more turkish nationalism: bonus pop trash edition!

This is just deliciously bizarre:

American forces invade Turkey over two weeks in 2007. After war planners discover Turkey has a high concentration of borax, a strategic mineral needed for nuclear weapons and space technology, G.I.'s overrun Turkey from their position in neighboring Iraq. The first phase of the invasion, Operation Metal Storm, resembles Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. The Americans have no difficulty taking over Turkey's primary cities...[but] slowly their hubris begins to do them in.

It's the plot of Metal Fırtına, or Metal Storm, a top-selling trashy novel here (though I've never actually seen a copy; it's not really a staple of the Beyoğlu literary bookshop scene....) The author of the NYT piece is right to say its popularity is partly fueled by a rise in anti-American sentiment here (though it's really more anti-US government sentiment, in my experience, and yes, I think the distinction matters.) And of course, for my purposes, there are some fascinating historically-linked undercurrents in the novel's plot:

Things get stranger in Phase 2 of the war, named Operation Sèvres after the Treaty of Sèvres, which was signed after World War I and intended to carve up Turkey as the Ottoman Empire crumbled. In this phase, the United States attempts to partition Turkey between two historic rivals, Greece and Armenia, and allows a Kurdish state to come into being.

Because why stick to making American imperialists the bad guys when you can add the Greeks and minorities, too? Sigh. The NYT article on the book has some other good points-- about the disturbing rise in sales of Mein Kampf (although from what I've heard, sensationalism and curiousity are at least as relevant as genuine anti-Semitism as explanations), and about the misrepresentation of Turkey in American pop culture (I'm a devoted West Wing fan, but it gets the Middle East so bloody wrong, so often, and the recent characterization of Turkey as a quasi-Taliban state with oppressive gender laws was one of its worst gaffes). Anyway, I think Metal Storm just beat Pamuk's İstanbul to the top of my reckless-attempts-at-Turkish-reading list. I'm sure the required level of nuanced understanding will be a lot closer to my level of linguistic ability. It's like Tom Clancy, but for Turkish nationalists!