An Uncertain Ally: Turkey under Erdogan's Dictatorship

by David L. Phillips

Under the rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan Turkey has descended into a dictatorship, promotes the Islamist agenda, abuses human rights, limits freedom of expression in the press, and wages war against the Kurds. While Turkey has historically been important geopolitically, it has become an outlier in Europe and an uncertain ally of the United States.

An Uncertain Ally is a straightforward indictment of Erdogan. Drawing on inside sources in his Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the police, the book reveals corruption and money laundering schemes that benefitted Erdogan, his cronies, and family members. Erdogan has polarized Turkish society and created conditions that led to the coup attempt of July 2016. He has also deepened divisions by accusing Fethullah Gulen, an Islamic teacher in Pennsylvania, of establishing a parallel state and masterminding the coup attempt. Erdogan has seized on the failed coup to justify a witch hunt, arresting thousands and ordering the wholesale dismissal of alleged coup sympathizers. Rather than foster reconciliation, he pursued vendettas and turned Turkey into a gulag.

An Uncertain Ally exposes Turkey’s ties to jihadists in Syria and the Islamic State, questioning its suitability as a NATO member. Under Erdogan, Turkey faces a dark future that poses a danger to the region and internationally.

218 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 28, 2017

About the author

David Phillips has 25 years of experience working on peace-building for the U.S. Department of State, the United Nations, academia, think-tanks, and as a foundation executive.

Phillips is currently Director of the Program on Peace-Building and Rights at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights.

Phillips has served as Foreign Affairs Expert and as Senior Adviser to the Bureau of South and Central Asian (2011-2013), Bureau for Near Eastern Affairs (2002-2003), and the Bureau for European and Canadian Affairs (1999-2002) at the U.S. Department of State. He was also Senior Adviser to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Phillips has worked at academic institutions as Executive Director of Columbia University's International Conflict Resolution Program, Director of American University's Program on Conflict Prevention and Peace-building, Senior Fellow at Harvard University's Future of Diplomacy and Visiting Scholar at Harvard's Center for Middle East Studies, Phillips has also been a foundation executive, serving as President of the Congressional Human Rights Foundation, Executive Director of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, and as Director of the European Centre for Common Ground. Phillips held positions at the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Atlantic Council, and the International Peace Research Institute of Oslo.

He has authored dozens of policy reports, and hundreds of articles in leading publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, and Foreign Affairs.

Reviews

[Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad to see the secular Republic of Turkey founded by Ataturk drift toward an anti American hostile Islamic state. A very good over view of the present state of affairs.

[B · Rating 1 out of 5]

While on the face of it, this may give the impression of being a seemingly well-researched book, its overall quality suffers greatly from the author’s incomplete and deficient knowledge of Ottoman history and Turkish politics -- in particular, ignoring the developments of the last 15 years.

Phillips, an ex-US diplomat known for his pro-Kurdish proclivities, and a current professor at the Columbia University, also seems to be blinded by his long-standing and ossified “western” prejudices which include presenting the ex-president Abdullah Gul as a “European reformer,” and shamelessly referring to the Kurdish terrorist group that have cost thousands of lives as a “human rights organization.”