friends, many of whom went on to cast their vote for technocrat Hamdeen Sabahi in the presidential race that spring. Yet when the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi was declared the country’s president in June 2012, the noisy celebrations of his jubilant supporters echoed through the streets of my neighborhood.

A decade earlier, in 2002, a similar atmosphere — one of possibility, hope and apprehension — enveloped Turkey as it prepared for general elections, a vote that gave rise to the country’s own Islamist-leaning government and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who would become prime minister. Turkey’s Islamist forces, embodied by Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), had taken years to fight their way to the top of Turkish politics, edging out their more secular and liberal rivals along the way. Now president, Erdogan continues to dominate the country’s political scene, and in spite of a recent failed coup attempt, both he and his party appear to have a long future ahead of them.

Egypt’s experiment in Islamist governance, however, proved to be far more short-lived. Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood administration fell just as quickly as it rose, and Egypt’s ruling military council is doing everything in its power to ensure that it does not return. Turkey’s embrace of Islamism — and Egypt’s rejection of it — has driven a wedge between the two countries. But the friction between Ankara and Cairo is as much about the similarities they see in themselves as it is about their ideological differences.

Two Paths Merge

Turkey and Egypt are like-minded rivals moving along the same path, albeit out of step with one another. That path has been determined, in large part, by geography. The territory that makes up both modern Egypt and Turkey occupies the land bridges lining the Mediterranean Sea, swaths of terrain that are as key to trade, commerce and migration today as they were 1,000 years ago. Even now, the two states are the primary gateways for the waves of migrants flowing into Europe.

For millennia, Egypt’s people clustered around the Nile River, giving rise to the homogeneity that is still palpable in the country. By contrast, Turkey’s diverse population has always been scattered, flung far and wide across its expanse, a mix of ethnicities that has simultaneously strengthened and weakened the state. Centralization of power has always been a much simpler task for Cairo than for Ankara. Yet even if Turkey’s past rulers — the Ottomans, and before them the Greek Byzantines and Turkish Seljuks — had a hard time controlling Turkish territory in its entirety, they excelled in capturing it. In 1517, Egypt came under the Ottoman Empire’s loose command, and from that point, its course began to align with Turkey’s.

After the Ottoman Empire fell in the wake of World War I, the two states continued to tread similar paths through the 20th century. Egyptian and Turkish leaders served as wellsprings of inspiration for one another during the tumultuous decades of state building that swept across the Middle East. For example, Gamal Abdel Nasser — a leader still revered among Egyptians today — drew some of his ideas from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, an equally powerful figure in Turkey who carefully constructed his country’s secular and militarized model of governance. Both states embraced a secular, nationalistic approach to policymaking while empowering their armed forces, a strategy that made them vulnerable to periodic coups and uprisings. This reality still holds today, as evidenced by Egypt’s 2013 coup and Turkey’s July 15 coup attempt.

Religious figures in Egypt and Turkey exchanged ideas throughout the 20th century as well. At different times, both countries grappled with the emergence of Islamist groups that threatened to upset the status quo and challenge the ruling power. In the 1920s, the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Cairo by Hassan al-Banna, whose writings on religion underpinning the state went on to inspire Islamist political movements across the Middle East. Decades later, Necmettin Erbakan laid the groundwork for Turkey’s own brand of Islamist politics. He went on to become the country’s prime minister in the 1990s, only to be forced out of office by the military for attempting to merge religion and state. Ironically, this series of events was not unlike what Morsi would experience decades later as the Egyptian military stepped in to take back the state from its Islamist leader.

As Turkey Rises, Egypt Falls

Since the Arab Spring, Turkey and Egypt have struggled to find their footing in an ever-changing region. Egypt, however, has had a considerably more difficult time. Even though it has the largest population and one of the biggest militaries in the Middle East, political uncertainty, driven in part by the quick termination of the country’s sole foray into Islamist-tinged democracy, has kept Egypt focused inward. Its political scene has stabilized in the past two years, but Cairo’s efforts to appease an exploding populace and prop up a lackluster economy have left it little room to regain its status as a regional heavyweight.

At the same time, empowered by a more diversified economy, Turkey has inserted itself in conflicts and negotiations across the Middle East. Its goal is simple: to mold the turbulent region by espousing its moderate Islamist order. After all, regardless of some popular dissatisfaction with Erdogan’s autocratic style, the Turkish government is democratically elected. And as many Turks were quick to point out in the wake of the country’s recent coup attempt, the overthrow of a democratically elected government — even one that has since taken the opportunity to purge every corner of society — promises only greater uncertainty. In spreading its reach, though, Turkey has stepped on Egypt’s toes on several occasions. For instance, Cairo has long laid claim to brokering peace between Israelis and Palestinians, talks that have been complicated by Ankara’s recent support for Hamas.

The widening gap between the two countries has only been exacerbated by their diverging approaches to governance. Under Erdogan’s rule, Turkey has thrown its weight behind Islamist movements in the region — including Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood — because they often share the ruling AKP’s agenda. While Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood peers controlled the government in Cairo, ties between Egypt and Turkey improved. (When, in September 2011, Erdogan made his first official visit to Egypt, many Egyptians welcomed him as the embodiment of the capable, Islamist leader they hoped to see in their own country.) But since Morsi’s 2013 ouster, Egypt’s secular military leaders have given Turkey the cold shoulder, in no small part because Ankara has offered Egypt’s exiled Muslim Brotherhood members haven within its borders.

