>The invariant remains the desire of the West to insure the Turks are down, and that the region is destablized. That's ridiculous. The West wants to keep the

>The invariant remains the desire of the West to insure the Turks are down, and that the region is destablized. That's ridiculous. The West wants to keep the Middle East stable, so that oil flows are guaranteed, to keep the Russians out, and because a chaotic Middle East breeds Islamic terrorists. And so it has taken policies for many decades to ensure this, including supporting Turkey. However, you are quite right that the West doesn't want a new Ottoman empire that would try to take over Europe, like the old one did.