Abdullah Gul was sworn in as President of Turkey this week. Mr. Gul has a history of Islamism in his past, and though he now praises the value of separation of church and state, he remains quite openly religious and socially conservative in his politics. These facts prompted a lot of controversy prior to his election. Secularism is taken very seriously in Turkey, and the country's elites are always quick to crush perceived threats.

Historically, the chief crushers have been the armed forces, who have occasionally launched military coups to depose governments they deem to be overly Islamist in character. That sort of thing probably won't happen again anytime soon- Turkey is now trying to get into the EU and a coup would send their efforts back decades- but the army has still made its displeasure with Mr. Gul known.

Unlike in my cartoon, the senior generals of the armed forces actually boycotted Mr. Gul's swearing in, and in a recent military parade they refused to salute him. The chief of the army even vaguely spoke of "centers of evil" threating the secularism of the republic. So coup or not, Gul still has a hard time ahead of him.