Deep-Seated Tension Lingers

Turkey’s decision to protect the Muslim Brotherhood has strained its ties with Egypt to their breaking point. Now, any significant incident is an opportunity for the states to trade jabs. In the days following Turkey’s attempted coup, Egypt made its annoyance at the operation’s failure clear. Three Egyptian state newspapers ran premature headlines proclaiming Erdogan’s ouster, while Egypt’s Foreign Ministry hemmed and hawed over the U.N. Security Council’s characterization of the Turkish government as “democratically elected” in a resolution condemning the coup. Turkey, which has also used the United Nations as a platform to throw barbs at Egypt, shot back by saying it was “natural for those who came to power through a coup to refrain from taking a stance against the attempted coup.” Cairo responded by offering to consider the asylum request of Fethullah Gulen, the cleric charged with inciting the coup, should he choose to submit one.

The spat is just the latest of the deep, intermittent bouts of tension between Egypt and Turkey that, by all appearances, are bound to continue. Over the past year, Saudi Arabia has been working to mediate talks between the two on the Muslim Brotherhood in an effort to unify the dual cornerstones of its envisioned Sunni alliance. If successful, the normalization of Egypt-Turkey ties would go a long way in strengthening Sunni unity in the region, which has been deeply shaken by conflict and jihadist violence. But though Saudi Arabia has made some headway, it is unlikely that Ankara will agree to feed Riyadh’s regional ambitions at the expense of its own.

Egypt, for its part, is more likely to listen to Saudi Arabia’s pleas. But Riyadh does not have the power to force Cairo to ignore Ankara’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt considers a terrorist group. The situation is complicated further by the fact that Egypt has recently held meetings with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a group Turkey counts among its terrorist threats and has targeted with numerous military operations.

This is not to say Egypt and Turkey have few goals in common. Both, for instance, would like to see the defeat of the Islamic State and the development of the eastern Mediterranean region. But even if the two could set aside their differences and cooperate temporarily for the sake of mutual gain, tension between them will continue to simmer beneath the surface, constantly at risk of flaring up once more.

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August 3, 2016
Turkey’s Intra-Islamist Struggle for Power

by Burak Bekdil

Originally published under the title “Coup Lessons.”

Exiled Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen (left) and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, once allies, have turned on each other with a vengeance.

Every piece of evidence emerging after the failed putsch on July 15 indicates that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was the victim of a failed Gülenist coup d’état. But to get the picture right we must ask ourselves, perhaps ironically, what the victim and the perpetrator have in common. The answer is many years of staunch alliance and the same ideology: political Islam.

Mr. Erdoğan now accuses the Gülenist movement of “having infiltrated into the state system over the past 40 years.” He must accuse himself first. He was the man who paved the way for the Gülenist infiltration during the years he was in power, from 2002 to 2013, when he broke up with the “terrorist.” In his own words: “Whatever you asked for, we gave it to you.” In short, Mr. Erdoğan was a devoted Gülen ally during 37.5 years of the “terrorist’s” 40-year quest to capture the Turkish state.

What brought them together? What, essentially, do Messrs. Erdoğan and Gülen have in common, ideologically speaking? The desire to Islamize. Did they break up because of deep ideological divergences? No. Over methodology in reaching a common goal? Perhaps. Because of greed for political power? Probably. But not because one of them decided to abandon political Islam.

The failed Gülenist putsch offers lessons that Turkish Islamists will probably never learn: Islam the religion or Islamism the political ideology will never forge a wonder alliance or achieve your end goals just because Islamism the political ideology brings together a small or big bunch of like-minded conservative Muslims sharing an ideology that aims to “conquer” Muslim lands first (by imposing Islamism on secular Muslims) and then “conquer” infidel lands (by imposing Islamism on non-Muslim nations).

Turkey experienced a coup attempt by Islamists disguised as officers against Islamists who are not disguised.

“Conservatism as a glue” and “he is a good fellow who prays five times a day, has his wedding ring on his right hand, has a particular type of moustache” are foolish indicators upon which to forge enduring political alliances. Being conservative Muslims isn’t enough to make a strong bond. If President Erdoğan’s narrative of the July 15 coup attempt is right, what we see here is basically a coup attempt by Islamists disguised as officers against Islamists who are not disguised. In short, an Islamist coup against an Islamist government.

Will the Turkish Islamists in power ever understand that piety or non-piety is not a good basis to establish friends from foes? No. For several years they feared a putsch from their ideological nemesis, the secularists. In a bitter irony, the secular officers helped them suppress the Islamist coup attempt within the army ranks.

The Islamists in power must now purge tens of thousands of Islamist government officials, including senior judges, military and police officers, academics, and their former allies. They must close down thousands of Islamist schools, NGOs, and foundations and engage in a witch-hunt in a country ruled under a state of emergency; Islamists running after Islamists. Funny, more women with the Islamic headscarf are now being arrested than under the oppressive secularist regime of the late 1990s.

Sadly, the Erdoğanist-Gülenist (political) amorous affair produced millions of pages of (political) love letters (just Google it and see material as recent as even 2013) but ended up in the courtroom after domestic violence. Now there will be new Islamist-to-Islamist alliances, with new sects competing to emerge, just because the pious can only trust the pious. And then the headlines on another dreadful day will be bad déjà vu.

A minor note to my former “sparring partner,” column neighbor Mustafa Akyol, who wrote that “the government is trying to wipe out a cult that has secretly infiltrated the state, in order to impose its own agenda by using every dirty method against its enemies.” That is wrong. The government is trying to wipe out a cult that has not-so-secretly infiltrated the state as its best ally in order to advance a common ideological goal, and by using every dirty method against their then-common enemies.

Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based columnist for the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet Daily News and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

July 31, 2016
Interview with Daniel Pipes: ‘The Battle against Islamism Has Not Yet Started’/ PULAT TACAR

Pipes: Huntington “made some very major mistakes.”

