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Turkey: Between Ataturk's Secularism and Fundamentalist Islam
(Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Harold Rhode - Today there is an internal battle among Turkish Muslims between forces that want to be part of the Western world and those that want to return Turkey's political identity to be based primarily on Islamic solidarity. But it isn't Ottoman Islam that these Islamist Turks seek to revive. Their Islam is more in tune with the fanatically anti-Western principles of Saudi Wahhabi Islam. If a moderate form of Turkish Islam is to be revived, it must stand up to the onslaught of Wahhabism and the temptations of Islamism. Dr. Harold Rhode, now a Senior Advisor at the Hudson Institute-New York, served in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment from 1994 until his recent retirement.