The Coming Coup d'Etat?

Why is this happening? Chiefly because of the European Union. Never mind Cyprus, or the new human-rights laws Turkey has willingly passed under European pressure. The real problem is the EU's core demand: more civilian control over the military. That, senior officers say, would inevitably produce an Islamic Turkey. As they see it, the nation simply cannot afford to follow the EU on issues that would theoretically ensure, but in reality endanger, its future as a secular democracy--that is, a country in which state and mosque are separated and in which freedom of (as well as freedom from ) religion is guaranteed for all.

The Turkish military is especially wary of how the EU is coping with its own Islamic problem. European governments are reaching out to Islamists, ostensibly in order to transform them into allies against domestic terrorism. That may work in the short-run, Turkish critics say. But a similar strategy would be intolerable to a majority of Turks, who fear that once the gates open to "moderate" Islamists, more radical forces will enter and take over.

With Turkey and the EU so sharply diverging, the danger is that the Turkish military, supported as in 1997 by other secularist groups, will no longer feel bound by the need to keep Turkey on its European path. And this time, unlike the past, the United States is in no position to restrain them. That's partly because of Iraq, and Turkey's unhappiness with what it sees as Washington's kid-glove treatment of Kurdish terrorists operating out of northern Kurdistan, and partly because of its embrace of Erdogan, most literally when he met George W. Bush the same day that Buyukanit made his remarks in Turkey. The United States opposed the 1997 coup, and it will do so again. But as one senior Turkish official recently put it: "If there were a coup, what would the U.S. do--enact sanctions against Turkey?"

To be sure, the military may exert its influence without resorting to force. And if a coup were to happen, it would not necessarily translate to a nondemocratic Turkey. More likely, it would simply mean the end of Turkey's current "Islamist experiment" and a return to a more conservative government--stalwartly secular, yes, but a democracy nonetheless. Ironically, this Turkey might ultimately be seen to be a better member of Europe than today's.

Zeyno Baran is a Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute.

© 2006