Daniel Pipes: Huntington made some very major mistakes which have become increasingly evident in the two decades since he aired his thesis. For example, he thought U.S. tensions with Japan in the 1990s resulted from civilizational differences; a decade later, those tensions disappeared, replaced by far more severe problems with Europe, even though the United States and Europe form part of the same civilization. The real divisions, as always, remain political, not civilizational.Global Review: Mr. Pipes, what do you think of Samuel Huntington’s book Clash of Civilizations? Are religions the defining moments of culture, despite the Enlightenment and globalization? Where was Huntington right and where wrong?

GR: Many people say that Islam is not a religion but a reactionary, totalitarian and repressive ideology comparable to fascism and communism; and that Islam cannot be reformed. Other people say that Islamism had nothing to do with religion and Islam. What do you say about relations between Islam and Islamism?

DP: Both these statements are silly. Of course, Islam is one of the major religions of the world; what is there to argue about? Islamism, a modern movement, however, shares much with fascism and communism. Islamism is a form of Islam. Denying this would be akin to saying that the Jesuits are not Christian.

GR: Some experts compare Islam with Confucianism and Hinduism. They note that in the 1950s, Confucian societies were thought unable to develop economically and socially, and that Confucianism was seen as an obstacle to progress; same with Hinduism in India.

The Hong Kong skyline: No one any more sees Confucianism as an obstacle to development.

Today, however, East Asia and India are economic powerhouses and many people perceive Confucianism and Hinduism as drivers of this success story. Could the same happen with Islam, that it will also reform?

DP: Yes, it is possible that Muslim peoples will recover from today’s predicament and go on to economic and political success. We have no way of predicting such things. And no civilization or religion stays permanently down.

GR: There is a broad spectrum of Islamists. Al-Qaida, the Islamic State, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, which want to occupy territory by military means and create an ever expanding state. And then the Muslim Brotherhood, the Turkish AK Party and the Iranian Khomeinists. Which of these Islamist groups are the greatest danger for the West and which of these concepts do you think will be the most successful?

DP: I worry the most about the subtle, infiltrating Islamists. When it comes to force, we can easily defeat them. But when it comes to our own institutions – schools, law courts, media, parliaments – we are far less prepared to defend ourselves.

GR: In the Western countries many Islamophobic parties and politicians are on the rise. Do you think this will help the spread of Islamism or will these parties help the counter-jihad? Hillary Clinton said that Trump and his anti-Muslim speeches are the best recruiters for the Islamic State. True?

DP: I do not recognize the term “Islamophobe” and do not know what it means except, in the immortal phrase of Andrew Cummins as a word “created by fascists and used by cowards to manipulate morons.”

“Islamist ideology breads Islamist violence, which … in turn inspires anti-Islamic sentiments.”

Your question reverses the sequence of events. Islamist ideology breads Islamist violence, which starts the process and in turn inspires anti-Islamic sentiments. Anti-Islamic views might also inspire more Islamist violence, but that is incidental. The real dynamic here is Islamism creating anti-Islam parties. As Norbert Hofer has shown in Austria, they are approaching 50 percent of the vote and with it, political power.

GR: Focusing on the “Islamophobic” parties opposition to Islam ignores that they are largely semi-fascist. Geert Wilders says that the Koran is comparable to Hitler’s Mein Kampf and that Islam is a totalitarian ideology. Can he be an ally in the fight against Islamism? Maybe Obama and Merkel are weak on Islamism, but do you support Wilders, Trump, Austria’s FPÖ, Hungary’s Fidesz or Jobbik?

DP: Anti-Islamic leaders and parties are unsophisticated and make many mistakes. I hope that, as they get closer to power, they will get more educated and serious. I do not support them but I do give them advice.

GR: The failed coup in Turkey helped [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan establish his Islamist dictatorship. Do you think NATO will accept an Islamofascist dictatorship as a member state? Some experts say that Saudi Arabia is also a Islamist dictatorship, but a partner of the USA and the West. Therefore realpolitik will prevail. How do you think the relations between Erdogan-Turkey and the West will develop?

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (right) and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Ankara on April 21, 2016.

DP: As I understand it, NATO has no mechanism to expel a member state; if that is accurate, it has no choice but to work with Erdoğan. In the brief period since the coup attempt, Erdoğan has been very hostile to the West. Perhaps he will end up in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

GR: Besides Islamists, the West has to deal with Russia, China, and North Korea. How can it deal with all these challenges at the same time? Which counter-jihadi strategy do you find most promising?

DP: The strategic environment today is far easier than during the cold war; there is no determined ideological enemy with the tools of a great power at its disposal. The key is for the West not to go to sleep. Electing such leaders as Obama and Merkel, however, means going to sleep. The best counter-jihadi strategy is one that takes ideas seriously.

GR: It took the West two decades to get rid of fascism and 70 years to get rid of communism. How long do you think will it take to get rid of Islamism? Are we facing the zenith of Islamism right now or are we just halfway up the road and will it get even worse?

DP: The battle against Islamism has not yet started. I cannot predict how long it will take. It’s still pre-1945 in communist terms and the 1930s in fascist terms. I see Islamism as having peaked in 2012-13 and showing signs of weakness.

GR: Will the bad experience with Islamism and secular military dictatorships in Muslim countries create a new democratic movement and a new Muslim spring in the future after a catharsis? Or do you think these countries are all failed countries which will disintegrate because they are incapable of changing course?

DP: Muslims are learning bitter lessons from the Islamist experience. I hope they will put these to good use, though so far there is very little evidence of this happening.

