[Gen.Blather]

"It is at least semi-stable." Turkey has a long history with Israel. They're on the outs with them now, but that could change if Tayyip Erdoğan gets knocked out of office. I would guess that Turkey is not considered reliably Islamic. Also, the Ottoman Empire has left bad history in all the Arabic lands. In addition, it seems probable that there will eventually be an Kurdish state in Northern Iraq and southern Turkey. If this happens all bets are off for a functioning pipeline. Imagine having to deal with somebody you've dissed for the better part of 70 years.

[berdie]

The shifting sands in that part of the world are pretty interesting. I read an article not long ago about the middle east alliances. Can’t find it right now to post. There are no true alliances. It sounded like a 1000 year episode of Survivor.