A few years ago, it seemed as if Turkey's Prime Minister was an unstoppable force, an almost unblemished leader who won successive majorities, oversaw an unprecedented economic expansion and somehow seemed to please, or at least avoid deeply offending, most of his country's embattled constituencies.
And then, almost overnight, Recep Tayyip Erdogan's once-secure government seemed to topple into a cesspit of corruption accusations, demagoguery and pitched infighting. To outside observers, it has seemed like a shockingly rapid fall – though some Turks say we should have been watching more closely.
Over the last 24 hours, there have been 25 more arrests in a corruption probe that has penetrated the heart of Mr. Erdogan's government, resulting in the resignation of three cabinet ministers last month and investigations into scores of officials and their families. Mr. Ergodan responded Monday night by purging the Ankara police force of 350 officers and senior officials involved in the corruption investigation, replacing them with provincial officials more loyal to his conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP).
While genuine corruption may well be involved in the probe, it is also a civil war between Mr. Erdogan and the followers of Fethullah Gulen, the moderate Islamic cleric who lives in exile in the United States and whose movement commands the loyalty of million of mainly university-educated, middle-class Turks – especially those who have entered the police and the civil service (it is sometimes described as an Islamic version of freemasonry). The Gulen movement was a decisive factor in Mr. Erdogan's rise to political power 11 years ago – his AKP party represents religious believers, and is often described as Islamist. But the Gulenists have become disenchanted with Mr. Erdogan's move toward a more heavy-handed politics – Turkish observers say they prefer a more professional, secular approach to government, and have shifted their allegiance to the more moderate president Abdullah Gul.
It was Gulen-associated officials who led Mr. Erdogan's massive trial and conviction of hundreds of military officials accused of plotting a coup against his conservative government. Now even that investigation has fallen prey to the infighting. On Monday, Mr. Erdogan discussed the possibility of a retrial, suggesting that some officers had been falsely accused by the Gulenists. It marks a dramatic shift: A decade ago, he was at war against the "deep state" of secular adherents to Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey; now he sees fellow Islamic believers as the secret enemy.
For most of the past decade, North American and European officials feared that Mr. Erdogan might slide into Islamic rule. That hasn't materialized: Aside from a few gestures such as allowing Islamic headscarves on university students, he has not proven to be an Islamic Trojan horse. Rather, he appears to have fallen prey to the demagoguery of absolute majority: Since 2007, he has led almost unopposed, and as with many prime ministers who win three successive majorities, he has fallen prey to the temptations of power.
Turkish observers say we should have noticed this happening years ago.
"The United States and the European Union bought the AKP's narrative," the veteran Turkish journalist Sedat Ergin said in an interview on Monday. "After the AKP's vote reached 47 per cent in the 2007 elections, check-and-balance mechanisms in Turkey started to erode and a serious problem of power concentration emerged. The West failed to detect the change that surfaced during the second tenure of the government after 2007."
During this period, Mr. Erdogan began cracking down on media outlets critical of his party, imposing a $2.5-billion tax fine on one media organization.
"There is an assumption that the change in Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan towards authoritarianism started in 2011," Mr. Ergin added. "But this does not correspond to facts. The change started back in 2008. We could see from that time how Erdogan was shifting to an illiberal mindset."
Some believe Mr. Erdogan's slide into demagoguery began when the European Union turned away from its efforts to draw Turkey into membership, after French and German leaders rejected the country as excessively Islamic. At that point, Mr. Erdogan retreated from his Europeanization agenda and shifted his political focus toward the Middle East – with equally disappointing results in the wake of the Arab uprisings.
Some believe the solution to this crisis may be to draw Turkey back into the West, with a new EU overture, to reverse the political slide.
"For some in Europe, Turkey looks like a medium-sized outsider with an attitude problem," Hugh Pope of the International Crisis Group's Istanbul office wrote in a Tuesday editorial calling for Turkish EU accession. "But Europe needs to revise its attitudes, too. Europe needs to look harder at whether it wants Turkey to continue as a problematic rival in its south-eastern backyard, or whether it is more productive to ease those problems through greater partnership."
Doug Saunders