NATO Partner

This would be about right for Turkey!!!!! When I visited there some years back I knew that in the long run they are Effed!!!!!

Aw common, everyone knows Muslims don't lie.

Of course, he'll bomb the Kurds and not ISIS, everyone’s working towards Turkeys/ Ottoman Empires ambitions in the Middle East for them.

Why would they worry about ISIS/ISIL, they'll be kept at bay by the Dhimmi airstrikes and infidel Jizya via their tax dollars at work.

Old Arabic saying: "Why work for anything when you can let stupid do the work for you."

A turkey/ISIS alliance would be very plausible, in fact. Ample historical precedent. ISIS would take care of the
Kurds for Turkey. ISIS would have access to naval and air assets. The ferocity of ISIS is likely to impress even
Turks.

Turkey was useful once, when the USSR was.

Turkey is an obstruction not an partner.

Turkey needs to be let go and swim on its own.
Let them see how that will turn out.

"The enemy of my friend's enemy's enemy's friend is my friend, is that how it goes? This is all so confusing, let's bomb whoever is closest."

Turkey (mostly Sunni) is in a tough neighbourhood with Iran (mostly Shiite) to the east and Iran's ally Russia to the north-east poised to strike through Georgia. Is it not in their interest to keep ISIS in power as a buffer state between them and Iran?

The middle-east friend/enemy matrix. It's from July so it's probably out of date.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/07/17/the_middle_east_friendship_chart.html

The entire Middle East is an historic mess.

High level summary of Kurds vs Turks vs Arabs.

http://www.strategypage.com/%5Cqnd%5Csyria%5Carticles%5C20141014.aspx

give the Kurds some stingers with fake IDs, and lets see if they keep wipping out their TF-18s:-)))

go Just-in go

And Europe still eyes them as a partner?

What a difference a little time makes. Back after the first Gulf War, Bush the Elder let Sadaam Hussein take out his frustration with losing by viciously thrashing the Kurds who were trying to carve out a homeland for themselves. The priority back then was to keep Turkey happy because Turkey kept the Soviet fleet bottled up.

Now the Kurds are being celebrated by the West as an ally of convenience, but Turkey, in which demographic changes have weakened the vision of Atatürk, still fears that the Kurds will carve part of their homeland out of Turkey. (See what I did there? Carve, Turkey. Dang I'm clever.)

Unfortunately, Turkey's geographic position keeps it important even as it becomes more Islamic. Throwing Turkey out of NATO would probably be a huge mistake.

There are two types of Muslims:
Radicals: Take without asking
Moderate: Take by taking advantage

I would be interested in seeing how much the Muslims in Canada actually contribute to paying taxes. In my business I don't see it, all I see is fraud and Revenue Canada turning a blind eye to it.
The example I see all the time is cab drivers, their income sheets all say the same thing, $1200 per month net, but many only work 10 months a year and go home to where ever and live like kings taking the whole family with them. Simply math, they drive approx 5000 km per month, make $50 for 20 km fare, get a tip, and claim they make no money after expenses.
They are experts at milking our system for subsidize rents, free education and medical,and we sponsor this crap.

Time to wake up North America.

So what we're saying is that Turkey puts its own national interests first.

Duh.

Yeah well, Erdogen has the same dilemma as any despot or dictator, balancing needing of the military to maintain power while restraining the militaries ability to overthrow them.....Stalin's purges weakened the Red Army to the point that it was unable to roll over tiny Finland.

Erdogen, and Turks generally, fear Kurdish nationalism but always has Attaturk's overthrow of the Sultan, and subsequent military coups, in mind.

Erdogen fears the Kurds politically and militarily, arabs not so much, but has to calculate how much he can weaken the military and still defeat Daesh(IS) if necessary.

Obama fears the Pentagon, and has militarized the Police as a counter...but if confronted with the reality that while urban police may support him, largely rural sheriffs oppose him.

That makes Obama and Erdogen fellow travelors......

As everyone who studies history knows, ethnic cleansing is an old and well-established Turkish tradition - no surprise here.

Iraq should probably have been partitioned after the overthrow of Saddam, if only to annoy the Turks.

The real problem is that we have political leaders who believe that we still NEED Turkey in our opposition to Russia and Iran. We continue to try and woo the Turks to our cause, when they --at virtually every turn-- turn their heads and cuddle up to the other suitors.