* Rule of thumb: If you’re planning a coup, be really, really sure of success. Everyone knows the consequences for failure. Turkey should be a teachable moment for coup plotters.
* Speaking of, Turkey’s NATO allies, including the U.S., condemned the coup attempt and urged all sides to support Turkey’s democratically elected government. Of course they did. They need Turkey–and its military heft and logistics–in the war against ISIS.
It doesn’t alter the reality, however, that nobody in the West had been particularly impressed with Turkey’s trending authoritarianism, its take on a sovereign “Kurdistan” and its less-than-enthusiastic embrace of secular society.
* Is there a more insidiously evil oxymoron than “honor killing“?