The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) hasn’t just outlived its usefulness. One of its member states has been wearing out its welcome since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Turkey was considered a secular nation when it sought entry into NATO after World War II. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Turkey has been attempting to resurrect its Islamic fundamentalist, Ottoman roots. Sadly, we the people of the United States are obligated to protect and defend it.
Exactly 30 years ago, in 1994, while speaking to young fundamentalist Muslims in Antwerp, Belgium, a Turkish Sheikh named Nazim Al-Kibrisi al-Haqqani took to the stage in a stadium filled to capacity, with close to 20,000 people present. After putting the phrase, “Allahu Akbar” to a repetitive musical chant, he exhorted the crowd to join him. He even referred to the audience as a “flood of people (being) a small sign of the glorious rise of Islam.”
There, in the front row, stood a smiling, young Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is currently the President of Turkey. In his speech, Kibrisi bemoaned the failures of his generation over the previous 70 years to preserve Islam. He insisted the young crowd which filled the stadium would restore the glory of Islam. This was a clear reference to the defeat of the Turkish Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, in 1922. It was also a personal reference. Kibrisi was born that year. Even the stadium was built between 1921 – 1923.
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Did I mention that Erdoğan was in the front row?
In 1952, a very secular Turkey joined NATO amid concerns that the Soviet Union be problematic. Membership in NATO provided Turkey with a hedge against invasion. Then, when the Soviet Union fell, Neo-Ottomanism began to rise. Unfortunately, NATO continued growing as well, even becoming more corrupt, with the central component of its mission — Soviet style communism no longer a threat.
Neo-Ottomanism seeks a restoration of the old empire, which seeks expansionism and ultimately, a global Islamic caliphate.
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in the 1920s as well. It too seeks a return to life under the Ottoman Empire. During the one year reign of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt following the Arab Spring, this became even more evident. Erdoğan’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood was clear. Both expressed a desire to restore an era of Islamic rule.
As an aside, the history between Turkey and Russia goes back well more than 500 years; it is an adversarial history at that. It includes the fall of Christianity in Constantinople. The seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church then moved to Russia. Even then it was Muslims vs. Christians. This says nothing of the Armenian genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks during World War I. Despite the extermination of between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians, the Turks remain holocaust denialists.
The removal of Bashar al-Assad is largely perceived as a good thing. Is it? The answer to that question depends on what replaces him. The Syrian rebels are comprised of various factions, but the Muslim Brotherhood is chief among them. Again, the Muslim Brotherhood’s loyalties to the Neo-Ottoman movement should not be questioned; it’s alive and well.
Of course, a rudderless Syria, especially one that helps to serve Turkey’s interests, doesn’t bode well for the Iranian Mullahs either. The attacks of October 7, 2023, have had a cascading effect that has very much helped us get to this point. Israel, rightly so, decimated Hamas and its leadership; it did the same to Hezbollah. Exploding pagers and precision strikes very much contributed to the conditions that led to Assad’s ouster.
It’s far too early to tell if the Iranian regime has been weakened, if at all. It’s likely very capable of counteroffensive attacks. Nonetheless, if the Iranian mullahs are toppled the same question will need to be asked: Is it a good thing? Again, it depends on what replaces it.
Russia is currently bogged down in Ukraine and that reality is seen as having contributed to Assad’s fall from power. What happens next in Syria is anybody’s guess. Does Israel acquire any of that territory? Does the Muslim Brotherhood take over and align with Turkey? Does Turkey have any aspirations there upon dispatching the Kurds to the north?
Should the mullahs fall, the resulting power vacuum could pave the way for radical groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood or its affiliates, to seize control. This would present a grave threat to regional stability, as the Brotherhood’s ideology aligns with more extreme interpretations of Islam. Should the Brotherhood move into Iran (Persia), Turkey would not be far behind.
Turkey’s membership in NATO adds a dangerous layer of complexity. Article 5 of the NATO treaty obligates member states, including the United States, to come to the defense of any member that is attacked. Should Turkey engage in a conflict with Russia — a historical adversary and current competitor in Syria and the Black Sea — the U.S. and its NATO allies could be dragged into a direct confrontation with Moscow. Such a scenario risks escalating into World War III, a catastrophic outcome for global security.
Syria is a mess right now. Stability is paramount but we have no idea what that country is going to look like in the future.
As for what should happen moving forward, Turkey should be jettisoned from NATO and Iran’s nuclear facilities must be taken out.
Then we can talk about those Mullahs.
Todd Baumann is the Director of Operations for Special Guests Publicity: www.specialguests.com.