Related Topics: Muslims in the West, Radical Islam, Turkey and Turks

July 31, 2016
Is the U.S. behind Fethullah Gulen?://PULAT TACAR// Dani Rodrik/ Gulen

Is Fethullah Gülen behind Turkey’s coup? (with update) : https://www.turkishnews.com/en/content/2016/07/31/is-fethullah-gulen-behind-turkeys-coup-with-update-pulat-tacar/

JULY 30, 2016

Is the U.S. behind Fethullah Gulen?

Whenever I talk with another Turk about the Gulen movement, a question invariably props up: is the CIA behind Gulen? In fact for most Turks this is a rather rhetorical question, with an incontrovertible answer. The belief that Gulen and his activities are orchestrated by the U.S. is as strongly held as it is widespread among Turks of all political coloration – secular or Islamist.

This is my attempt at providing a reasoned answer to the question. My conclusion in brief: I don’t think Gulen is a tool of the U.S. or has received support from the U.S. for its clandestine operations. But it is possible that some elements within the U.S. national security apparatus think Gulen furthers their agenda, is worth protecting on U.S. soil, and have so far prevailed on other voices in the establishment with different views. Regardless, the U.S. needs to seriously reconsider its attitude towards Gulen and his movement.

Direct support?

Those who believe the U.S. is behind Gulen typically make two arguments. First, they point to how Gulen got his green card in the first place. The long list of individuals who wrote letters of recommendations on Gulen’s behalf includes two long-time CIA employees (George Fidas and Graham Fuller) and a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey (Morton Abramowitz). These individuals write in their individual capacities and their advocacy was based both on Gulen’s persecution by the then-secularist Turkish judiciary and on Gulen’s apparent promotion of a moderate brand of Islam.

On the latter question, at least, it is fair to assume that these recommenders had only limited knowledge of Gulen’s full corpus, which includes some fairly incendiary stuff against Jews, Christians, the United States, and Western Europe. (Some years ago I showed one of the letter writers a particularly anti-semitic sermons and asked him if he was aware of it; he said he had no idea.)

However, the more important point about his green card that – and one that is overlooked in Turkey — is that the U.S. administration was in fact opposed to giving Gulen a green card. It rejected Gulen’s application, and then strenuously objected in court when Gulen’s lawyers appealed. Lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security were scathing about Gulen’s qualifications and argued there was no evidence he was an individual of exceptional ability in the field of education: “far from being an academic, plaintiff seeks to cloak himself with academic status by commissioning academics to write about him and paying for conferences at which his work is studied.”

Gulen owes his residency not to the U.S. executive branch (and whichever intelligence agency may be hiding behind it), but to a federal judge with scant interest in foreign policy or intelligence matters who somehow nonetheless ruled in his favor. The judge’s argument was that the Administration had construed the relevant field of “education” too narrowly, and should have considered Gulen’s contributions to other areas such as “theology, political science, and Islamic studies.”

The second argument is that Gulen and his followers would not have been so successful in spreading their empire and influence without active U.S. support. I think this severely underestimates the movement’s own capabilities. Gulen has long stressed education, organization, and secrecy. His movement has invested in raising a “golden generation” of smart, well-trained individuals. Lack of resources has never been a constraint, thanks to the contributions of an army of devout businessmen. As the AKP found out to its own chagrin, its most capable and competent public servants turned out to be serving a different master in Pennsylvania. And in any case, this argument exaggerates U.S.’ own capabilities in my view: given the CIA’s history of blunders, there is in fact much that it could learn from the Gulen movement on cloak-and-dagger operations.

The critical question here is whether there is anything the movement has done that it could not have done without active U.S. backing. Did it really need the help of some U.S. intelligence agency to expand its charter-school network, to stage the Sledgehammer trial, or to infiltrate and organize within the Turkish military? I don’t think so.

Tacit support?

The U.S. government may not have had a direct hand in Gulen’s activities, but it is more difficult to dismiss the argument that it provided tacit support – or that some parts of the U.S. administration prevailed on other parts who were less keen on Gulen.

Judging by Wikileaks cables, U.S. diplomats in Turkey were exceptionally knowledgeable about Gulenist activities. These cables are in fact a goldmine of information on the Gulen movement. Form these we learn, among others, about the elaborate ruses used by Gulenist sympathizers to infiltrate the Turkish army, Gulen’s request for support from the Jewish Rabbinate’s during his green card application, and the attempt by sympathizers within the Turkish national police to get a “clean bill of health” for Gulen from the U.S. consulate in Istanbul. We also learn that even in the heyday of their alliance, Gulenists presciently regarded Erdogan as a liability.

Perhaps of more direct interest to the U.S., foreign service officers have long been aware that many Turks have been obtaining visas under false pretenses, with the ultimate aim of ending up as teachers in Gulen’s charter schools. Yet apparently nothing was ever done to stop this flow, nor to hold the movement to account. A ridiculous number of H-1B visas — which require demonstration that no qualified U.S. workers are available — have been issued to Turkish teachers in these schools. One naturally wonders why the U.S. administration never clamped down on the Gulen movement for apparent visa fraud.

The same question arises with respect to the widespread pattern of financial improprieties that has been uncovered in Gulen’s charter schools. A whistleblower has provided evidence that Turkish teachers are required to kick back a portion of their salary to the movement. The FBI has seized documents revealing preferential awarding of contracts to Turkish-connected businesses. Such improprieties are apparently still under investigation. But the slow pace at which the government has moved does make one suspect that there is no overwhelming desire to bring Gulen to justice.

Gulen typically defends himself against such charges by saying that the schools are run by sympathizers and are not directly under his control. Yet the fact is that he took direct credit for the schools in his green card application, saying he had overseen their establishment.

