The divergence in opinions between elites and everyone else plays out in Turkey as well as in America, reports Harold Rhode, a former Pentagon official who knows Turkey well: "It now appears that the average Turk -- for lack of a better term - approximately 70% of the population who is not part of the political establishment, the academic establishment, or the media -- now understands that this crisis has hurt Turkey internationally and politically and that there was no reason for Turkey to provoke Israel."
To judge by Mr. Rhode's article, published on the Hudson Institute New York Web site, Turkey is hardly a lost cause for NATO or the West, and it's way too early to write the country off, as some have been tempted to do.