In case you missed the important and perceptive article by Doug Saunders, in Saturday’s Globe and Mail (“Why the West quietly cheers Turkey’s Rise,” 17 September 2011, A16: http://tinyurl.com/3sucw5d), here is a short summary: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was well-received during a visit last week to the capitals of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. This and other recent initiatives appears to mark a significant shift in Turkey’s foreign-policy orientation, away from Europe and the prospect of EU membership and toward the Arab world, which of course remembers Constantinople as the capital of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled much of the Middle East and North Africa for four centuries, until it finally collapsed for good in 1922.Political Risk in the Middle East