Opinion: Victor Davis Hanson: U.S. must be ready asTurkey shifts away secularism
The Cold War is over. Turkey no longer guards the southeastern flank of Europe from the advance of Soviet communism, lessening its importance within NATO. Its Anatolian Muslim population grows, while more secular European and Aegean Turks have lost influence. Erdogan clearly identifies more with the old transnational Ottoman sultanate than with Kemal Atatürk’s modern, secular and Western nation-state.
Of course, Turkey tolerates no criticism about its own violations of human rights in suppressing its Kurdish population. It lectures Israel about occupied land but is silent about its sponsorship of the Turkish absorption of much of Greek Cyprus. It laments a divided Jerusalem but says nothing about the segregation of Nicosia.