Trump envoy Barrack’s embrace of 'strong leaders' sparks fury in Turkey

Demands to expel the Trump administration’s ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, are growing within Turkey over his comments deemed to applaud authoritarian rule at a diplomacy summit on Friday in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya.

Ozgur Ozel, the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), has called for Barrack, a close personal friend of US President Donald Trump, to be declared “persona non grata” unless he apologized. In a speech before CHP lawmakers in the parliament on Tuesday, Ozel accused the envoy of a “brazen attack on the Republic of Turkey” and of acting in concert with autocrats seeking to “create a new world order” in which “democracy is reversed,” “elites” are empowered and “ordinary folk are impoverished.”

Lawmakers from other opposition parties joined in with demands for Barrack’s immediate expulsion. "What more does [Barrack] need to do in order to be declared persona non grata by the government?” fumed Mahmut Arikan, the leader of the pro-Islamist Saadet (Felicity) Party. Similar sentiments flooded Turkish social media platforms.

Good for the Orient

The source of the ire is Barrack’s claim that the Middle East is best governed by “strong leaders” and “benevolent monarchs.” The envoy had already aired this view at the Doha Forum in Qatar last December. Coming after he accused journalists of “animalistic behavior” during a chaotic Beirut press conference in August, Barrack’s remarks sparked widespread anger. In Antalya, he took things up a notch. Acknowledging that he knew he would be criticized for “saying this because it's anti-democratic,” Barrack went on to opine that “the only thing that’s worked” in the region “is these powerful leadership regimes, either benevolent monarchies, the kind of monarchical republic.”

“Everything else, this Arab Spring, just faded away and evaporated. Countries that have put on this cloak of democracy, or that we’ve gone after for human rights, have failed,” Barrack added.

To be sure, countries like Egypt and Tunisia have reverted to authoritarian rule after overthrowing their dictators in popular revolutions. Syria, under its interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, may well be on the same path. Iraq and Libya, which cast off their strongmen with Western intervention, are seen as all but failed states. As such, Barrack might be credited for his candor. But Turkey is a different case.

The modern republic was erected from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire by Kemal Ataturk, the revered soldier-turned-statesman who banned the monarchy and packed its members off to exile.

Anatolia, the inner core of the empire from which the new nation was built, was never colonized, largely thanks to him.

Since 1946, when the first multi-party elections were held, Turkey’s trajectory was determinedly westward, albeit interrupted by a string of coups and marred by brutal repression of the Kurds. The 2002 rise of the country’s current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ushered in a period of sweeping reforms, putting an end to military tutelage, opening peace talks with Kurdish rebels and empowering women. In 2005, the European Union declared Turkey a formal candidate for full membership of its historically Christian club.

More than two decades on, Turkey is on the cusp of full-blown authoritarianism. The rule of law is in free fall with a highly politicized judiciary, a muzzled media and power largely concentrated in the president’s hands. There is talk of Erdogan anointing his younger son, Bilal, who is being informally coached for the job, as his successor. Yet despite such obstacles, the CHP managed to beat Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party nationally in local elections held in 2024. Democracy may be on life support, but it’s not dead.

Mum’s the word

Namik Tan, a CHP lawmaker and former Turkish ambassador to Washington, told Al-Monitor, “In any other country, Barrack would have been immediately summoned to the Foreign Ministry and cautioned. Had he continued to make such comments, he would have been expelled. In Turkey, this government stays mum.” Tan went on, “This is because Barrack secures direct access to Trump, and in any case they are too scared of Trump to criticize him or his close associates.”

Gonul Tol, the director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program, agreed. “If Barrack were not Trump’s man, the Turkish government would be sounding a very different tune. But they are afraid,” Tol told Al-Monitor. "His cavalier attitude reflects a broader global trend of desensitization led by Trump, in which international law and human rights are increasingly marginalized.”

To many Turks, Barrack’s comments sounded like an open endorsement of Erdogan’s tactics and a rebuttal of the Turkish people’s rights and aspirations to democratic rule. Kurds are especially incensed by his earlier comments about federalism, the model many aspire to, as being unworkable. 

Ekrem Imamoglu, the CHP mayor of Istanbul and the man most likely to beat Erdogan in a presidential election, has been in prison for more than a year on thinly evidenced corruption charges. More than a dozen other CHP mayors have been ejected and locked up on similar claims together with thousands of prisoners of conscience. Journalists who criticize the government frequently join their ranks for at least a spell, serving notice to others of what may befall them if they dare to raise their voices. This month, Turkey’s prison population hit a record high of 62,000, almost triple that of when Erdogan took over.

Alan Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who has written extensively on Turkey, told Al-Monitor the envoy’s remarks were “contrary to American values — but no doubt music to Erdogan’s and Trump’s ears.” Barrack's support for bringing Turkey back into the F-35 program has clearly endeared him to the government and its nationalist allies on the Right.

Makovsky continued, “The problem is, the man is US ambassador to Turkey. His words have resonance. He’s sending the message to Erdogan and especially to every political prisoner, to everyone detained on some spurious charge like ‘insulting the president,’ that the US government thinks governance in NATO-member Turkey is working just fine; that what happens with, say, Imamoglu isn’t our concern. Of course, the Trump administration has projected that attitude for some time, but Barrack’s remarks do so much more pointedly.”

Others noted that Barrack’s words will have caused offense beyond Turkey’s borders.

“Mr. Barrack’s statements, denying citizens of Middle Eastern countries what American citizens enjoy and defend, are one of the clearest examples not only of the American administration’s colonial and paternalistic attitude, but also one of the rudest and most disrespectful ways of addressing certain countries,” Nacho Sanchez Amor, a Spanish member of the European Parliament’s Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, and the body’s Turkey rapporteur, told Al-Monitor. “Furthermore, without explicitly stating it, the implication is that countries in that region of the world have a majority-Muslim population" and "that Muslims are not prepared for democracy,” Sanchez added. This is "absolutely untrue," Sanchez concluded