ABSTRACT
The Turkish president stated that some of the almost four million refugees from Syria and elsewhere that Turkey now houses might return to these recently occupied areas. In the past decade, despite winning Turkey's popular election for president in August 2014, presiding over another great parliamentary victory in November 2015, and then winning re-election as president as well as retaining control of parliament in June 2018, Erdogan's increasing authoritarianism has helped precipitate an accelerating crisis both domestically and externally for Turkey. In conclusion, Erdogan did exactly what the Kemalists feared—he opened the gates for Islamist politics. He is using Islam to end Turkey's pro-Western, secular transformation, and instrumentalizing Ottoman history for contemporary political debates.
