An Odd Sentence

From 'The Guardian view on Turkey':

Turkey is a crucial country. In spite of its recent drift toward authoritarianism, in spite of the increasing intemperance of its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and in spite of the loss of the sure touch in foreign policy its government once possessed, it is still a rock amid the sea of troubles that is the Middle East today. Although growth is slowing and unemployment and inflation rising, Turkey is still among the world’s stronger economies, and aspires to join the top 10 within the next decade. And, while there must be serious concern about the government’s rough treatment of the media, its bullying of lawyers, and its general readiness to bend rules for political advantage, it is still a relatively free and democratic polity, one of only a handful such in the Muslim world.

So it is hard for outsiders to know what to wish for in the Turkish general election next Sunday.

Uh, no.  No, it really isn't.  And nothing in the remainder of your piece suggests any doubt, so why say that ?  (Concerns about NATO ?)  Not that the West has any say here, but, if it did, the choice of further autocracy and further Islamisation of what was once a staunchly secular state under Erdoğan would be the choice of a lunatic, certainly if we were still seriously considering membership for Turkey in the EU.  And are we ?

Will we still be if Erdoğan continues to take the country in its current direction ?  Can we make a rational case for Erdoğan's Turkey in the European club ?  Or will we at some point admit the EU to be/have become an economic playground for our elites with little basis in shared values, other than those of the worst form of vulture-capitalism ?  Cheap resources, cheaper labour, open markets, and do with the local populations as you will.

Maybe at some point we could even resurrect the dream of Russia joining.  But, that being, not as once we might have not altogether unreasonably have hoped via a newly democratised and liberal Russia rising to the standards of Western Europe as was, but rather via a Europe whose standards had eventually fallen to meet those of Russia under Putin.