Turkey was always a thorn in NATO's side. But pro-Turkish diplomatic lobbies in the US and Western Europe would not let justified criticism diminish the myth of Turkey as a "democracy" and one of the ten "key" states in the world.
Hopefully, now that Turkey is on the irreversible path to becoming Iran Number Two, the idiots in the West will wake up--although this is far from a certainty. BTW, huge economic interests are involved. The notion of Turkey as a place for lucrative investment has been pushed for decades, primarily by European corporate entities. This is another myth that will be hard to break.
The tragedy is that the Islamic terrorists whom Erdogan nurtured so eagerly are now delivering the death blow to the sultanate by butchering innocent people. The dervish-in-mufti, sitting in his 1,000-room palace, thought he could travel by balancing on two boats. He failed to recognize that playing with the Islamic terrorist hell could not but backfire. His maniacal urge to exterminate the Kurds blinded him. He will now pay the price.
Incidentally, Erdogan also seems to forget how the Russians feel about Turkey, both from the point of view of religion AND history. But now he's caught in a vice. The only thing that could prolong his existence is the tough-to-stop Western inanity over Turkey's "irreplaceable strategic worth."
Iran was also of "irreplaceable strategic worth," but we've been doing alright without it since 1978 aside from having to deal with its terrorist mullahs. Turkey can be similarly "contained" and the emphasis put on TRULY defending Europe's outer border NOT with constitutional committees and "religion neutral" poppycock but with hardware and commitment to stop the barbarism and concrete threats emerging from ASIATIC Turkey.
I feel for secular Turks. They will soon be running for their lives.
I don't think Turkey ever will be Iran. There are more secular people that will not allow that to happen.
In 2009, according to briefers that you don't ask what they do for a living, the secular population of Turkey (meaning those subscribing to 'Western' values and behaviors) was estimated at 19 percent. More importantly, perhaps, was the info about Muslim minorities that do not conform to Erdogan's edition of Islam. That group was put at 34 percent. As you know, Turkish law has a rather sweeping approach to "Turkishness"-- you have little choice when it comes to your approve d national identity as a Turk --which you must accept-- unless you belong to the three ethnic minorities recognized under the Treaty of Lausanne (which the Padishah wants to abrogate). When the balloon goes up, these "details" will come into play and the situation "on the ground" will develop in ways no one in his right mind should want to contemplate....
And Turkey supported ISIS because USA wanted to support ISIS, to destabilize Syria and the region.
In my humble opinion, the ISIS conundrum is a bit more complicated than that. The US -- directly or indirectly -- exercised an "Afghanistan effect" on the situation in Syria (1980s- fundamentalist Muslims [Taliban] are fine as long as they screw the Russians) ... which was pretty unthinking but who reads history in DC? On the other hand, the Padishah, blinded by his fury against Assad and entertaining dreams of pushing the Turkish frontier to a line that was denied to Kemal et al in 1923, he waded in with guns and money and imams and open borders to support the "good" and "devout" Islamics against the Alawite in Damascus. But, lo and behold, his efforts to shatter the Zulfiqar backfired. Now he wants the Russians to take the chestnuts off the fire. Too late, if I may say so.