What's going on in Turkey?

I spent a couple of weeks in western Turkey a few years ago, and I came back with fewer firm opinions on the country than I had when I got there. It's a nice place, the people are polite, and even the restaurant touts don't pester tourists more than is reasonable.

Still, the place struck me as, well, Byzantine. It's been, on and off, the most strategic place on Earth since, roughly, the Age of Odysseus, and the locals have developed skills for dealing with that fact; one of which is that what's really going on in Turkey remains relatively opaque to tourists like me.