Then there is the Sledgehammer case, which has the Gulen movement’s fingerprints all over it. This and the closely related Ergenekon trials did untold damage to the military of U.S.’ Nato ally. The jailing of hundreds of officers, including a former chief of staff, sowed a climate of fear and suspicion within the army and sapped military morale. Perhaps the U.S. was bamboozled, like many others, early on about these trials. But by now it should know that these sham trials were launched and stage managed by Gulenists. American officials have been quick to complain in public about the damage the post-coup purge has done to Turkish military capabilities. Yet there was not a peep from them during the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer witch hunts; and nor has the U.S. administration expressed any discontent about the Gulen movement’s role in them since.

The failed coup

The mystery only deepens after the botched coup. The U.S. has demanded credible evidence from Turkey on Gulen’s involvement, which is as it should be. But beyond that, it appears from the outside as if administration officials have been interested mostly in throwing cold water on the Turkish government’s claim that Gulen was behind the coup – a claim that is largely justified.

The most egregious example is that of James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence. Asked whether Turkish allegations that Gulen planned the attempted coup passed the “smell test” of credibility, Clapper answered: “No. Not to me.” Clapper said Secretary of State Kerry “was right on the ball” to press the Turks to back up their extradition request with evidence of Gulen’s involvement, adding: “We haven’t seen it yet. We certainly haven’t seen it in intel.”

Now coming from the head of American intelligence, this is no less than a stunning statement. As the Wikileaks cables I referred to above make clear, the State Department, at least, has been well aware of Gulenist infiltration of the Turkish military for quite some time. The Gulenists’s role in Sledgehammer, which led to the discharge of many of the most Kemalist/secularist officers in the military is equally clear. Beyond Sledgehammer, the Gulenists’ wide range of clandestine operations against opponents in Turkey must be well known to American intelligence. So when the most senior intelligence officer in the U.S. instinctively brushes off Gulen’s possible involvement, it looks awfully like he is either incompetent or has something to hide.

Since Clapper’s statement was made, the head of the Turkish military, who was held hostage by the putschists during the coup attempt, has said that one of his captors offered to put him in touch with Gulen directly. This, on its own, is prima facie evidence of Gulen’s involvement, and likely passes the “probable cause” test that is required for extradition. Incredibly, administration officials are still quoted as saying “there is no credible evidence of Mr. Gulen’s personal involvement.” In other words, these officials must think that the army chief of their NATO ally is lying.

(I will not get into former CIA official Graham Fuller’s silly piece exonerating the Gulen movement, which is at best woefully uninformed, at worst willfully misleading. Fuller has been retired for some time, and I doubt he is playing any role in administration policy.)

So what the hell is going on here?

In light of the confusing signals that come out of the U.S., and the apparent desire of many people in or close to the administration to defend Gulen, it’s not difficult to empathize with those in Turkey who believe the U.S. must be behind Gulen (and, yes, even the coup attempt). I think it is too farfetched to think that the U.S. knew of beforehand or supported the coup. There were far too many risks and too few benefits for the U.S. to be involved. And contrary to what many people in Turkey believe, U.S. intelligence is far from omniscient – so yes, the coup likely did happen without U.S. knowledge.

But it is not farfetched to think that there are some groups in the administration – perhaps in the intelligence branches – who have been protecting Gulen because they think he is useful to U.S. foreign policy interests. This could be because Gulen’s brand/mask of moderate Islam is a rare thing in that part of the world. It could be because taking Gulen down would only benefit groups in Turkey they consider more inimical to U.S. interests – Erdogan’s AKP and the arch-secularists. It is even possible that the movement has occasionally performed services for U.S. intel operations. (Some of Gulen’s schools in Central Asia were used to “shelter” American spies according to a former Turkish intelligence chief.) That kind of thing would not be beneath either the CIA or the Gulen movement.

Perhaps these groups have so far have had the better of the argument and have held the upper hand in the administration against those in State or elsewhere who know full well what the Gulen movement is up to and would rather see him go. In the aftermath of the coup, perhaps this balance will change in favor of the latter. Perhaps not. Whether it does or not, I think the Gulen issue will ultimately explode in somebody’s face in the U.S. The only questions are whose, and when.

I would be the first to admit that this is just a hypothesis. But if there is a better story that explains the U.S. reaction I’d love to hear it.

Extradition?

It is very unlikely that Gulen would receive a fair trial in Turkey. So the U.S. has a legitimate ground for not extraditing him. But the U.S. foreign policy establishment would be making a very big mistake if they simply dismissed the calls from Turkey about Gulen’s complicity. It is easy for the U.S. to hide behind Erdogan’s clampdown and the ill treatment of the putschists. But the U.S. has considerable explaining to do too.

Posted

July 31, 2016
Is Fethullah Gülen behind Turkey’s coup? (with update)/ PULAT TACAR

Dani Rodrik

Unconventional thoughts on economic development and globalization

July 23, 2016

Is Fethullah Gülen behind Turkey’s coup? (with update)

If what Erdogan said on TV today is correct, there is no longer much doubt about the answer to this question. According to Erdogan, the officers who detained the chief of general staff, Hulusi Akar, on July 15 offered to put Akar in contact with Gulen. As of this writing, Akar has not made any statements confirming this. (See update on this at the end of this entry.) But if he does, it will be manifest that responsibility for the coup attempt reaches all the way to Pennsylvania. It will be very difficult for the U.S not to extradite Gulen, subject, of course, to (some huge) fair trial concerns back in Turkey.

What evidence, other than Erdogan’s word, is there that Gulen is behind the coup attempt?

