The Rand Corporation and Gulen
In what may come as a surprise to many in the United States, the secular part of Turkey believes that the United States government supports Fethullah Gulen.
Several covers of books by Hikmet Cetinkaya that are scathingly critical of Gulen feature caricatures of Fethullah Gulen and President Bush. Cetinkaya is a columnist for Turkey's national newspaper Cumhuriyet, which is known to be staunchly secularist.
It is noteworthy that Graham Fuller, who has past affiliations with the Rand Corporation, the National Security Council, and the CIA, wrote a letter in support of Gulen's visa application in 2008. It is also noteworthy that Fuller attends Gulenist events such as this one organized by the Turquoise Council for Americans and Eurasians, where the political discussion took a very favorable tone towards the AKP party:
http://www.turquoisecouncil.org/capitolhillevents/?n=16&t=transcript-graham-fuller-foreign-policy-davutoglu-vision
All this raises many questions as to why the US would support Gulen over the secularists.
Several reports from the Rand Corporation may provide some insight into this question. One, by Cheryl Benard, entitled "Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources and Strategies," available for download here
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1716/MR1716.pdf
identifies Fethullah Gulen as one of the "modernists" in Turkey. She then makes the following policy recommendation on page 47:
• Support the modernists first, enhancing their vision of Islam over that of the
traditionalists by providing them with a broad platform to articulate and
disseminate their views. They, not the traditionalists, should be cultivated
and publicly presented as the face of contemporary Islam.
• Support the secularists on a case-by-case basis.
This could perhaps be read as a blueprint for preferentially supporting Gulen and the AKP.
Jonathan Crince, in his 2009 Masters Thesis thesis from American University,
argued that favoring the AKP party over the secularists was not in the United States' long-term foreign policy interests.
Several covers of books by Hikmet Cetinkaya that are scathingly critical of Gulen feature caricatures of Fethullah Gulen and President Bush. Cetinkaya is a columnist for Turkey's national newspaper Cumhuriyet, which is known to be staunchly secularist.
It is noteworthy that Graham Fuller, who has past affiliations with the Rand Corporation, the National Security Council, and the CIA, wrote a letter in support of Gulen's visa application in 2008. It is also noteworthy that Fuller attends Gulenist events such as this one organized by the Turquoise Council for Americans and Eurasians, where the political discussion took a very favorable tone towards the AKP party:
http://www.turquoisecouncil.org/capitolhillevents/?n=16&t=transcript-graham-fuller-foreign-policy-davutoglu-vision
All this raises many questions as to why the US would support Gulen over the secularists.
Several reports from the Rand Corporation may provide some insight into this question. One, by Cheryl Benard, entitled "Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources and Strategies," available for download here
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1716/MR1716.pdf
identifies Fethullah Gulen as one of the "modernists" in Turkey. She then makes the following policy recommendation on page 47:
• Support the modernists first, enhancing their vision of Islam over that of the
traditionalists by providing them with a broad platform to articulate and
disseminate their views. They, not the traditionalists, should be cultivated
and publicly presented as the face of contemporary Islam.
• Support the secularists on a case-by-case basis.
This could perhaps be read as a blueprint for preferentially supporting Gulen and the AKP.
Jonathan Crince, in his 2009 Masters Thesis thesis from American University,
argued that favoring the AKP party over the secularists was not in the United States' long-term foreign policy interests.
