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The Rostrum, featuring Steven A. Cook on Turkey.

Today is the 95th anniversary of the abdication of Mehmed the Sixth, the last Ottoman emperor. The fall of that empire paved the way, of course, for the rise of Mustafa Kemal and the eventual formation of the Turkish Republic. Turkey, once considered something of a model for how a Muslim-majority state might deal with political modernity, has now become with the rise of the populist, Islamist president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a geopolitical stress spot — one all the more worrisome because of its closeness to Europe and its NATO membership. Steven A. Cook talks Erdogan, the future, and what we should all be worried about.

About Steven A. Cook:

Steven A. Cook is Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S.-Middle East policy. Dr. Cook is the author of The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square (Oxford University Press, Fall 2011), which won the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s gold medal in 2012, and Ruling But Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).

Dr. Cook has published widely in foreign policy journals, opinion magazines, and newspapers, and he is a frequent commentator on radio and television. He also currently writes the blog, “From the Potomac to the Euphrates.”

Prior to joining CFR, Dr. Cook was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution (2001–2002) and a Soref research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (1995–96).

Dr. Cook holds a BA in international studies from Vassar College, an MA in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and both an MA and PhD in political science from the University of Pennsylvania. He speaks Arabic and Turkish and reads French.