Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the President of Turkey, has imperial ambitions. He seeks to revive Turkish influence and where possible, rule, in the former lands of Ottoman Empire. More on his ambitions can be found here: “Why Erdogan’s Turkish Empire Is an Emerging Threat,” by Shoshana Bryen, Algemeiner, December 30, 2024:
The world was once a series of empires. The British Empire, at its peak in 1922, covered about a quarter of the Earth’s land and ruled over 458 million people. The Russian Empire once covered about 8,800,000 sq/mi, roughly one-sixth of the world’s landmass, making it the third-largest empire in history, behind only the British and Mongols. An 1897 census recorded 125.6 million people under Russian control. Genghis Khan’s Mongol Empire, while short, was the largest contiguous empire in history.
The Ottoman Empire lasted from 1301 to 1922, and at one point, included parts of Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Hungary, Palestine, Jordan, and Lebanon. It was, in some ways and at some times, a relatively benign occupation of other people, though decidedly not for Greeks, Armenians, or Kurds.
Why does it matter? We don’t do empires anymore. Do we?
That depends. Turkey now, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is projecting its next empire — a scary combination of ISIS-related religious extremism, nationalist prejudice, and Western weaponry.
Erdogan gave a speech last week. The key paragraph is this:
Turkey is much bigger than Turkey as a nation. We cannot limit our horizon to 782,000 sq/km, Just as a person cannot escape from his destiny by fleeing it, Turkey as a nation cannot flee or hide from its destiny. We must see, accept and act according to the mission that history has given us as a nation. Those who ask, “What is Turkey doing in Libya, Syria, and Somalia?” may not be able to conceive the mission and the vision.
And, if you couldn’t “conceive the mission,” Bilal Erdogan, his son, clarified for you. At a massive rally, he exhorted the crowd: “Yesterday Hagia Sophia (once a Church in Istanbul), today the Umayyad Mosque (Damascus), tomorrow Al-Aqsa (the site of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem).”
Today, Turkey illegally occupies a large swath of northern Syria, claiming only to have in interest in defeating the PKK –– considered by Ankara to be a Kurdish terror organization. [For the US, the Kurds were an essential partner in defeating ISIS in Syria and northern Iraq, and remain an ally.]
Between October 2019 and January 2024, the Turkish military carried out more than 100 attacks on oil fields, gas facilities, and power stations in Kurdish-held areas. According to the BBC in October 2024, Ankara cut off access to electricity and water for more than a million people….
Turkey has not taken over Damascus, but Turkish troops are now ensconced in northeastern Syria, determined to crush the local Kurdish forces that Ankara claims, inaccurately, all belong to the Kurdish terrorist group PKK. And the Turks have no intention of leaving Syria. They are there to stay and to influence the choice of regime that will rule in Damascus. Bilal Erdogan has been hinting at what his father hopes to accomplish in Syria — a territorial expansion that his father no doubt thinks Turkey has earned since it backed the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that took over Syria.
Nothing — not a UN Resolution, not a plea from the new Syrian government, not a request from Turkey’s fellow members in NATO — will make Erdogan pull his troops out of Syria. They are there to stay.
According to a Turkish news source, as a new Syrian military establishment begins to take shape, “Turkey will actively provide consultant-expert support to the restructuring process of Syria’s sea, air, and land forces. In addition … Turkish military presence will be included in five different points of Syria.”
The new force will number 300,000, according to the Turkish report, including 40,000 fighters from HTS, and 50,000 from the Syrian National Army (SNA). The latter is actually an auxiliary of the Turkish Armed Forces. SNA forces have been deployed by Turkey as a proxy in Libya and elsewhere.
And the rest of the force of 300,000 that the Turks are planning — 210,000 troops — will be members of the regular Turkish army. That will ensure that the Turks remain in military control of Syria, whatever civilian regime is in power in Damascus.
Under Erdogan, Turkey — which in the long-distant days when Kemalists ruled Turkey was friendly to the Jewish state — has moved steadily into the anti-Israel camp. It sent a flotilla of ships in 2010 carrying supplies in an attempt to break the “Israeli blockade of Gaza” — the Mavi Marmara flotilla — that led to a bloody encounter between Turkish activists on one of the vessels and Israeli commandos who rappelled down from hovering helicopters and managed to take over that ship, killing 10 Turks who attacked them in the process.
