In the 1980s, the Middle East was a manifestation of an ideological battlefield between socialism and capitalism, played out by the United States and the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, the Soviet Union had some bigger fish to fry at home than bother with the spread of socialism abroad. Conveniently, "terrorism" gave the United States another enemy in the region and a raison-d'être for its continued presence.
As the first decade of the new millennium wizzed by, the fight against terrorism became the new game in town and at one point it looked like the "coalition of the willing" might take over the Middle East. As Rudolph Giuliani plainly put in his recent interview, America's presence is justified in the Middle East for as long as there is terrorism. Unfortunately, he is not the only one to hold this view.
And yet, as of the beginning of this year, the the narrow and narrow-minded focus on terrorism in the region has been swiftly replaced by the focus of revolutions and revolutionaries. Overnight, America became a supporter of the demands of the Egyptian people, then the Tunisian people, then the Syrian and Yemeni people and basically for all of the people of the Middle East, well, except of the Saudis - they really have too much oil.
The events of the past few months have not only caught world leaders with their pants down, they caught the Arabs with their pants - or perhaps more eloquently put - their robes down. Previously, the region was thought to be "exceptional" - exceptionally undemocratic, exceptionally prone to terrorism, exceptionally difficult to develop. No longer. It seems to everyone's surprise, the Arab people have the same demands at karama (dignity in arabic) as do others. Even bigger surprise was the secular nature of the revolutions, which of course put a wrinkle in the plan to fight terrorism in the region.
International organisations and donor governments are simply at a loss. As soon as they manage to draft up another plan to save the Middle East from itself, the tectonic plates shift once again and our powerful Western leaders find themselves hanging of the cliff on different sides. Certainly, the replacement regimes are better, at least on paper, than their predecessors. Better, but less obvious. Until this year, Arab countries were like large multinationals, run by well known and established leaders: Apple is run by Steve Jobs, Egypt by Hosni Mubarak, Microsoft by Bill Gates, Tunisia by Ben Ali.
In the post revolutionary Middle East, the chain of command seems a little more complex. Who is in charge?!, is the million or the billion dollar question. The Dauville Communique, drafted by our G8 masters committed 40 billion to supporting various noble causes in the region - reducing unemployment, giving women more rights, reducing inequalities, improving democratic processes - except no one has a clue what to actually do with these piles of cash.The whole region seems to have slowly converged towards the Palestinian situation - donors pouring cash on vague objectives yielding invisible results.
While the world powers are watching the news from the region as an interminable Mexican soap opera which everyone suspects will have a dramatic end, but are not sure which of their favourite heros will be sacrificed, Turkey has cautiously entered and installed itself as a major power broker in the region. Turkey's ouvertures towards the Middle East in fact predate Arab revolutionary fervor but until recently were unwelcome. After all, it is hardly a secret that Arabs do not look back at the Ottoman era with the biggest nostalgia.
Why now then? In principle, the Turkish model is more readily exportable and applicable to the Egyptian transition but also the wider political transition in the region, Turkey being a multi-ethnic, predominantly Muslim country, with a history of being ruled by the military. And yet, Turkey, with its borders with Iraq, Iran and Israel appeared of minimal interest in the region until Erdogan decided - in a politically shrewd move - to blow up, the conflict with Israel over the Gaza flotilla which, by the way, took place months before.
Various versions of the Turkey-Israel confrontation, resulting in Turkey all but severing political ties with Israel, abound. Regardless of the substance of this debate, Erdogan has clearly seen the flotilla as his entry point not only into Gaza, but in the wider Middle East. Days after the well-publicised spat with Israel, he arrived in the Middle East, triumphant, characterized as the second most popular Turk in the Middle East since Saladin recaptured Egypt, Syrian and Jerusalem from the Europeans in 1100.
Erdogan has much to be proud of. Only months after Obama's famous Cairo speech, America has lost any shred of legitimacy in the region. The fight against terrorism is a broken record that no longer sells, if ever it did. America's support of the Israeli position during the Palestinian bid for statehood in the UN has made it persona non grata for the foreseeable future. In the absence of any other weighty power broker in the region, Turkey might ride the popularity wave.
Pity that it will do so for all the wrong reasons. While Erdogan might have tried to promote his version of secular Muslim state, it is doubtful his message was heard or noticed as much as his promise that "Israel will no longer be able to do what it wants in the Mediterranean". After all, when he stepped of his plane in Cairo, he was greeted by the now familiar Allah Akbar and not Go Secular Turkey! Undoubtedly, this does not much disturb Erdogan but what he might not realise is that Egypt is not Turkey and playing the Palestinian cause is an easy card to play in what will be a tough poker game.
