FLASH
Shkruar nga Michael Rubin
However, this may miss the broader point: Erdogan's increasingly grandiose projects, like Gaddafi's, are more a testament to ego and a crazy mind than any sensible development plan...
Former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was always extravagant, but he became even more eccentric during his decades in power. The former Libyan army colonel, who seized power in a coup in 1969, was notorious for his open embrace of terrorism.
Gaddafi was also a revanchist: he was unhappy that Libya remained within its borders. When his efforts to unite with Egypt failed, he sought to take the Aouzou Strip, known to be rich in uranium, from Chad, which had defeated Libya in a 1987-1988 war for the territory.
In Gaddafi's later days, he visited Europe, but pitched Bedouin tents rather than staying in luxury hotels or Foreign Ministry guesthouses. He also assembled an all-female bodyguard unit, which added to his glamour.
Not only did Gaddafi squander Libya’s wealth on his debauched lifestyle, but he also envisioned grand schemes to reshape the country’s geography. While Egypt has the Nile, Libya has no permanent rivers. Thus, Gaddafi embarked on a scheme to build a man-made “great river,” a series of wells and pipelines under the Sahara Desert that remains unfinished since Gaddafi’s fall in 2011, a $30 billion fraud and a testament to Gaddafi’s arrogance.
This is where Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan comes in. Like Gaddafi, Erdogan is extravagant. Unhappy with the existing presidential residence, he built a palace 30 times larger than the White House. He also submerged Hasankeyf, one of the oldest and best-preserved Kurdish cities in the world, 60 meters below the surface by building a dam that few wanted. Like Gaddafi, Erdogan openly supports terrorist groups, allowing Hamas to open offices and operate from Istanbul.
Now, in his final years, Erdogan has taken a cue from Gaddafi with his mega-project, the Istanbul Canal. Since the 1936 Montreux Convention on the Regime of Straits regulates traffic through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, Erdogan is seeking to open a separate canal to connect the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara.
Most foreign policy analysts view the canal through the lens of its implications for the provisions of the Montreux Convention, which prohibit warships from passing through the Bosphorus during wartime. If an alternative route to the Black Sea exists, could warships flood the Black Sea?
For this, Moscow may have greater objections than Washington, at least as long as NATO considers Turkey more of an asset than a Trojan Horse.
However, this may miss the broader point: Erdogan's increasingly grandiose projects, like Gaddafi's, are more a testament to ego and a mad mind than any sensible development plan. Indeed, it may be too generous to attribute logic to Erdogan's ambitions, rather than recognizing them for what they are: Gaddafi-level madness.
If Erdogan wants to divert tens of billions of dollars from Turkey’s existing welfare and infrastructure, that’s his business. But instead of looking the other way, let alone applauding it, Washington should call it what it is: a vanity project for which all Turks will suffer, which, even if completed, will never last, given the conditions of the land and the earthquake zone through which it will pass. /Adapted from aei.org/
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