Turkey operates across Africa, as Erdogan noted in his speech. In January 2020, Turkey sent military forces to Libya in support of the Government of National Accord, the Tripoli government, followed by as many as 18,000 soldiers of the Syrian National Army (SNA — see above), which included child soldiers. Turkey has defense agreements with Somalia, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Ghana. Turkish drones have been recently delivered to Chad, Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger….
Libya was a natural target for Turkish troops. The country was, after all, once part of the Ottoman Empire, and the Turks still feel they have a right to intervene where they once ruled.. They sent both their own Turkish troops, and 18,000 Arab soldiers of the Syrian National Army, which receives weapons and money from Ankara, to fight in Libya in support of the Government of National Accord. Turkey has been busy making defense agreements with sub-Saharan African countries, extending its influence far beyond the territories that were once part of the Ottoman Empire, including Rwanda, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Ghana. It has also provided Turkish drones to Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, not one of which was ever part of the Ottoman Empire. How close a military alliance Turkey has with each of these countries is unclear. But Turkey is certainly trying to bind those countries closer to it by its defense pacts with some of them, and its supply of critical weaponry to others. It’s a sign of Erdogan’s far-flung ambitions to deepen Turkish influence throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
In the latest “scramble for Africa,” the Turks want to have access to Africa’s mineral wealth, a and are attempting to use Islam as a tool to persuade Muslims in Africa to favor economic ties with their fellow Muslims in Turkey over other countries — Russia, and especially China — that are also seeking to exploit Africa’s mineral wealth.
Turkey’s continued membership in NATO should not be tolerated. Erdogan, after all, has said that he can foresee a coming war “between the crescent and the cross” — Islam and Christianity — and he left no doubt as to which side Turkey would be on, even suggesting that Turkey was the natural leader of the Muslims. That should be enough to expel Turkey from NATO. That would require changing the NATO rules so that the a member can be expelled with a majority rather than a unanimous vote.
Trump should lead the way in demanding a change in the NATO rules so that Turkey can be expelled, which would leave Ankara exposed to its enemies, including Iran and Russia. It can win back American favor, and retain its membership in NATO, if it ends its occupation of northern Syria (and thus its war on Syrian Kurds), and its anti-Israel campaign as well, by expelling members of Hamas and ceasing to threaten Israel, the way Bilal Erdogan did when he said to a huge crowd in Istanbul: “Yesterday Hagia Sophia (once a Church in Istanbul), today the Umayyad Mosque (Damascus), tomorrow Al-Aqsa (the site of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem).”
Erdogan should pull in his horns, cease to hold onto Syrian territory, stop making war on the Syrian Kurds, and end making threats against Israel, and supporting the terror group Hamas. A revived Ottoman Empire, enlarged with black African countries, is a pipe dream; so is Erdogan’s vision of a war between ”crescent and cross” that Turkey would lead. The Arab states remember with horror what they endured under the rule of the Ottoman Turks and have no desire to come under Turkish sway again. If Erdogan wants to expand Turkish influence and even, possibly, its territory, he should look to the five “Turkic” stans — Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan — that might be susceptible to the siren song of pan-Turkism.
SKA says
While there is a large Uzbek Turkic minority in Tajikistan the country is more Persian than Turkish. But another country that Erdogan would count as part of a pan-Turkish federation or empire would be Azerbaijan. But he would want the Iranian Provinces of Eastern and Western Azerbaijan included in his neo-Ottoman state. But part of that design includes eliminating Armenia as an independent nation just as he helped Azerbaijan occupy and ethnically cleans Nagorno-Karabaq.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
If the Iranian regime did not exist, Erdogan would have wanted all of Iran as well – as a land bridge b/w Turkey and Turkmenistan. As I mention below, Iran was ruled by Turkic dynasties for most of its history
Billy says
Islam and its Muslims are a world terroristic threat. As Shia Iran diminishes, Sunni Turkey seeks to revive and to expand their Islamic Empire dreams like their Ottoman Empire of old. Allah in Quran 9:111 says, “Surely Allah has purchased from the believers[Muslims] their souls and their money so that they may have the garden[Heavenly Paradise]. They engage in war for the sake of Allah, so they kill and are killed…” For this killing act, a sacred and holy act, Allah spiritually rewards with Paradise. Allah in Qur’an 8:12 says, “When your lord revealed to the angels: ‘I am with you so make firm those who believed[Muslims]. I will cast a terror into the hearts of those who became infidels[Non-Muslims]. So strike above their necks(decapitation), and strike off(chop off) every finger from them.’” Allah in Qur’an 49:15 says, “Surely the believers are only those who believed in Allah and his messenger. They do not doubt, and they performed jihad with their MONEY AND THEIR LIVES for the sake of Allah. Those are the truthful.” Allah in Qur’an 8:39 says, “And engage in war with them[Non-Muslims] until there will not be sedition and the religion will be completely to Allah…”
Andrew Blackadder says
Tell me again why an outfit called the North Atlantic Treaty Origination has a country in it that is nowhere near the Atlantic Ocean let alone the Northern part and which is called Turkey who has a leader that claims that soon a War between the Cross and the Crescent is forthcoming and yet is still inside the origination lead by those of the Cross.
