Abstract
- Before the Arab Spring, Turkey was considered a role model for many political factions in Egypt. Secular political parties and groups felt even more inclined to admire the Turkish model than the Muslim Brotherhood MB leaders did.
Erdogan was already a folkloric hero in Egypt and the Arab world with his theatrical behavior during the debate with Israeli officials in Davos or his public calls to lift the siege on Gaza Strip. - The AKP government was able to maintain a very active and independent regional policy. The Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu designed and implemented a strategy that is targeting the Middle East and Balkans as Turkey's strategic depth. - Davutoglu described his country's regional vision as promoting full regional integration, maximizing political dialogue, establishing high-level strategic cooperation councils with each country on a bilateral basis, instating visa exemption and free trade agreements to ensure economic integration, building energy and trade networks, establishing the most comprehensive transportation system, protecting cultural diversity, and respecting ethnic and sectarian pluralism. - Erdogan's growing popularity and clout was a headache for more cautious Arab leaders who could see their own influence overshadowed.
Big Arab countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia were also reluctant to wholeheartedly accept this Turkish rapprochement with the Arab world. Their major reason of concern was Erdogan's strong affiliation with political Islamic movements, especially the Muslim Brotherhood.
Turkey was also portrayed for half a century as the fingernail of NATO in the Middle East. - Assuming that political Islam would ultimately prevail in all Arab Spring countries as it did in 2012 in Tunis and Egypt, all the regional powers encouraged Turkish moderating role to domesticate this new wild political power. Most important players in the region and internationally were content with this growing special relationship between Turkey and the Arab Spring countries especially with Egypt. - The regional dramatic reversal of Turkish regional influence since 2013 was due to the failure of the Muslim Brotherhood to govern in Egypt and Tunis, the Syrian military stalemate because of the Russian and Iranian intervention and the unraveling of the MB conspiracy to stage a coup d'état in United Arab Emirates. - Islamists fared poorly in Libyan elections but they did not want to concede power.
Egypt and the UAE emerged as the main backers of the Tobruk-based, secularist Chamber of Deputies against the Tripoli-based General Nationalist Congress, which contained Islamist factions such as the JCP, and which was backed by Turkey and Qatar. Ultimately, Qatar turned out to be the only Arab Gulf country that sided with Turkey in its MB-focused regional policy. - The US and the rest of the west adapted to the above developments and did not stick to the original script of letting the ballots empower the Islamists in the Arab Spring countries.
Erdogan did not redirect his policies to respond to those radical regional developments and the international concurrence. Turkey also lost its glamour as an Islamic model because of Erdogan's repressive policies after the 2016 failed military coup d'etat. - Turkey continues to have critical role in hosting millions of Syrian refugees, fighting ISIS terrorists' remnants in northern Syria and Iraq and negotiating with Iran and Russia a peaceful settlement of the war in Syria.