Turkish Delight

Whilst we were preoccupied with our domestic political stupidity, something interesting happened in the Bosphorus: all of Turkey's senior military leaders resigned. Apparently this stems largely from an investigation and arrest of a number of senior military men who were involved in something that supposedly came close to a fifth military junta back in 2003 when the kinda-sorta-Islamist AK Party took political control. The Army says no-such-thing; that the planning was purely military and that the arrests - which include up to 200 people from the military, journos, academics, and various pundits - are a political witch hunt by the AKP.

The modern Turkish state pretty much begins in 1923 when the military, led by Kemal Ataturk, defenstrated the Sultanate. The Turkish armed forces are still probably the single most powerful faction in the country...but has the stress of the fight over Euro membership, the late corruption of the Army, and its conflict with the Islamists finally knocked the Army out of Turkish politics, or, at least, reduced it back to subordination to the Sublime Porte?

A non-secular Turkey is a big change in the politics of the Middle East...IF this is what this suggests. Feel free to speculate, discuss, or disparage.