Sitting comfortably, are you?

Well, here's something likely to have you shifting nervously in your seat.  The ineffable Mark Steyn gives his views on the 'forgotten man' of the middle east - Turkey.  I must confess that I, too, had fallen into the lazy habit of taking Turkey for granted.  Yes, it's Muslim but, praise be to Allah, they are 'good' Muslims, I thought, until the other day when Turkey, a member of NATO, as Steyn reminds us, nearly went to war with Israel.

Since he [Kemal Ataturk] founded post-Ottoman Turkey in his own image nearly nine decades ago, the population has increased from 14 million to over 70 million. But that five-fold increase is not evenly distributed. The short version of Turkish demographics in the 20th century is that Rumelian Turkey — i.e., western, European, secular, Kemalist Turkey — has been outbred by Anatolian Turkey — i.e., eastern, rural, traditionalist, Islamic Turkey. Ataturk and most of his supporters were from Rumelia, and they imposed the modern Turkish republic on a reluctant Anatolia, where Ataturk’s distinction between the state and Islam was never accepted. Now they don’t have to accept it. The swelling population has spilled out of its rural hinterland and into the once solidly Kemalist cities.

Looking at the map you don't need to be a grand strategist to see instantly the geo-political dangers if Turkey turns hostile, and, just to ruin your supper completely, now consider the implications if the 80-year old Hosni Mubarak drops dead and the Muslim Brotherhood take over Egypt!  In effect, the eastern Mediterranean and the oil routes to the gulf will be closed.

Finally, in an effort to ensure you have bad dreams tonight, remember that an alliance between Turkey and Iran will shift potential Iranian nuclear launch sites a couple of thousand miles nearer to Europe.  The only definite ally we have in the area is 'plucky little Israel' and under the inspired leadership of 'The Wise One' in Washington, we are busy shitting all over it!

Now, as I was asking, sitting comfortably, are we?

 

Comments

[Brian, follower of Deornoth]

I think you'll find that most oil traffic goes round the Cape, as modern tankers are too large for the Suez Canal.

But the main thrust of your article stands.

[David Duff]

Thanks, for the correction, Brian. Also you remind me that many of them are going the long way round to avoid the pirates from Somalia. Even so, it's a grim prospect to think of the eastern Med as a hostile sea.

[Umbongo]

" . . . and under the inspired leadership of 'The Wise One' in Washington, we are busy shitting all over [Israel}"

DD, you are completely off-message. The collective wisdom in the Oval Office, the BBC and the Guardian is that when Israel disappears all our troubles will be over and a new age of tolerance and mutual understanding will dawn. Ahmadinejad will become chairman of CND and Bin Laden will open the Celebratory Ball in a newly Arabised Jerusalem partnered by the US Secretary of State. Sure, some of those pesky Jews will survive the wreckage but I'm sure Hamas will deal leniently with them.

[David Duff]

Quite so, 'Bongers'.