Separating religion and government

"Eric Edelman, the undersecretary of defense for policy and the ambassador to Ankara from 2003 to 2005, displayed a perfect understanding of Turkey's history and current challenges during a speech at the Washington Institute last week. Mr. Edelman discussed the legacies of the founding Turkish leaders Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Ismet Inonu and Turgut Ozal. "[T]he nation's strength remains in its strong founding principles, which still hold true decades later," he said. "Turkey can proudly look back on a great heritage for guidance in today's world: Kemal Ataturk's vision of a modernized Turkey anchored in the West; Ismet Inonu's commitment to carrying out democratization; and Turgut Ozal, whose courageous leadership during critical times made decisions that restored multiparty democracy, opened the economy, and positioned Turkey as a reliable ally committed to working with partners and friends on a shared vision for a better future."

"Obviously, the United States needed an example of secular democracy to show to the countries whose regimes it wanted to change. But there's no road map to bring democracy to the Middle East. The democracy Ataturk built in Turkey contradicts James Madison's vision of religious freedom. "Because it will destroy that moderation and harmony which the forbearance of our laws to intermeddle with Religion has produced among its several sects," Madison wrote in 1785. "Torrents of blood have been split in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish religious discord, by proscribing all difference in religious opinion. Time has at length revealed the true remedy. Every relaxation of narrow and rigorous policy, wherever it has been tried, has been found to assuage the disease."

"That is Turkey's fear. Islamists don't believe in separating religious and governmental affairs, so Islam is their guide to every walk of life. With the number of women wearing headscarves and the hijab at an all-time high in Turkey, it's clear the country is failing to preserve the secularism it was founded on eight decades ago. If the state is threatened, America will have failed as well. And in the midst of these concerns, one can only hope that the United States knows where and how to keep Turkey if the talks with Tehran do not prevail to any desirable ending. Therefore, Mr. Edelman's speech should stand as the right way to talk about Turkey, its relations with the United States and the future."
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