When the Cold War ended, more than a few European and American officials predicted that Turkey would decline rapidly in geopolitical significance. Without the Soviet threat, they said, Turkey’s role as a bulwark against communist expansion was finished and it was destined to be a second-tier power in the 21st century.
That prediction, of course, could not have been more
shortsighted. During the past decade, Turkey has become the rising power in
Europe, arguably the world’s most influential Muslim country and a dynamic
inspiration for young Arab reformers. Turkey is the only European country that
has grown in power since the financial crisis and the start of the Arab
uprisings. While European economic fortunes have contracted, Turkey has one of
the fastest growing global economies. Turkey may even now be more powerful in
the Middle East than Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. This is all
supremely ironic for a country long excluded from positions of power in NATO
and which has had the door to the European Union slammed shut in recent years.
Turkey’s rise has been engineered by its brilliant,
proud, and often prickly prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A devout Muslim,
Erdogan has revolutionized Turkish politics by challenging his country’s
historic commitment to secularism and introducing a greater role for Islam in
Turkish politics. Under his leadership, Turkey was, for a time, the only
country that managed decent relations with all the regional powers, including
Israel, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Long a geographic bridge between East and West,
Turkey under Erdogan became the go-to marriage counselor in the violent and
unstable Middle East — mediating secret talks between Israel and Syria,
building a close strategic relationship with the Israelis, and nudging Iran to
be more reasonable on the nuclear issue.
During the last two years, however, Erdogan has shifted
dramatically from honest broker to a more aggressive, independent, and often
unpredictable course — breaking relations with Israel over the Palestinian issue,
spurning the Europeans, and, most surprisingly this year, turning his back on
his former friend, Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad and calling openly for
revolution against his regime.