Do you believe Turkey is on the path to rogue dictatorship?

Let's make sure we understand the author's perspectives clearly: Pipes is routinely criticized for his fervent anti-Islam and anti-Muslim biases (he argues that Pres Obama is a Muslim, for example) and adheres to the world view that other countries should conform to US desires. These perspectives shape his concerns about the upcoming Turkish election, in that the AKP is seen by people like Pipes as a radical Islamist party (it's not----it is a socially conservative, populist party that happens to be in a country that is 99% Sunni Muslim; calling it a radical Islamist party would be similar to calling the Republican Party a radical Christian party) and in that Turkey is more concerned about its own national interests than anything else, and those national interests don't always align exactly with US interests.

Erdogan is clearly the most influential politician in Turkey. But the scenario Pipes lays out is just not plausible. A solid system of checks and balances exist in the Turkish democratic system (historically speaking, although one has to acknowledge the conditions have changed). Pipes does a pretty solid job of fear mongering, though. Regardless of the results of the upcoming election, Turkey is not going to change fundamentally. If the AKP wins a supermajority (which is unlikely), the AKP will change the governing system to a presidential system; we should like this, given our fondness for our presidential system. If the AKP doesn't win an outright majority, then there will either be a coalition government (probably with the CHP) or another election.

The history of coalition governments doesn't bode well for a post-election coalition government, though. Turkey had coalition governments in the 1990s and even earlier than that. They were disasters. This largely Informs the AKP's hesitancy to go the coalition route (noting of course that the AKP tried to form a coalition, but the other parties refused).

What motivates hit pieces on the AKP like this one by Pipes is anti-Islam bigotry punctuated by disappointment in the lack of U.S. Influence and informed by Turkey's decision in 2003 to not allow the U.S. To invade Iraq from Turkish territory (which in hindsight must be assessed as a solid national decision by Turkey, given the false premises of the U.S. Invasion and subsequent disaster Iraq became). Pipes was part of the Bush Administration. Turkey's 2003 decision has had outsized impact on all US analysis of Turkey since then.

Erdogan is routinely criticized for all sorts of things. In the U.S., though, do we rarely see commentary about AKP successes, which have been substantial. I don't agree with all that Erdogan and the AKP have done. But commentary like this from Pipes misses such a substantial part of the story.

Also, we say we believe in democracy. Turks vote in droves, with voter turnout at very high levels. If Turks elect the AKP, who are we to say that their decision is incorrect (dismissing Pipes' outlandish assertions about the potential for voter fraud; he is a Republican, though, and we've seen how Republicans are terrified of voter fraud even here in the U.S., where claims of voter fraud are, yes, outlandish)?

Not really. I believe that we put our western bias into the way that we want the rest of the world to look and that clouds how we try to shape our DOS and DOD policies.

I think it has been for some time now MAJ (Join to see).