Years ago when my wife Pinar Dogan and I first began to investigate the bogus documents in the Sledgehammer case, we were stuck by how quick many observers were at assigning blame: “it’s the Gulenists’ work of course,” they would say, “this is the kind of thing they do.” We did not know much about the Gulen movement at the time. So we hesitated, and in our early writings we listed Gulenist involvement as only one of the possibilities.

Over time, we learned a lot. The evidence that Gulenists were heavily involved in – and quite likely stage managed – Sledgehammer and many other similar sham trials accumulated. By now it should be clear to any objective observer that the Gulen movement goes much beyond the schools, charities, and inter-faith activities with which it presents itself to the world: it also has a dark underbelly engaged in covert activities such as evidence fabrication, wiretapping, disinformation, blackmail, and judicial manipulation.

In late 2013 the fight between Erdogan and the Gulen movement became public. Ever since, the AKP has purged suspected Gulenists from many state institutions and closed down their largest media and business operations. There was one state institution which had remained immune from these purges: the army. Perhaps because the top brass were reluctant to relive a trauma similar to the Ergenekon-Sledgehammer, none of the suspected Gulenists in the military had been touched.

But that was about to change. In the run-up to the July 15 coup attempt, a few officers were detained for allegedly fabricating evidence in the infamous Izmir espionage case. There were indications that a much larger sweep was being readied. And rumors were flying that in August’s Supreme Military Council meeting a large number of Gulenists would be finally be discharged.

Traditionally, Turkish coups are produced by Kemalist secularists. But hardline secularists have lost their control of the military thanks to the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer trials during 2008-2011, which led to their imprisonment and discharge. Their ranks had been filled by officers more pliant to Erdogan (and, in all likelihood, to Gulen himself). An analysis by Hurriyet’s Sedat Ergin found that a disproportionate number of the new appointees were involved in the July 15 coup attempt.

It is possible that many remaining Kemalist officers below the very top ranks still harbored considerable animosity towards Erdogan. But another consequence of Ergenekon and Sledgehammer was that these trials shattered any sense of secularist solidarity and esprit de corps in the military. They sowed fear and suspicion among the ranks: you couldn’t tell who was informing on whom and had to watch your back. I find it inconceivable that a cabal of Kemalists would have been foolhardy enough to get together to plan a coup, and even if they did, that they would not have been found out by Gulenists hiding among them.

And in any case, there was no reason for Kemalists to act now or to rush into what was clearly an ill-planned coup. The Ergenekon and Sledgehammer verdicts had been reversed and Erdogan had long distanced himself from these trials, explicitly acknowledging they were plots against the military. Erdogan was also reversing many of his foreign policy actions that must have grated on the military: he had just reconciled with Russia and Israel and was pulling back on Syrian adventurism. Before the coup, there was not the slightest hint of tension between the government and the military establishment.

For its part, the Gulen movement has a long history, going back to the 1980s, of trying to place its sympathizers in the military ranks. And while the high command systematically tried to purge them, it is quite likely that the Gulenists were able to outwit them. To evade suspicion, Gulen is said to have instructed his sympathizers to go to great lengths, including not letting their wives wear the headscarf – a telltale sign of religiosity in Turkey – and even to drink alcohol. The steady stream of document leaks that enabled the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer trials, as well as the mysterious way in which investigations of these leaks have been blocked, also suggests the presence of a large number of Gulenists in the military.

All of this points to the Gulen movement as the immediate culprit behind the coup attempt. Gulenists had both the capability and the motive to launch the coup. The timing – just after military officers began to be detained and before a major sweep – also supports this theory. Many have suggested that the Gulenists decided to move early and quickly because they learned that the impending sweep had been moved forward. This is plausible, and also helps explain why the coup attempt seemed rushed and poorly planned. Under this theory, the botched coup was a last-gasp, desperate attempt to reclaim their one final remaining institutional bastion and ensure their survival in Turkey.

My best guess is that the coup was planned and organized by Gulenists but that they were joined by quite a few others as well. The joiners may have had diverse motives: personal ambition, hatred of Erdogan, or simply the belief that they were obeying orders from the higher-ups.

One of the curious aspects of the coup attempt is that it had no public face or apparent leader. I know of no coup attempt, in Turkey or elsewhere, successful or otherwise, where a clear leader was not obvious or did not emerge very quickly. In Turkey, the clearest instances of failed coup took place in the early 1960s, and these attempts were spearheaded by a well-known renegade, Colonel Talat Aydemir.

This lack of a public face is a lot less anomalous from the standpoint of Gulenist modus operandi. Gulenists always prefer to operate in the shadows, behind the scenes, and never take direct ownership of operations they launch and control. They have never formed (or explicitly joined) political organizations or parties, even though they clearly have political aims, choosing to operate within existing political parties instead. In Ergenekon and Sledgehammer, the bogus documents that led to the trials were first leaked to a “liberal” newspaper (Taraf), which thereafter acted as a front. When public support for the trials waned, leading Gulenists kept arguing that it was Erdogan who pushed for the prosecutions.

Similarly, it looks like Gulenists were hoping to remain behind the scenes and have others appear as leaders if the coup were to succeed. The putchists asked chief of general staff Hulusi Akar to lead the coup before they detained him (he refused). The declaration they drafted and that was read on state TV has a definite Kemalist tone, which suggests they wanted to make it look like the typical secularist coup. They might have hoped to be the power behind the throne once the coup succeeded, just as they shaped a large part of Erdogan’s agenda during 2007-2012.

