The rise and fall of Gülen in 10 steps

fThe cliché used in such cases is usually "the rise and fall." But this falls short in the case of Fethullah Gülen, the U.S.-resident Islamist preacher who now amounts to one of the major problems in Turkey-U.S. relations, under the Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) rule. That is because the rise of Gülen and his network within the Turkish state apparatus started long before the AK Parti first came to power in 2002.

Initiated by Gülen, a primary school graduate preacher, his followers - referred to as the "cemaat" (religious community) - started to grow not only among pious shopkeepers across Anatolia but also among rural-origin educated people in big cities in the mid-1970s. But their advance in the government and judiciary really started to accelerate after the military coup on Sept. 12, 1980.

It can now be seen in retrospect that the first news of stolen examination questions at police colleges and military schools came in the mid-1980s. It can also be seen that many of the police chiefs, generals, judges and prosecutors who are now under arrest for their alleged involvement in the bloody coup attempt of July 15 entered those colleges and faculties of law in the mid-1980s under the government of Turgut Özal. The justice, education and interior ministries all started to be infiltrated during the same period.

Not only Özal, but also center-right prime ministers like Süleyman Demirel and Tansu Çiller, Islamists like Necmettin Erbakan and even social democrats like Bülent Ecevit tolerated the rise in the civil service and judiciary of the hard-working and obedient followers of Gülen. They all considered him a moderate Islamist preacher of peace "in his silent corner." 

So it is not to fair to put all responsibility on the...