In terms of foreign policy, there are a number of big questions facing the generals in Turkey. Their lucrative relationship with the US was undoubtedly damaged by the refusal to allow them to open a northern front through Turkey during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
It would be unusual for a state to show such disobedience and not be punished. All that Turkey suffered at the time was a temporary cut in financing.
The nature of future relations between Turkey and the US seems uncertain. Probably much depends on how things go with Iraq and Iran, and whether the US feels that it can dispense with Turkey's services if it can somehow stabilise the situation in Iraq.
Turkey has indicated support for the belligerent US posture towards Iran in the past, yet it is working closely with the Iranian regime against the Kurds. Recently it has reportedly turned down an offer by Condoleeza Rice of help with a nuclear power station in return for allowing the US to build two new bases in eastend which could be used for attacks on Iran.
Current Iranian bombing of villages and PKK positions in Iraq may well be designed partly to woo Turkey away from the US.
The generals also remain very hostile to the strengthening of a Kurdish entity on their southern borders. They are closely following the situation in Kirkuk, the city which sits on top of the second most important oil fields in Iraq in a historically Kurdish area, and which the Kurds believe should be formally part of any Kurdish region or Kurdish state.
Turkey would like to control Kirkuk, both for the oil, and because it was held by the Ottoman Empire. For reasons of Turkish chauvinism they claim to support the Turkmen of Kirkuk.
For many years relations between the (Shia) Turkmen part of the population and the (Sunni) Kurds and native Arab minority were generally good, and the main problem was the expulsion of both Kurds and Turkmen and the large-scale Arabisation of the area by Saddam Hussein.
Turkey has indicated support for the belligerent
US posture towards Iran in the past, yet it is
working closely
with the Iranian regime against the
Kurds.
But since the invasion negligible progress has been made by the authorities towards equitable settlement of the resulting property disalthough there ls plenty of land to accommodate anyone who wants to live there.
Some local people have worked very hard to defuse the tensions, but in the current atmosphere of fomented seclaran sune, and with lne historical and continuing reluctance of many Iraqis to face the reality of the national rights of the Kurds, the risk of warfare breaking out in Kirkuk is real.
The central issue would be who out of US, Kurdish, Iraqi, Turkish, Turkmen, Shia or Sunni, forces, would control the city and its oil after a contlict
Today the city is nominally controlled by a mixed council but in reality largely by the Kurdish militias - with backup from the US, which now has a large air force base there.
After recent talks between the Turkish government and the outgoing Shia prime minister of Iraq Al-Jafaari, several thousand Shia militiamen loyal to Mogtada al Sadr have allegedly appeared in the area, and certainly seems unlikely that Iraqi nationalists would surrender Kirkuk and its oil without a fight.
The third problem facing the generals is the question of the EU. The EU has not said much about the rapid deterioration in the human rights situation in recent months, and officials are no doubt hoping that they can get away without much comment.
But as the whole agreement about a date for accession negotiations was, publicly at least, premised on "reforms" in Turkey, which are now seen to have been largely or entirely cosmetic, there is a real possibility to pressurise Brussels.
Criticism of the near silence of the EU on what is now happening in Turkey should be part of socialists' critique of the undemocratic nature of the EU and of the push by its member states, especially Britain, to increase control over both movement of people and political dissent whether inside or outside Fortress Europe.