Yet the episode exposed a rift in a society that has until now served as a strong model on how a state could accommodate both Islam and Western-style democracy.
Turkey is no stranger to the coup d'etat.
Its army stepped in three times between 1960 and 1980. During previous interventions, tanks hit the streets to restore order. This time, the troops stayed at their barracks in what has been referred to as a 'soft' coup. With Erbakan now out of power, it is still unclear whether Turkey was ever in any real danger of an Islamic takeover, or if the military concocted a fundamentalist bogeyman as a scare tactic to discredit him. Since the end of the Cold War, Washington has been on the lookout for a new enemy and radical Islam has filled the void nicely.