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Drinking tea with the President of Turkey has charms enough so that I wish there were no need to report the disturbing talk that went with it--of Iranian rulers and nuclear bombs.

But the occasion was a policy interview, not a social call. President Abdullah Gul, with his mustache, swept back hair and a mischievous glint in his eye, recently received a visiting group of Americans, including a handful of reporters, of which I was one. He spoke with us at Turkey's presidential palace, a splendid place of jasmine-scented halls, maritime oil paintings and a waiting room furnished with cozy armchairs, a sofa of palest gold leather and a big flat-screen TV showing scenes of his recent activities. From there we were seated around a polished wood table, sipping our tea, while Gul sat at the head, speaking through an interpreter (though he speaks English). At the request of our group he focused on two issues: disputes arising from the Armenian genocide of 1915, and policies for dealing with Iran's regime and its nuclear and potentially genocidal ambitions today.

Despite the hospitality, I came away with the uneasy sense that there is trouble brewing in Ankara. A secular, Muslim-majority state, long allied with the West, Turkey in 2002 voted into power an Islamic party, the Justice and Development Party, or AKP. The AKP's leaders have been fashioning a new role for their government--a role embraced by President Barack Obama--in which Turkey behaves less as a firm ally... >>>