Some of the evidence that has emerged since the coup also points to Gulenist involvement. Akar’s aide-de-camp, who was among the putschists, has confessed to being a closet Gulenist. His testimony is tainted by the fact that he was apparently badly beaten after being captured, but it is quite detailed, names names, and rings true. One of the soldiers who tried to capture Erdogan in the hotel he was vacationing had a hand-written note on him with religious invocations attributed to “H.E.” (an acronym for “Hoca Efendi,” the appellation Gulen’s disciples use for him). A police officer who had previously been removed on suspicions of being a Gulenist sympathizer was captured in one of the putschists’ tanks, wearing military camouflage.

None of these pieces of evidence (or others presented by the pro-government media) is completely dispositive on its own – especially with respect to Gulen’s own culpability. There is always the possibility that this was a rogue, pre-emptive operation by a number of Gulenists along with others, carried out without the knowledge or blessing of Gulen. Gareth Jenkins, who knows the Turkish military perhaps even better than it knows itself, is inclined to think so and is skeptical that this was a Gulenist operation planned from the top.

Erdogan’s claim about putschists’ attempt to put Akar in touch with Gulen, if true, would of course belie this scenario. But beyond that, it is well known that the Gulen movement is a highly hierarchical organization. People who have followed it closely over the years (such as Hanefi Avci or Rusen Cakir) report that very few important decision take place without Gulen’s blessing. There is certainly no tradition of autonomous, independent decision-making or dissent in the movement. It would be surprising if Gulenist officers had planned this on their own, without seeking at least the assent of their spiritual leader.

Then there is the objection that a violent military coup lies outside the modus operandi of the Gulen movement. This is true, and it is one of the things that made me cautious early on about Gulenist responsibility. Gulenists have engaged in a wide range of dirty tricks, but they have been rarely accused of armed action of explicit violence. Firing on unarmed civilians and bombing the parliament seems not the kind of thing that they would do. But then again, it is the first time that their sympathizers in the military have been called into action.

Gulenists may have eschewed assassinations in the past, but their past operations have not lacked ruthlessness. They have a disturbing record of targeting, slandering, harassing, imprisoning their perceived opponents – military officers, journalists, police commissioners, politicians — leading on a few of occasions to their deaths.

The case against Gulen is not shut and dried. There are many things about the coup attempt that remain unclear and mysterious. If the government has serious evidence beyond what I have discussed here, it has been very coy about releasing it and sharing it with the public.

At present, the argument that Gulen was the mastermind behind the coup attempt rests mostly on circumstantial evidence. But among all the scenarios that one could come up with, it remains the only one that makes at least some sense.

UPDATE: Since I wrote this, a journalist close to the AKP claimed that the officer who proposed to put Akar in contact with Gulen was General Hakan Evrim, commander of the air base that apparently served as the headquarters of the putschists. And newspapers have now published images of Akar’s complete testimony to the prosecutors, in which Akar describes what happened when putschists descended upon his office. The relevant part of the testimony reads: “…upon which, Hakan Evrim said something along the lines of ‘if you’d like we can put you in touch with our opinion leader [kanaat onderi] Gulen’. I rebuffed him by saying I wouldn’t talk to anyone.”

In Turkey, any and all kind of documentary evidence can be forged, and it is possible that these images are doctored as well. But they look real to me. And even though Akar is clearly beholden to Erdogan at this point, I doubt that the government would choose to put such words in his mouth. In all, the statement greatly strengthens the possibility of a direct link between putschists and Gulen.

Posted at 02:21 PM | Permalink

Comments

The argumentation seems solid, but I’m missing one instance: the Turkish Secret Service. They must be heavily infiltrated in the army. Is it there information about plan for a coup that led to the move forward of the impending sweep. Provoking an ill-prepared coup. That make the coup a co-production of Gulenist and Erdogan’s executives. It explains why the other parts of the Army did not intervene directly against the coup, but only prepared the way for Erdogan as the Hero. The other side had a better strategy at hand than the putschists.

Posted by: Tefrisaloi | July 23, 2016 at 03:32 PM

Sorry: 3 sentence should be: Is it their info…. ?

Posted by: Tefrisaloi | July 23, 2016 at 03:35 PM

Two points.
1) It’s a bit unfair to say that “Traditionally, Turkish coups are produced by Kemalist secularists.” Before 2002 that was the only ideology around. The coups in my view were caused by the failure of civilian institutions. The ideology of justified intevention was retrospectively exoaded for protection, The Gulenist/Islamist (and Ernest Gellner’s) which just shows the military intervening to fight Islamism doesn’t really fit the facts of the 1960 or 1971 coups.
2) Is a coup by Gulenists really so surprising?
“a violent military coup lies outside the modus operandi of the Gulen movement.” Yes but as a Sunni movement they are certainly not pacificists. Their rhetoric against Erdogan in Turkish (as manifest in their Internet voice Fuat Avni)) is bellicose and full of implicit violence There have been reports of Gulenist infiltration of the armed forces since 1986. Their ‘moderation’ and pro-Western attitude seems to be tactics rather than principle.

Posted by: Tyro | July 23, 2016 at 11:15 PM

for ‘exoaded’ read ‘invented’

Posted by: Tyro | July 23, 2016 at 11:17 PM

The very fact that there’s no solid evidence for Gulen being the ringleader (other than people sympathizing with him) should give pause to the theory that Gulen is directing. Posting from Greece, the Balkans are full of such conspiracy theories. Here in Greece they think the CIA rules the world…if only the CIA was that competent I tell them, but nobody believes it. Truth is geographically determined.

Posted by: raylopez99 | July 24, 2016 at 02:34 PM

Thank you for your detailed and informative comments

Posted by: pschaeffer | July 24, 2016 at 11:36 PM

As you yourself are forced to admit, this blog does not contain a shred of evidence one could even dignify as circumstantial. It is entirely based on suppositions and tenuous plausibility speculations.

