Cruise down the Bosphorus and behold the splendour of the Ottoman empire. The Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, Istanbul's Islamic skyline, minarets rising from the mist over a modern city, two continents colliding.
The waterway splits Turkey, the Central Asian giant with a toe-hold on Europe. It's a country of contradictions, dangerous to ignore, and it's at a critical crossroad. Front line for NATO, staunch U.S. ally in the Gulf War, now the base for U.S. policing of Iraq.
Again, America is calling. Again, Saddam is in its sights. But Turkey's crumbling, its economy in crisis, its government collapsed, at battle with itself over identity and alignment. Europhiles, Islamists, nationalists and Ataturk's legacy.
