horse of george

This is shocking, as in definitely didn't see it coming - reports this morning that Erdogan has given a speech in Cairo encouraging Egyptian lawmakers to make any new constitution secular in nature - Muslim Brotherhood apparently not thrilled by this - this surprises me, shocks actually - Erdogan is moving Turkey away from Ataturk styled secularism - he's spent the last two weeks ratcheting up heated rhetoric with Israel over Gaza flotilla raid that is quite obviously about making him look like the de facto leader of Mideast Muslims - so for him to raise the 'S' word like this in Cairo, with Libya up for grabs, with the Palestinian UN vote round the corner etc etc, flat out surprises me - I don't get what he's up to here - to me it's obviously a feint of some sort but won't pretend to see the endgame [a guess is that he understands that 'fake' democracy with 'secular' trappings provides good cover for what is ultimately an Islamist agenda] - be curious to see how those much smarter than me interpret it. [possibly the mistake I'm making here is that I assume he sides with the Muslim Brotherhood when in fact could be he favors the vestigial Mubarak factions in the military][that the Egyptian military establishment may be true object of Erdogan's affections possibly confirmed by recent deal agreeing to increased level of military cooperation between the two countries - so mentioning 'secularism' would be to draw MB's true intentions out into the open and therefore compromise a broadening of their appeal? or make the increasingly marginalized 'democrats' in the protest movement less resistant to continuing influence by the military in governance? If so imagine Egyptian military has offered Erdogan something he likes]