Until someone produces some independently verifiable “facts”, any false-flag operation (Erdogan against all his opponents, the Gülenists, the Kemalists, the CIA, army secularists, the Russian FSB) is practically equally possible on Bayesian a priori grounds. It’s a house of mirrors.

After all, to this day we don’t even know with any certainty who set the Reichstag Fire in 1933, the consequences of which were frighteningly similar to the current Turkish purges.

Posted by: Silverberg-on-meltdown-economics.blogspot.com | July 25, 2016 at 04:48 AM

Mister Rodrik, I found this article today and I must say it relieved some of the unease I have felt over the last couple of days. As a person who disapproves 95% of what the current government does, it has been incredibly sad to see the very-shallow “Erdogan faked the coup” news and opinions all over the foreign press over the last week. Even here, in the comments of this article, the same thought persists. People who have never been exposed to the depth of contemporary Turkish politics, choose to put the blame on the only person who they think could pull this off – Erdogan. But as you explain in this article, anyone with a basic understanding of the Gulenist movement knows how this is mainly their doing (with support from other parties). This is why in Turkey, a country so divided in the middle in terms politics (literally 50% of the votes go to Erdogan, the other 50% would do anything to see him fail), almost everyone unanimously agrees that this was Gulen’s doing without even giving it a second thought. I can assure anyone reading the comments that there are many people in Turkey who wish this was Erdogan’s doing so he’d be done for good. But it’s simply not. Today, for the first time in many years, the opposition leaders of all parties gathered together with Erdogan to show solidarity. One of these political leaders, Kilicdaroglu, is the antithesis of Erdogan – a man who won’t even shake Erdogan’s hand under normal circumstances. No one was pressuring him to do visit Erdogan, either.

I already feel like Turkey has lost the media war outside the country (there’s obviously no opposition media in the country anyways) and it makes me sad to see this as a citizen. I hope your very objective, informative and truthful article gets shared more so at least some level-headed people have a real understanding of what’s going on. As a famous general never said: “We might have lost the war but we might win a few battles.”

PS: It’s hard change people’s opinions once it’s set. Let me preemptively try to answer some of the questions readers might have:

– Yes, Erdogan is a power-hungry, authoritarian leader. I get anxious writing that sentence on the web, that should be proof enough.
– No, he didn’t need this “fake coup” to seize more power. He doesn’t need more power. He already has all the power. This is not 2007.
– Yes, Erdogan’s AKP has been in a symbiotic relationship with the Gulenist movement until 2013. So did pretty much every major party since 1980s.
– Yes, Erdogan will probably never answer the question “you knew the Gulenists infiltrated the government, but you never attempted to stop them when they were supporting you, why?”
– By the way, this decades long relationship is also why they already had lists of 10,000 people the day after the events of 2013 and July 15th 2016. It’s not like this organization or most of these people are a secret. Anyone who thinks they foiled Erdogan’s fake coup attempt because they figured he put together a long list of names after such a short time, is being naive.
– Yes, I know I said all the political leaders were with Erdogan when the Kurdish party HDP wasn’t invited. That’s whole new article for another time. I’m not saying I support the decision to not invite them, I’m saying it’s understandable in today’s Turkey. Kurdish issue runs deeper than the Gulenist issue.
– No, there is no way a fair trial is possible for Gulen if he comes back. But then, a fair trial would probably result in a similar fashion as an unfair one.
– Yes, there are still questions that need to be answered, details that need to be made public regarding that night.

But make no mistake: none of the above justifies the shooting of civilians by their own army; the deaths of over 200 civilians; the bombing of the Turkish Parliament by Turkish planes. This is the most sinister terrorist organization Turkey has ever seen by far.

Thank you for the article Mr. Rodrik.

Posted by: Arif | July 25, 2016 at 06:08 PM

Thanks for an excellent article. There are a number of allegations of US involvement in the coup (more or less rendering Gülen a pawn, if nothing less) that is not included your article that I would like to have Mr Rodriks comment on. What about US Commander Campbell, Graham Fuller, Henri J. Barkey? If those rumors are true just a little bit it’s hard to believe that repercussions will be immense of where Turkey will stand geopolitically, especially given an already anti-american sentiment in the public opinion of Turkey. Any insights to share?

Posted by: PehrMartens | July 26, 2016 at 03:20 PM

For anyone interested in further reading, here’s another article that tries to explain how deep the waters run, using a fictitious US analogy. It may sound too complicated or far fetched to be real. But it’s as real as it gets. That is Turkish politics for you.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-trumped-up-version-of-turkeys-failed-coup_b_57962b88e4b0e339c23f4af0

Posted by: Arif | July 27, 2016 at 04:21 PM

Brilliant literary analogy by Karabekir Akkoyunlu! Hope he is right, that no imperalist state is pulling the strings. It’s always this problem in analyzing strive for power. Either it is reduced to one or the other thing, the evil power maniac or some conspiracy. Trying to put Turkey situation in a broader context perhaps need an other explanatory framework. It was indeed a great read that made me thnk in new ways, I’m very grateful.

Posted by: PehrMartens | July 28, 2016 at 03:11 AM

Don’t you think that Hulusi Akar naming as responsible in his interrogation the one person who has attained something of a demoniac status in Turkish politics is a little too simplistic? Almost too Gulenist of a move, considering the overall quality of the cases brought against the accused in Sledgehammer and etc? Last but not least, why would coupists name that one person who would offend Akar the most, especially at a time when they need the services of the latter the most?

Posted by: Samael_aziz | July 30, 2016 at 12:08 PM

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July 31, 2016