Foreign Affairs Anthology Series
The Arab Spring at Five
Introduction
Freedom and Justice in the Modern Middle East
Demystifying the Arab Spring
Parsing the Differences Between Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya
Understanding the Revolutions of 2011
Weakness and Resilience in Middle Eastern Autocracies
Why Middle East Studies Missed the Arab Spring
The Myth of Authoritarian Stability
The Arab Spring at One
A Year of Living Dangerously
The Promise of the Arab Spring
In Political Development, No Gain Without Pain
The Mirage of the Arab Spring
Deal With the Region You Have, Not the Region You Want
Tunisia's Post-Revolution Blues
Stagnation and Stalemate Where the Arab Spring Began
Tunisia’s Lessons for the Middle East
Why the First Arab Spring Transition Worked Best
The Tunisia Model
Did Tunis Win the Arab Spring?
Democracy by Necessity
Tunisians Go to the Polls
Tumult in Tunisia
Weathering the Economic and Political Storms
The Muslim Brotherhood's Long Game
Egypt's Ruling Party Plots its Path to Power
Morsi's Mistake
The Error Behind the Uproar in Egypt
Even Good Coups Are Bad
Lessons for Egypt from the Philippines, Venezuela, and Beyond
First They Came for the Islamists
Egypt’s Tunisian Future
Can a Myth Rule a Nation?
The Truth About Sisi's Candidacy in Egypt
Egypt's Durable Misery
Why Sisi's Regime Is Stable
The Brotherhood Breaks Down
Will the Group Survive the Latest Blow?
Did Sisi Save Egypt?
The Arab Spring at Five
NATO's Victory in Libya
The Right Way to Run an Intervention
Libya's Militia Menace
The Challenge After the Elections
After Qaddafi
The Surprising Success of the New Libya
Libya on the Brink
How to Stop the Fighting
Obama's Libya Debacle
How a Well-Meaning Intervention Ended in Failure
Who Lost Libya?
Obama’s Intervention in Retrospect
Setting the Record Straight on Benghazi
What Really Led to Libya's Chaos
Russia's Line in the Sand on Syria
Why Moscow Wants To Halt the Arab Spring
Assad Family Values
How the Son Learned to Quash a Rebellion From His Father
Why Washington Didn't Intervene In Syria Last Time
Comparing 1982 to 2012
Alawites for Assad
Why the Syrian Sect Backs the Regime
Ramadan in Aleppo
A Letter From Rebel-Controlled Syria
The Real Reason Putin Supports Assad
Mistaking Syria for Chechnya
Syria's President Speaks
A Conversation With Bashar al-Assad
The New Great Game
How Regional Powers are Carving Up Syria
The Not-So-Great Game in Syria
And How to End It
Syria's Good Neighbors
How Jordan and Lebanon Sheltered Millions of Refugees
No (Gulf) Country for Syrian Refugees
The Kafala System and the Migration Crisis
ISIS Is Not a Terrorist Group
Why Counterterrorism Won’t Stop the Latest Jihadist Threat
ISIS' Social Contract
What the Islamic State Offers Civilians
How to Defeat ISIS
The Case for U.S. Ground Forces
Obama's Way
The President in Practice
The End of Pax Americana
Why Washington’s Middle East Pullback Makes Sense
Fight or Flight
America’s Choice in the Middle East
Getting Over Egypt
Time to Rethink Relations
The Next Front Against ISIS
The Right Way to Intervene in Libya
Algeria After the Arab Spring
Algiers Came Out Ahead—But the Good Times Could Be Over
Ankara's Failure
How Turkey Lost the Arab Spring
Assad Has It His Way
The Peace Talks and After
The Right Way to Think About the Syria Talks
They Aren't About Syria, They Are About Russia
Ankara's Failure
How Turkey Lost the Arab Spring
When anti-government protests spread from Tunisia to Egypt, Libya, and Syria five years ago, optimists declared that the Middle East was on the precipice of a dramatic democratic transformation. Among the most optimistic were the leaders of Turkey, who saw the upheaval as an opportunity to realize their neo-Ottoman dream of positioning Turkey, a Muslim democracy with close ties to both the West and Arab nations, as a regional leader. Five years later, Arab Spring optimism has collapsed, and with it, Turkish ambitions. Libya and Syria are caught in civil wars, Egypt grows increasingly authoritarian, and Tunisia—arguably the only success story among them—is a magnet for the Islamic State (ISIS). Turkey, meanwhile, has experienced its own rapid reversal of fortune. Rather than projecting influence, Ankara is more isolated than ever.
Years before the Arab Spring erupted, back in 2002, Turkey’s Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) sought to establish better ties with the Middle East. Ankara adopted what it called a “zero problems with neighbors” policy, which involved new diplomatic and economic initiatives with all of its neighbors, including countries where Turkey had faced troubles in the past, such as Iran and Syria, and even established deeper ties with countries in Africa, such as Somalia. But President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the founder of the AKP, and Ahmet Davutoglu, his foreign minister (now prime minister), had more in mind than settling old scores and boosting trade. Rather, they aspired to revive the regional supremacy of the once all-powerful Ottoman Empire, striving to become the leaders of a pan-Islamic movement in the Middle East—just as the Ottoman caliphs did until the twentieth century.
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