This Stratfor article discusses the situation surrounding Turkey in light of its recent elections.
First it discusses the tenuous balance between Turkey's religious (I'm not sure Islamist is quite the correct term) party the AKP and the diverse coalition of secular parties opposing it. As pointed out in the article, the AKP fell short of the super-majority they needed to unilaterally alter the Turkish Constitution, so for now a sort of stasis remains.
The article then examined Turkey's rather complex diplomatic posture, as it tries to deal with the competing pressures of the U.S., its Arab neighbors, Russia, Europe and Israel. It is taking steps towards exerting itself as a regional power, but it isn't clear how it will eventually balance all of the forces pulling and pushing against it.
Turkey is a legitimate military power, it would certainly give Europe, and perhaps even Russia, fits if they ever clashed and it is hard to imagine one of their immediate Islamic neighbors, even Iran, being able to stand against them for long. For that reason, coupled with the uncertainty of their diplomatic intentions, Turkey is a country that bears close attention.
For the article's Hot Stratfor Babe I decided to pick a Turkish actress. After my usual exhaustive and thorough search, I settled on Nurgül Yeşilçay for the honor.
The reason I settled on her was she started on the stage and played Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Yes, that's a ridiculous reason, but come on -- let's be honest here -- all of my Hot Stratfor Babe criteria are pretty ridiculous so precedence has already been established.
After her stint on the stage she moved onto TV, where she had several very popular shows which led to her having a career in the movies. She also is a singer and dancer. She appears to be a very popular Turkish star.
As usual I've embedded a bonus video after the article. It is a very nice live version of Roy Orbison singing Pretty Woman while a bunch of pictures of her are shown. I must say, the camera is very kind to her. She pulls off a variety of looks quite nicely.
TURKEY'S ELECTIONS AND STRAINED U.S. RELATIONS
By George Friedman, June 14, 2011
Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) won Parliamentary elections June 12, which means it will remain in power for a third term. The popular vote, divided among a number of parties, made the AKP the most popular party by far, although nearly half of the electorate voted for other parties, mainly the opposition and largely secularist Republican People's Party (CHP). More important, the AKP failed to win a super-majority, which would have given it the power to unilaterally alter Turkey's constitution. This was one of the major issues in the election, with the AKP hoping for the super-majority and others trying to block it. The failure of the AKP to achieve the super-majority leaves the status quo largely intact. While the AKP remains the most powerful party in Turkey, able to form governments without coalition partners, it cannot rewrite the constitution without accommodating its rivals.
One way to look at this is that Turkey continues to operate within a stable framework, one that has been in place for almost a decade. The AKP is the ruling party. The opposition is fragmented along ideological lines, which gives the not overwhelmingly popular AKP disproportionate power. The party can set policy within the constitution but not beyond the constitution. In this sense, the Turkish political system has produced a long-standing reality. Few other countries can point to such continuity of leadership. Obviously, since Turkey is a democracy, the rhetoric is usually heated and accusations often fly, ranging from imminent military coups to attempts to impose a religious dictatorship. There may be generals thinking of coups and there may be members of AKP thinking of religious dictatorship, but the political process has worked effectively to make such things hard to imagine. In Turkey, as in every democracy, the rhetoric and the reality must be carefully distinguished.
Turkey's Shifting Policy
That said, the AKP has clearly taken Turkey in new directions in both domestic and foreign policy. In domestic policy, the direction is obvious. While the CHP has tried to vigorously contain religion within the private sphere, the AKP has sought to recognize Turkey's Islamic culture and has sought a degree of integration with the political structure.
This has had two results. Domestically, while the AKP has had the strength to create a new political sensibility, it has not had the strength to create new institutions based on Islamic principles (assuming this is one of its desired goals). Nevertheless, the secularists, deriving their legitimacy from the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, have viewed his legacy and their secular rights -- one of which is the right of women not to have to wear headscarves -- as being under attack. Hence, the tenor of public discourse has been volatile. Indeed, there is a constant sense of crisis in Turkey, as the worst fears of the secularists collide with the ambitions of the AKP. Again, we regard these ambitions as modest, not because we know what AKP leaders intend in their heart, but simply because they lack the power to go further regardless of intentions.
The rise of the AKP and its domestic agenda has more than just domestic consequences. Since 2001, the United States has been fighting radical Islamists, and the fear of radical Islamism goes beyond the United States to Europe and other countries. In many ways, Turkey is both the most prosperous and most militarily powerful of any Muslim country. The idea that the AKP agenda is radically Islamist and that Turkey is moving toward radical Islamism generates anxieties and hostilities in the international system. [continued after jump]
