December 27th, 2017 
(WND) — By Bob Unruh
There are increasing signs that Turkey’s dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, aims to turn his nation into the dominant component of a new Islamic caliphate, controlling even more territory than the Ottoman Empire.
Islam expert and author Joel Richardson wrote shortly after Turkey’s controversial election in which Erdogan was given virtually unrestricted power that analysts in recent years tried “to shout down warnings that Erdogan has a desire to return to the Ottoman era.”
“Today those same critics are taking a fresh look at the man they once made excuses for and even championed,” he wrote.
On the day Erdogan won the referendum allowing him to rewrite the Turkish constitution, effectively ending the secular democratic Republic of Turkey as envisioned by Ataturk, he made “a very symbolic statement,” Richardson wrote.
“Not only did he specifically avoid visiting the tomb of Ataturk (who turned Turkey into a secular government), but instead, he visited the tomb of Sultan Selim I.”
Richardson explained that Selim the Grim ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520 and was most remembered for his expansionist conquest over Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
“Erdogan was sending a very clear message. The era of Ataturk is over. There is a new Sultan Selim the Grim in power,” Richardson wrote.
Erdogan’s intentions are becoming clearer. He told an interviewer during a recent trip to Africa, for example, his nation now has 39 embassies on the continent, up from 13.
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