Erdogan is dictatorial, but the article in Cumhurriyet Daily News misunderstands the military.
I have many books on Turkey, but I will mention one that stands out as a one stop guide to understanding modern Turkey more than any other. It is a very well informed and balanced and perhaps Marxist oriented 350 page book entitled 'Turkey, A Modern History' by Erik Jan Zurcher that covers Turkish history from 1789 to the accession of Erdogan in 2002.
The Young Turks were a nationalist right-wing and secularist group that took power of the Ottoman Empire in a 1908 coup and has held it ever since. One of their members, Moustafa Kemal, secularised Turkey in the 1920's. The military has the been the citadel of secularism ever since.
This book has a chapter on the postwar resurgence of Islam which discerns two very different strands symbolised by two figures since the 1960's.
First, a genuine Muslim named Nesmitten Erbakan became the political leader of the movement which was always opposed by the military. Erbakan managed to become prime minister by the 1990's which was the high point of the movement. His relations with the military were always acrimonious, and his political party has since been banned. However, the military is who banned Erbakan's party. That is the view of the powerful minority, not the majority of the Turkish people.
Turkish writer Kemal Karpat wrote that the military's hold on power was gradually slipping as people turned away from secularism towards Islam. Therefore, he wrote, the military's 1980 coup d'état and imposition of military law would probably be their last opportunity since the secular military no longer has any popular basis of support in Turkey. Thus, if the secular pro-US Turkish military wanted to continue to be the power behind the throne, it would have to have a way of tapping into the resurgence of Islam as a basis of support.
Enter Alpaslan Turkes, in some ways the opposite of Erbakan. Zurcher writes that Turkes was a secularist at heart who collaborated with Nazism during WWII. He is famous as founder of the Grey Wolves, Turkey's right wing mafia that goes outside the law to do the things the military wants, but cannot do legally. Beginning about 1969, Turkes openly embraced Islam, not sincerely, but because the movement has had potential for garnering popular support.
The pro-American Turkish military needed an Islamic crony similar to Alpaslan Turkes, and Erdogan was their man. Thus, no surprise that Erdogan is supported by the likes of Donald Trump and groups like ISIS.