That's a question that the NATO gang may have to answer sooner rather than later. More than a few observers have commented on their misgivings as Erdogan incrementally moves his country towards stricter adherence to Koranic edicts.
Erdogan's latest initiative in that direction is to drastically restrict the availability of alcohol. This is of course framed as a public health issue to avoid frightening the secularists. Nothing new in that; it's the time-honoured strategy of governments everywhere when they are busy trimming the liberties of their citizens.
It's always for your own good.
This is a question steeped in multiple levels of intrigue and irony.
Two of the arguably most secular states in the Arab world, Iraq and Libya, have been destroyed and their populations radicalized by NATO intervention. A third is in the process of being destroyed by NATO member Turkey with the full connivance of NATO and the Sunni kingdoms of the Gulf.
Our war on terror is widely seen in much of the Islamic world as a war against Islam. How long can Turkey be both a point man in the war on Islam while becoming increasingly fundamentalist in its implementation of Sharia?
It's a contradiction that can't last forever.
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