Through their control of the Supreme Leader's office, the Guardian Council and the judiciary, they sought to ensure that the prerogatives of the elected institutions and the demands of the public could be effectively negated. Clerical stalwarts such as Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati and Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi headed these organizations and openly acclaimed the virtues of despotic rule. The hard-liners took full advantage of Khomeini's constitutional manipulations, which granted clerical watchdog organizations ample power to thwart popular aspirations. In the name of Islamic salvation, the reactionary elements of the state obstructed a range of initiatives that would have made the Islamic Republic a more tolerant and inclusive polity.“Beyond the formal institutions of the state, the hard-liners also came to dominate the coercive instruments of power, particularly the Revolutionary Guard. The 125,000-strong Revolutionary Guard force is commanded by reactionary ideologues who are committed to the values and philosophical outlook of the clerical militants. Throughout the 1990s, they called for suppression of the reform movement and denounced its attempts to expand the political rights of the citizenry."
This long excerpt from Ray Takeyh's "Hidden Iran," it seems, is a good summary of the dynamics of power that the conservatives hold in the struggle between the reformists seeking greater democracy and the conservative forces in Iran. By looking at Iran -- where, although it is a country with a well-known practice of taqiyya (dissimulation), everything is surprisingly much more transparent -- we can understand better the ongoing struggle between the conservative/Kemalist and the reformist/democratic groups in Turkey, where polarizations and conspiracies are implemented in subtler ways. What we should do is to replace Turkey with Iran and change the names of personalities, institutions, events and dates.
For instance, we can rewrite the same text without much tampering as follows: "Over the past five decades (since the military coup of 1960), the aggressive supporters of the status quo essentially ensured their political hegemony by dominating Turkey's powerful nonelected institutions. Through their control of the presidential office (until recently), the military, the judiciary and the bureaucracy, they sought to ensure that the prerogatives of the elected institutions and the demands of the public could be effectively negated. Kemalist stalwarts such as Süleyman Demirel, Ahmet Necdet Sezer and Deniz Baykal headed these organizations and openly acclaimed the virtues of despotic rule. The hard-liners within the state and bureaucracy benefited considerably from the presidential office (until Abdullah Gül), the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the constitutional manipulations of the top judiciary, which granted the military guardianship ample power to thwart popular aspirations. Because of their Kemalist obsessions, the reactionary elements of the state obstructed a range of initiatives that would have made the Republic of Turkey a more tolerant and inclusive polity.
“Beyond the formal institutions of the state, the hard-liners also came to dominate the coercive instruments of power, particularly the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). The 600,000-strong TSK is commanded by reactionary ideologues who are committed to the values and philosophical outlook of the ambitious Kemalists. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, they called for suppression of the reform movement and denounced its attempts to expand the political rights of the citizenry."
In this context, we can also talk about the postmodern military coup of Feb. 28 and the devilish legal scandal that invented the quorum of 367 deputies for election of the president in order to block Gül. We can also mention the closure case against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the e-memorandum of April 27, 2007. We can also list former President Sezer's frequent vetoes of every piece of legislation involving reforms and democracy, his applications to the Constitutional Court for their annulment, the CHP's applications to the same court for the annulment of 37 reform bills and their success in these applications.
In this connection, reference can be made to the fact that chiefs of general staff and top commanders are fully immersed in daily politics and that they were so bold as to attempt to overthrow the government in the aborted Ayışığı (Moonlight), Sarıkız (Blond Girl) and Eldiven (Glove) coups. Also, this picture has room for those proponents of the status quo that created an illegal network called Ergenekon as well as the military, the judiciary, the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) and certain media organizations that have been devising all sorts of conspiracies to protect the members of Ergenekon.
If there is Khamenei or Ahmadinejad acting as the flagship of conservatism in Iran, we have Baykal and his followers, who do the same thing in our country, don't you think? And there are also Demirel, Hüsamettin Cindoruk, Sabih Kanadoğlu and the like, who are as skilled as Khamenei in providing indirect consultation to the active players.
As I said above, you'll have no difficulty in understanding Turkey if you have a look at Iran. By replacing the Iranian names with Turkish, you can be assured of being certain about the developments in Turkey. If you don't believe my words, just go ahead with you own try. You'll lose nothing just by trying.
