Thus far, Turkish irredentism has worked.

Submitted by Tom Morrow (United States), Jul 20, 2010 at 09:49

Thus far, Turkish irredentism has worked just fine, thanks to the connivance of competing would-be allies (Israel vs. Arabs; US vs Russians.) Not only does the world acquiesce to the incorporation of Northern Cyprus as part of Turkey's national territory, but even the Syrians have recently stopped lowering their flag once a year to commemorate the bitter loss to the Turks of part of their own territory, the coastal province of Alexandretta now known as Hatay Province. Anyone who knows the Turks up close will tell you they can be charming & brave, but the other reason not to be on their bad side, should you ever need to depend on them, is that they are haughty, callous and woefully corrupt at every level of society. But you get what you pay for -- the ill-fated Mavi Marmara expedition set sail only after the recent "seizure" of two truckloads of Iranian cash at the Turkish border that were supposedly going to be laundered for deposit in certain ayatollahs' Swiss bank accounts. The cash being in small bills, it was easy to distribute among tens of thousands of eager hands.

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