I'm Not Sure...

I've ever seen so bold a claim put forward by a respected academic backed by so little evidence. (Note: Perhaps Ferguson has TONS of evidence and it just didn't make it into this piece. But this piece is all a reader of it has to go upon!)

Let's take a quick look at what seems to Ferguson's sole piece of evidence for his claim that Turkey's leader is looking to establish a new Ottoman empire:

In his early career as mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan was imprisoned for publicly reciting these lines by an early-20th-century Pan-Turkish poet: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the faithful our soldiers.” His ambition, it seems clear, is to return to the pre-Atatürk era, when Turkey was not only militantly Muslim but also a regional superpower.

Well, there you have it: Early in his career, Erdogan recited a few lines of controversial poetry! Clearly, those lines were his Mein Kampf.

Having erected a mansion on a column of sandstone, Ferguson now is proud of what it would explain:

"This explains his sustained campaign to alter the Turkish Constitution in ways that would likely increase his own power at the expense of the judiciary and the press as well as the military, all bastions of secularism. It explains his increasingly strident criticism of Israel’s “state terrorism” in Gaza, where pro-Palestinian activists sent a headline-grabbing flotilla last year."

Well, or maybe he just wants to alter the Turkish Constitution because, like most leaders, he likes power. Maybe he is criticizing Israel's state terrorism because he objects to state terrorism?

Here is my hypothesis: Ferguson intends to build a second British empire in the Middle East and appoint himself as its ruler. This would explain this load of codswallop.