Prize Turkey

Some of us have been saying for years that a country in which the only functioning political alternatives were secular, militarist ultranationalism and militant Islam, both of which glorify the destruction of Byzantium and the genocide of the Armenians, was a positive menace in general, never mind within NATO and putatively within the EU.

But now, much as it has taken a black President of the United States for certain people to snap out of certain infantile delusions, so those same people are also finally starting to wake up to the reality about Turkey. But why? Only because Turkey has put herself in dispute with a state which has no functioning political alternatives except secular, militarist ultranationalism and militant Judaism, both of which glorify the destruction of a largely Christian predecessor-society and the ongoing genocide of, perhaps above all, the Christian sections of that society.

Oh, and do not expect any long-term future for any alliance between Iran and a country divided between Persian-hating, Armenian-hating, Assyrian-hating ultranationalists on one side, and Sunni fundamentalists on the other. We all have an interest in halting the rush to war against Iran. So we should all be furthering that interest.