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Erdogan Seeks to Stretch His Rule over Turkey into a Third Decade
(Bloomberg-Washington Post) Bobby Ghosh - In the elections in Turkey on June 18, President Erdogan is seeking to stretch his rule over Turkey into a third decade. Western leaders will be glad to see the back of Erdogan. He has undermined NATO's security by acquiring missile-defense systems from Russia, blocked the membership of Sweden and Finland, repeatedly threatened to flood Europe with refugees, and has hurled increasingly bellicose rhetoric toward Greece. Top Turkish officials routinely accuse the U.S. of backing a coup against Erdogan and of complicity with terrorist groups. Erdogan's worldview is "far more radical than most Westerners think," says political analyst Selim Koru. His ambitions for Turkey's immediate neighborhood is not to complement American and European influence, "it's to replace and counter them." Even if Erdogan should be defeated, nobody should expect a quick 180-degree turn. Erdogan has had 20 years to seed Turkish institutions - the government, the military, academia, the religious establishment and the media - with his radical worldview.