Ataturk envisioned the Turkish Army as the guarantor of the secular Turkish state. The Army managed to keep the clerics and their corrosive doctrine contained. However, the AKP seems to have blunted or neutered the Turkish Army's influence and replaced its secular leaders with traditional Islamic types.
The only thing that keeps the hostile Arab states that surround Israel at bay is the knowledge the Israelis have nuclear weapons and they will use them if they are facing extermination by followers of the “Religion of Peace.” The worsening situation in the Arab world that has come about in the form of the “Arab Spring” has the makings of a first class, worldwide disaster in the making. Unfortunately, the Euros, Russia, China, and the U.S. are letting this fiasco unfold. Indeed, some are actively promoting it under the delusion that this can be a positive outcome. What idiots!