.... Instead, we deluded ourselves with two clichés, an old one and a new one. The old cliché is that the AKP isn’t really an Islamist party; it’s a moderate Islamist party, sort of the Muslim equivalent of Europe’s Christian Democrats. The new cliché is that the AKP isn’t really an Islamist party; it’s a neo-Ottoman party.
The truth is that the AKP is, and always has been, an Islamist party, and there is nothing moderate or Ottoman-like about it. I’ve written before about why a “moderate Islamist party” is a Western fantasy, a contradiction in terms, concocted by people who are blind to the fundamental differences between Islam and Christianity. [National Review Online] Read more
