"It looks like it will come to this: First they invade Iraq, then maybe Iran and Syria. Eventually, Turkey. So rather than waiting for it, I'd rather go and fight now in Iraq," Oflaz said.
The complexion of Turkey's current government encourages empathy with fellow Muslims. Though Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says that he no longer promotes political Islam and that his party respects Turkey's secular constitution, its 2002 election on a populist platform clearly broadened what passes for acceptable political discourse in Turkey.
Turkish protesters in Istanbul demonstrated against the U.S.-led war in Iraq in March. Some 90 percent of Turks opposed the war, according to surveys.
(Photos Murad Sezer -- AP)
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In November, the chairman of the parliament's human rights committee described the U.S. offensive in Fallujah as "genocide." Erdogan referred to "hundreds martyred" in the insurgent stronghold.
The most sensational claims of U.S. atrocities surface in Yeni Safak, a moderately religious newspaper often described as Erdogan's favorite.
"It's interesting that only Yeni Safak picked this up," a U.S. diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said of a spurious report that the Marines had used chemical weapons in Fallujah. With a copy of a volume titled "Understanding Anti-Americanism" on the desk beside his phone, the diplomat traced the Fallujah rumor from a pro-al Qaeda Web site to a Cuban news service to Yeni Safak. The chronology was posted on the embassy's Web site, beside a Cold War-era tutorial offering reporters tips on how to spot disinformation.
"But there is anti-Americanism in some of the most secular press," the diplomat added. "You can't say it's uniform. It comes from different places."
The authors of the best-selling "Metal Storm" say wounded pride informed its popular plot.
The thriller, set in 2007, has been criticized for depicting Turkey's proud military as collapsing easily under an American onslaught, launched from a conquered Syria at the behest of an American industrialist. According to the book, the man had found a use for boron, a mineral that, like hazelnuts, Turkey has more of than the world knows what to do with.
But co-author Burak Turna, a lanky graduate of American University in Cyprus, said the book -- in which a Turk replies to the invasion by detonating a nuclear suitcase bomb outside the White House -- was intended as a wake-up call.
"I think people were forgetting how important Turkey is," said Burak Turna. "Even some Turks had forgotten."
A sense that the importance of Turkey's role in the world is beyond question colors almost every conversation with its citizens, whom a Pew survey calculated may be the only people in the world more patriotic than Americans. Their identification with the state in many cases appears to add a personal quality to the Ankara government's specific complaints over the Iraq war.
Turkey continues to press Washington to confront a guerrilla army of separatist Turkish Kurds based in Iraq's north and to protect Turkish-speaking populations in Tall Afar and Kirkuk. And more than 18 months later, the humiliating July 4, 2003, arrest of Turkish army special forces by American soldiers in northern Iraq remains a raw topic.
"It's very important," Baykus said. "If we are friends, why did you do that to us?"
"I also wonder," the stationer added, "if the U.S., being a great power, is also a little bit jealous of Turkey."
The other author of "Metal Storm" is Orkun Ucar, a burly heavy-metal fan who suggested the truck bombs that killed 61 people in Istanbul last year were arranged by the United States to punish Turkey for not cooperating in Iraq. He expressed deep offense that the Bush administration was not consulting Turkey on its every move in the Middle East.
"Turkey is a puppet master," Ucar said. "It's a player."
When Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, in Ankara last month, asked Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul to rein in criticism of a longtime ally, Gul pointed out that Turks are irked by how they are portrayed in the U.S. media.
Cagri Kaya, a graduate student at Ankara's Bilkent University, offered an example in an interview. "I was watching '24,' and one of the terrorists was Turkish," Kaya said. Compounding the offense, Kaya added, was a sloppiness that lumped Turks with the Arabs they had ruled in Ottoman times: "He spoke Arabic, not Turkish, and looked like he was Saudi."
There is some evidence that diplomacy is having an effect. Since Rice's visit, U.S. officials have noted a sharp drop in critical comments by Turkish officials, at least. And Erdogan is scheduled to visit Washington in June.
But the authors of "Metal Storm" cited themselves as evidence that, among ordinary Turks, perceptions have changed profoundly in a country that long served as Washington's most reliable ally in the Muslim world.
"The canary the U.S. took down in the mine is dead," Ucar said. "But they haven't noticed."
