The sizable victory for the AKP in Turkey's elections Sunday (read the New York Times coverage here) is confirmation that the country will continue its distinctive
policies of economic liberalism and growth, a generally pro-U.S. and
pro-E.U. Foreign policy and resistance to the military's desire to launch an
attack on Kurdish rebels operating out of Iraq.

In foreign policy, none of the parties in Turkey is indifferent to the
terrorist attacks that Kurdish PKK rebels from Northern Iraq have made
against Turkish military and police. The question is how to repel them. A
rash invasion of Iraq would endanger relations with the U.S. and the E.U.
and would destroy the growing economic trade between Turkey and Iraq and
embroil Turkey in its own insurgency war. Of course, it also would be a
terrible development for the United States, forcing us to choose between our
allies the Turks and our allies, the Kurds. The PKK is a relatively minor
player in the Kurdish provinces of Iraq, and a rival of the main Kurdish
parties, but a Turkish attack on the region presumably would mobilize all
Kurds, not just the PKK.

The irony is that the supposedly Islamist party in Turkey, the AKP, is
the more cautious one about the border problems while the secularists are
the more bellicose.

If anyone wants a lesson in how politics in Muslim countries is not
always what it seems, Turkey therefore is an object lesson.

Consider the issue of "veiling" of women. Few Muslim women in that
country are in full veiling (which in some countries is called purdah, or a
chador or abayah), But most women, even professed secularists, dress more
conservatively than Westerners do. Putting on a scarf would seem to be no
big deal, especially since no one is proposing that it be required. However,
it really irritates the secularist elites. They contend that it will start a
slippery slope toward theocracy.

Yet--another irony--the AKP party that is now in government and is the
main political supporter of a tolerance policy on headscarves, actually has
been a leader in women's rights, abolishing the laws that gave men leniency
for wife abuse and for honor killings. The party also has had better
relations with Christians than do the secularists. The Armenian Orthodox
Patriarch all but endorsed the AKP ticket this year.

Westerners are largely unaware of how many unfortunate consequences
attended the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, including the
strange way that Iraq was partitioned. The Turk's abolition of the Caliphate
that -- located in Istanbul for centuries under the protection of the
Ottomans -- had the unintended consequence of depriving the Muslim world of
what normally was very moderate spiritual leadership. When it disappeared,
various kinds of free lance depravity were developed in certain former
Ottoman provinces. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, for example, engaged in a
tragic dalliance with the Nazis in World War II . And then there is the
current campaign of Osama bin Laden to re-establish his own form of
Caliphate--in Baghdad.

We need the Turks to help us in the Muslim world, especially in the
Middle East. We may have differences with the AKP from time to time, but we
generally benefit from their position and should be grateful for their
friendship.