Daniel Pipes: summary of Turkish rouge behavior

[Mediocrates]

http://hnn.us/articles/9-27-11/is-tu...ing-rogue.html

• Islamists without brakes
• An even worse opposition
• Looming economic collapse
• Escalating Kurdish problems
• Looking for a fight with Israel
• Stimulating an anti-Turkish faction
• Asserting rights over Mediterranean energy reserves

Other international problems: Ankara threatens to freeze relations with the European Union in July 2012, when Cyprus assumes the rotating presidency. Turkish forces have seized a Syrian arms ship. Turkish threats to invade northern Iraq have worsened relations with Baghdad. Turkish and Iranian regimes may share an Islamist outlook and an anti-Kurd agenda, with prospering trade relations, but their historic rivalry, contrary governing styles, and competing ambitions have soured relations.


While Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu crows that Turkey is ""right at the center of everything," AKP bellicosity has soured his vaunted "zero-problems" with neighbors policy, turning this into a wide-ranging hostility and even potential military confrontations (with Syria, Cyprus, and Israel). As economic troubles hit, a once-exemplary member of NATO may go further off track; watch for signs of Erdoğan emulating his Venezuelan friend, Hugo Chávez.


That's why, along with Iranian nuclear weapons, I see a rogue Turkey as the region's greatest threat.

[Cellis]

That's why, along with Iranian nuclear weapons, I see a rogue Turkey as the region's greatest threat.

Cool. Can Israel do something about it? Not really. Period.

[Mediocrates]

You are correct. Not really.

[farmboy]

Cool. Can Israel do something about it? Not really. Period.

They don't need to. Regimes led by gangsters usually self destruct. Can you not hear the ticking?