“Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,” says Yahweh Sabaoth. (Zechariah 4: 6)

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Middle East Forum—The Black Sheep of NATO:

It was made abundantly clear last week in Philadelphia, of all places, that NATO is being undermined from within and lacks the will to defend its own values and interests.

I flew to Philadelphia to speak to visiting members of NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly at a foreign policy conference organized by the Middle East Forum, where I am a fellow. Most of the event was off the record, but the final portion was not, and that’s when the news broke.

First, a bit of background. Rumi Forum President Emre Çelik was supposed to be on my panel, but Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s office in Ankara demanded we disinvite him or his delegation wouldn’t attend. Çelik is part of the intellectual movement led by Fethullah Gülen, a former Erdoğan ally currently exiled in rural Pennsylvania. Erdoğan blames Gülen and his followers for the botched military coup last summer and has since purged and imprisoned tens of thousands of people, including journalists as well as government officials and military officers. Çelik couldn’t sit next to me on a panel in Philadelphia because Ankara—on the other side of the world—declared him an enemy of the state and a terrorist.

I know little about Çelik personally and had no idea what he was planning to say, yet I expected to be a bit skeptical. He’s not on Team Erdoğan—that’s clear—but the Gülenist movement isn’t composed of Jeffersonian democrats either. In City Journal, Claire Berlinski expertly exposed Gülen as an authoritarian thug masquerading as a moderate. Lest there be any doubt about that, until a few years ago, the Gülenists were part of Erdoğan’s authoritarian coalition, making Gülen Turkey’s Leon Trotsky, if you will.

Even so, I didn’t mind being scheduled to sit next to Çelik and hear him out, but Turkish government officials reacted like campus snowflakes who were about to be forced, Clockwork Orange-style, to sit and listen to a speech by Ann Coulter.

MEF President Daniel Pipes wouldn’t stand for it, so he ostensibly disinvited Çelik, then sprung him on the NATO conference goers at the last minute. The Turkish delegation pitched a fit and stormed out. What happened next, though, was worse. The entire NATO delegation, in solidarity with their Turkish colleagues, also walked out of the conference.

So, a dictator in Asia used the heckler’s veto against a dissident in America, a five-minute walk from the Museum of the American Revolution, and our European allies let him get away with it. The remaining guests in Philadelphia, though, almost all them Americans, gave Çelik a standing ovation.

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SnyderTalk Comment:

Turkey’s NATO membership used to make sense, but that was more than a decade ago.  The only logic for allowing Turkey to remain a NATO member today is that Turkey has been a member for a long time.

When Turkey joined NATO, Turkey was a secular democracy.  It wasn’t a perfect country, but no country is.  Today, Turkey is an Islamist state whose president has made himself a dictator.

I think Erdoğan fancies himself a sultan—the heir apparent to Saladin with a grand palace.

President Erdoğan can’t be trusted with military secrets the likes of which he sees every day as a NATO member.  His lack of trustworthiness is beyond doubt.

Erdoğan manufactured the Mavi Marmara incident to build his resume in the Arab world.  It was an attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza.  That blockade is in place because Hamas imports weapons that are used to make war with Israel.

Although Erdoğan claims to be on our side in the war against Islamist terrorists today, until it was brought to light by Russia, he purchased oil from ISIS that was stolen from the lands they occupied.  That money was used to fund ISIS’ war enterprise.

In other words,  Erdoğan is a double-dealing crook.

Erdoğan is a ruthless tyrant who crushes dissent in Turkey.  He has jailed thousands of journalists, college professors, elected officials, judges, and anyone else in Turkey who criticizes him or his political party or fails to snap to attention and salute smartly whenever he gives an order.

Erdoğan’s dictatorial escapades were on display in Washington a few months ago when he ordered his security detail to physically attack protesters outside the Turkish embassy. (See the videos below.)  Several members of Erdoğan’s security detail were indicted for the roles they played in that incident.

Erdoğan was not indicted, but he should have been.

There are mountains of hard evidence supporting my conclusions.  It would take a lengthy book to present all of it.  This is crux of the matter: today there is no good logic for including Turkey in NATO.

See “Closer Iran-Turkey Ties: Regional Implications and Significance for Israel”.  This is a big deal and another good reason to expel Turkey under Erdoğan from NATO.

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“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17: 22-24)

See “His Name is Yahweh”.