Nicola Nasser in Al-Ahram Weekly: The US and Israel, in earnest to recruit Turkey against Iran, nurtured Erdogan’s illusion of regional leadership. He deluded himself with the unrealistic belief that Turkey could stand up to and sidestep the rising stars of the emerging Russian international pole, the emerging Iranian regional pole, and the traditional regional players of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, let alone Iraq and Syria should they survive their current internal strife. For sure, his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood International and his thinly veiled Machiavellian logistical support of Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist organisations are not and will not be a counter balance.He first focused his Arab outreach on promoting the “Turkish model”, especially during the early months of the so-called “Arab Spring”, as the example he hoped would be followed by the revolting masses, which would have positioned him in the place of regional mentor and leader. But while the eruption of the Syrian conflict compelled him to reveal his Islamist “hidden agenda” and his alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood International, the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood in July from power in Egypt, with all its geopolitical weight, supported by the other regional Arab heavyweight, Saudi Arabia, took him off-guard and dispelled his ambitions for regional leadership, and more importantly revealed his neo-Ottoman “hidden agenda” and pushed him to drop all secular and liberal pretensions of his “Turkish model” rhetoric.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 15:02:11 +0000
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