He is calling himself the Fox that is already inside the Chicken Coop.
Once again we can clearly see muslims laughing in the faces of those they feel are inferior as revenge is a main Tenet within islamic teachings and when they see zero reaction to their vile words deeds or actions they see this as weakness..
Kick them out of NATO.. they are not our friends.
And take US Troops out of Syria and I wonder what the hell they were doing there in the first place.
soon this clusterfuck is gonna explode.
Tommie says
Turkey should be removed from NATO because of Turkey’s terrorism, discrimination, and violence against Non-Muslims. Turkey and the 50+ Islamic Countries are Terrorist States against America and ALL Non-Muslims.
Luchtpint says
“If Erdogan wants to expand Turkish influence and even, possibly, its territory, he should look to the five “Turkic” stans — Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan — that might be susceptible to the siren song of pan-Turkism.”
Correction: Tajikistan is not majority-Turkic, but majority-Persian. (“Tajik” being Persian by another name)
Hugh Fitzgerald probably meant to say “Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan”
࿗Infidel࿘ says
You mentioned Kazakhstan twice. The country both you & Hugh accidentally forgot was Azerbaijan, which is Turkic, although shi’a (unlike every other Turkic country). Incidentally, every dynasty that ruled Iran b/w the Sassanids and the Pahlevis were Turkic, not Iranic (except the Ilkhanate, which was Mongol)
Luchtpint says
Quite right. I hadn’t noticed until you mentioned it. I just copied and pasted what Hugh had written and I overlooked it.
Edward Amos Brandwein says
And then he has the nerve to call Israel “an expansionist country!”
James Lincoln says
NATO’s bylaws need to be revised in order to kick out members who have gone rogue, like Turkey.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
💯
James Lincoln says
Thanks, Infidel.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Already done. In 2009, Erdogan founded the Turkic Council w/ the leaders of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. That group was joined by Uzbekistan a few years ago, and Turkmenistan is a future potential member. We have already seen how both Turkey and Azerbaijan ganged up on Armenia. If the islamic regime in Iran collapses, Erdogan may well wanna conquer Iran, which after all was ruled throughout its history by Turkic, not Iranic dynasties – be it Ghaznavid, Seljuq, Khwarezmid, Aq Qoyunlu, Safavids, Afsharids and Qajars. Only the Pahlevis were an Iranic dynasty ever since the islamization of Iran
One missing part of the jigsaw here is “East Turkistan” aka Xinjiang – which has historic Turkic cities like Qashqar, Turfan, et al. Somehow, Erdogan dare not raise that issue w/ President Xi, even though his claims on those places would be a lot more legitimate than Jerusalem
That said, Turkey does have a virtual empire of which the Ottoman sultans would be proud. Aside from this Turkic council, they are the main power backers of the muslim brotherhood – Qatar being the main money backer. That gives them the hooks into jihadi groups in most Arab countries, and allies of countries like Qatar, Yemen, Somalia, Algeria, Libya’s GNA and now Syria. They also had an alliance w/ Pakistan during Imran Khan’s regime, they have one w/ Afghanistan and Malaysia, and potentially one w/ Bangladesh if they were interested. Look at a map: it’s more than what the Seljuq or Ottoman sultans ever had
(Incidentally, Tajikistan doesn’t belong in this list – ethnically, it’s Iranic, not Turkic, and its national pride was initially based on the Samanid empire, but after a rift w/ Iran and a civil war w/ jihadis, today they celebrate pre-islamic Iranian culture, like Zoroastrian culture, even though they’re not Zoroastrian)