There are many reasons why Turkey might succeed: its geographical and cultural position and its comparative advantages in the regional market, for example, and its talented and energetic managerial caste. But there is one big reason why Turkey might fail: the Islamists’ attempt to reverse the country’s cultural direction of the past eighty years may provoke an open conflict between the Western and Asian readings of Turkishness and short-circuit the possible solutions. Erdogan is straddling a chasm between Western Turkey and the Anatolian hinterland, secular and religious, Turk and Kurd. His
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