I like a dictator when he fights terrorists

In a few months' time, a year will have been passed since Turkey's failed military coup attempt. 

Yet to this day, Turks seem to have failed to convince people elsewhere that followers of
U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen were behind the coup. 

In Western circles, we still come across many who ask who the Gülenists are and look with skeptical eyes when we explain how they formed a state within a state. Unfortunately, the sceptics are not limited to regular folks, but also include members of parliament and journalists.

Isn't it strange that even the fiercest opposition voices in Turkey cannot convince them? Western sceptics look with the same unconvinced eyes even when they encounter the staunchest critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) telling them that Gülenists were behind the coup. 

Perhaps they simply do not want to be convinced. It suits some opinion-makers to portray the coup as something staged by President Erdoğan to strengthen his iron rule.

There seems to be an obsession with Erdoğan. Perheps the Europeans think that he perfectly fits the profile of the "bad man" you can blame everything on. The fact that thousands have been jailed in Turkey and journalists are among those behind bars is not something the public cares so much about. What is critical here is that Western circles stamp him out as a "dictator" in the "Islamic front." 

How else could we explain the recognition accorded to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who is a brutal military dictator. Sisi was recently given a very warm reception in Washington, and it is a known fact that U.S. President Donald Trump will have no problem working with dictators so long they pose as...