>>Those coups are what has kept Turkey tied to secular government instead of becoming like the Taliban.
Precisely so.
Pournelle has addressed this several times. Here’s a good short essay that briefly touches on the formation of modern Turkey by Kemal Ataturk, and how his forced modernization still affects actions being taken today. This from 2007, so what is going on now has been percolating for a good while.
The Crisis in Turkey
http://jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2view/view465.html#Turkey
Another more recent commentary by Pournelle on the issue of Turkey’s Kemalists vs. Islamists, with some very good regional geopolitical analysis. You will see that he does not have much good to say about Carter and the State Dept.
Crisis in Turkey (7/2008)
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2008/Q3/view528.html#Turkey
I will comment that Pournelle is the *only* commentator who was against invading Iraq from before the invasion that I respect. Don’t stop reading because you think he’s not a conservative; his credentials are solid.