Turkey's Revolution Looks like Iran's - but in Slow Motion

by A.J. Caschetta  •  October 10, 2018 at 4:00 am

        

• The SAVAK's infamous Evin prison, which once held as many as 5,000 of the Shah's political enemies, soon held over 15,000 of Khomeini's.
• Erdogan once said that "Democracy is like a tram. You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off." It appears he has reached his destination.
• As Prime Minister and then President of Turkey, Erdogan's policies have become steadily more hostile to U.S. interests. He championed the Gaza flotilla, helped Iran transport weapons into Syria, and fought America's Kurdish allies.
• Imagine what the world would be like if the U.S. had stationed nuclear weapons in Iran prior to Khomeini's takeover. Imagine what the world will be like if Erdogan seizes America's nuclear weapons.

Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (left) in 1978 and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2018. (Image sources: Khomeini - Hulton Archive/Getty Images; Erdogan - Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Watching Turkey's transformation into an authoritarian Islamist nation over the last 16 years has been eerily like watching Iran's rapid fall in 1979 -- but in slow motion. Whereas Iran went from a secularist American ally to an implacable Islamist foe in a matter of months, Turkey has been on a similar path but led by a more cautious Islamist, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has moved at a much slower rate.

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