Throw Turkey out of NATO

OPINION:

Several empires didn’t survive World War I, among them the Ottoman Empire, out of whose ashes arose the Turkish nation. Its leader, Kemal Ataturk, watched the Ottoman Empire’s corruption and decay and established Turkey as a secular state.

Ataturk foresaw the danger of alienation in another Islamic state, so the Turkish army was tasked with guarding the new nation’s secularism. This lasted for about 70 years and ended with the election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan as Turkey’s president.

In 1996, when Mr. Erdogan was mayor of Istanbul, he said that “democracy is like a train. You get off when you reach your destination.” He campaigned against Turkey’s secularism and won the presidency. His government controls the courts, the armed forces — his army is the second-largest in NATO — and the media. It is a dictatorship in all but name.

Mr. Erdogan has weeded out of the Turkish military all who believe in secularism. He has established an Islamist state, and Turkey’s goals are now entirely inconsistent with those of NATO. Europe relies on Turkey to control Islamic immigration, which is a false hope. Greece and Bulgaria have increased border security, but other European nations have not.

In 2015, Mr. Erdogan attacked and crushed the Kurdish opposition and jailed peaceful Kurdish opponents. In 2016, he imprisoned tens of thousands of people for real or imagined participation in a coup against him. Freedom, as we know it, is not to be found in Turkey.

Mr. Erdogan, through his policies, has wrecked the Turkish economy. Inflation is now running at an annual rate of about 39%.

The latest proof of Mr. Erdogan’s opposition to democracy is the March 19 arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu, his principal political opponent, and many of his supporters.

Mr. Erdogan wants the U.S. F-35 stealth fighter, but he purchased Russian S-400 advanced anti-aircraft systems in 2019. There is no reason to believe he wouldn’t test the F-35 against the S-400s and report the results to the Russians.

A few years ago, Mr. Erdogan cut off electricity to the massive U.S. air base in southern Turkey. He could do so again at any time. That base, Incirlik, is a strategic element of U.S. air operations in the Middle East, Africa and Southwest Asia.

Since Mr. Erdogan came to power, he has supported Palestinians against Israel. He has supported Hamas in its war against Israel. In January, he said, “What Israel’s prime minister was doing in Gaza is not any less than what Hitler did.” Even for him, that rhetoric was extreme.

Also in January, Mr. Erdogan objected to calling Hamas terrorists what they are. He said it’s wrong to label Hamas as terrorists.

More recently, he called for the destruction of Israel during prayers at a mosque. He said, “May Allah, for the sake of his name ‘Al-Qahhar,’ destroy and devastate Zionist Israel.” Even for him, that statement was extreme.

These actions are not what we should expect from any ally, far less one we are pledged to defend.

As this column has pointed out, NATO is a shadow of its former self. The primary reason is that most NATO nations have not invested in their own defense despite Article 5 of the 1949 NATO Treaty, which requires all members to defend one another against attack.

One reason NATO isn’t as capable as it should be is that it has added members, such as Montenegro, that bring nothing to the fight. The last and certainly one of the most important reasons is that the NATO Treaty has no provision to throw a member state out of the alliance. It could, perhaps, be done by unanimous action, but that won’t happen.

President Trump’s conduct toward Mr. Erdogan has been far too uncritical. In October 2019, when Mr. Erdogan was slaughtering Kurdish forces in northern Syria, Mr. Trump wrote him a letter asking him to work out a deal and saying, “You don’t want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people.” Mr. Trump, after a telephone call with Mr. Erdogan, withdrew U.S. troops from southern Syria and left the Kurds to fight off Turkey and ISIS.

Mr. Trump needs to take a much stronger position with Mr. Erdogan. He should threaten the Turkish president with expulsion from NATO and relocation of our Incirlik Air Base to a nation that is a real ally. He should call for fair elections in Turkey and the release of Mr. Imamoglu. Mr. Trump should make clear that there is no room in NATO for an Islamist state such as the one Mr. Erdogan has made of Turkey.

Turkey was once our most underrated NATO ally. It served as a cornerstone of NATO, a line of defense against Russia and one of the keys to the Middle East. It is no longer. Turkey is now an Islamist state that advocates Islamic law as a matter of defense and social policy. It cannot remain so and still be a member of NATO.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin wants NATO to be so weak that its members cannot defend one another. Mr. Erdogan’s actions are helping Mr. Putin achieve that goal.

• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and contributing editor for The American Spectator.