It has been seven years since the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came to power in Turkey, and yet these years were not successful in terms of broadening the popular base of the Justice and Development Party (AKP – Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) at the domestic level, to add to its supporters the segments of society that are wary of its Islamic program and firmly connected to the state's secular roots. Furthermore, these years were not successful, most dangerously, in terms of arriving at reconciliation with the army, which is widely influential in Turkey, and the history of which abounds with clashes with Islamist movements, the party names of which have been as numerous as the battles they have waged, yet emerging from all of them in retreat and defeated. The battle currently taking place between the Erdoğan government and the Turkish army falls under no other framework. Despite the fact that army leaders deny their intention to conspire against the elected government, which they are being prosecuted for, and despite the fact that after three years of investigations no evidence proving the charges has appeared, such a battle indicates much more than this. It indicates complete lack of trust between the two sides: the government is accusing the military of preparing for a coup against the will of voters, and the leaders of the army are accusing the Erdoğan government of attempting to bring Turkey to positions that are at odds with its constitution and its interests, whether in terms of managing the country's internal affairs, or in terms of broadening Turkish relations with the neighboring region, particularly the Iranian part of it. These relations, in the view of those who criticize them, do not portend to what would reassure of the ruling Turkish mind opening up to the values of democracy and justice, the amount of which is decreasing day after day in neighboring countries, particularly Southern ones. Turkey is thus vertically divided into two camps. Those who support the government consider the army to be the greatest obstacle on Turkey's unwavering path to democracy as well as to the likelihood of its future membership in the European Union. Those who support the army, on the other hand, consider that the coming of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his friend Abdullah Gül to power in Ankara represents the greatest blow to the system whose bases were established by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk more than eighty years ago. In any country in which affairs are managed in a normal fashion, it is hard to imagine such an abnormal situation arising as the one which currently stands on the shores of the Bosphorus between the military and the politicians. Indeed, in the modern world of governance, people agree on one of two existing experiences: there is either a government that governs based on popular suffrage, and to whose decisions all state institutions are subjected, including that of the army, or there is military rule that hides itself behind civilian committees and governs through them, yet holds the final decisions at the end of the day. As for this constant struggle between governmental decision-making and military decision-making, it by its uniqueness resembles nothing but the geographic division characteristic of Turkey, which lies between two continents, and which attracts the world's attention as both a meeting point and a point of discordance between cultures and civilizations. It would be short-sighted for the Erdoğan government to underestimate the Turkish army's ability to resist and to defend itself. Indeed, the slogan “no one is above the law” raised by Erdoğan is a nice one, and it is the duty of any government to adopt it. Yet it is a slogan that needs to be defended, and the only means of defense held by the Erdoğan government to defend itself are those of security forces, and most prominently the army. However, when doubt and caution come to dominate the way the government and the army deal with each other, the government's situation becomes difficult, regardless of the amount of popular support it can gather around itself. It is important to remember that restoring political and civilian life to Turkish state institutions has always taken place thanks to the army returning to its barracks voluntarily, not under the pressure of any other factor. That is a testimony that must be recorded for these armed forces, one which distinguishes them from all of their counterparts in countries of the region surrounding Turkey, countries armed to the teeth with soldiers who rule in civilian guise, or with civilians who have leapt under the cover of darkness to hang medals and wear military uniforms.
