Turkey “Re-stretching” its Influence in The Middle East

Abstract

Since the end of the Cold war, Turkey has been striving to expand its influence in the Middle East. Under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an advocate of restoring the glory of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey had doubled its effort to expand its regional role and influence. The thesis analyzes Turkey’s motives, the instruments it used, and the challenges it encountered. It does so by focusing on Turkey’s quest for regional influences in two closely related locales: Syria and Lebanon. The thesis reveals how Turkey’s foreign policy towards the region is influenced by Erdogan’s Neo-Ottoman orientation and his desire to extend Turkey’s influence in the Middle East. It contends that Turkey’s motives go beyond securing its economic interests to establishing itself as a regional power to be reckoned with. It further argues that Erdogan utilized an Islamic discourse while seeking to benefit from the regional instability that permeated the Middle East in order to extend Turkey’s influence. While Erdogan exploited the opportunities the region offered in the post-2011 years, his neo-Ottoman orientation ran into multiple obstacles. The Middle East of the early 21st century bears little resemblance to the Arab part of the defunct Ottoman Empire. The influence over the region that Ankara exerts today pales in comparison to the role that Istanbul played in the Ottoman Empire, even in the Empire’s waning years. Irrespective of its leadership’s aspirations, Turkey operates today within an environment quite different from what prevailed in the pre-World War I era.