He said that Pakistan, Iran and Turkey had a common future together while also attacking the US for its continued support of Israel. Lack of progress on Turkey’s EU membership has also created strains with Europe. While tensions have increased with the west Turkey has been growing closer to extreme and ultra-conservative regimes in Iran, Syria and Gaza.

In June members of IHH, a radical Islamist group with links to Hamas, attempted a sea-breach of Israel’s Gaza blockade. Nine Turks died in the raid when the lead flotilla ship the Mavi Marmara was boarded by Israeli forces, which produce a threat from Erdogan to break off ties with Israel.

Erdogan has not yet given convincing responses to charges that the government party had helped create this incident instead of merely responding to it. The International Terrorism Institute which has analysed computers aboard the ship said this month that they contained data showing that the government party had helped the organisers plan and carry out the raid.

In acting as he did in the aftermath of the flotilla incident Erdogan was able to bolster support in the conservative heartlands for the 12 September referendum on constitutional change which seems to have made the difference between victory and defeat in the final result. Prior to the incident Erdogan’s AK party was trailing the main secular opposition party the CHP in the polls; its good fortunes were revived afterwards. The ‘yes’ vote in the referendum which approved changes to Turkey’s courts also benefited the government by weakening the opposition (see The Struggle for Turkey).

It is difficult to predict how far east Turkey will travel politically. One of the variables determining the eventual outcome is how much of a political debt Erdogan is accumulating with the hardliners and Islamists whose support he sought and, with national elections due by June of next year, and continues to seek by confronting Israel. If the debt proves to be too big, it may be difficult to provide a course correction.

With Erdogan posturing to his support base and stirring radicalism in the country there are questions about how this will play in the west. There are already signs of tension, which, if acted upon, could lead to a downward spiral of disenchantment and disengagement on both sides.

The most important unanswered question is this: what are Erdogan’s real intentions? His stated domestic and foreign policy agendas are to preserve secularism and promote democracy within a framework which allows for freedom of religion at home while acting as an honest broker in regional disputes.

These claims have met with scepticism from the Kemalist opposition partly because recent events have undermined them and because Erdogan is a product of radical Islamist roots. Only thirteen years ago as a leader of the Islamist welfare party he made a speech which included the following controversial remarks: ‘The mosques are our barracks, the domes are our helmets, the minarets are our swords, and the faithful are our army.’

Some of Erdogan’s supporters have been unhappy about his aggressiveness toward Israel. One of Turkey’s most respected and powerful figures, Fethullah Gulen, founder and leader of the Gulen Society, a moderate Islamic movement, and owner of Zaman, an influential conservative newspaper, criticised the actions of the IHH for its confrontational approach, saying that ‘failure to seek accord with Israel before attempting to deliver aid ‘is a sign of defying authority, and will not lead to fruitful matters.’ Both sides in the flotilla dispute accuse the other of violating international law. Gulen’s intervention undermined the government’s rationale for responding as it did.

There is ballast aboard the Turkish ship of state which can help correct its rightward list. Over 50 per cent of Turkey’s total trade is still with the west and not all conservatives or religious people are hardliners. In Erdogan’s first years in power he presided over a more open society and brought about changes such as the abolition of the death penalty. Optimism and pessimism are, however, opposites to be avoided in evaluating Turkey’s foreign policy path. Some of the crucial motives determining its present course are dangerous, others are unknown.