Everybody wants a piece of Turkey. On my sweep through Egypt and Tunisia, virtually everyone I met invoked the nation that bestrides the Bosphorus as one they'd like their own country to emulate. The Turks had just had a general election, and Arabs had watched it unfold on Al Jazeera and other TV channels. The vote was clean, mostly uncontroversial, and peaceful. There was none of the violence that attends elections (real and rigged) in the Arab world. Journalists covering it marveled also at Turkey's economic successes, as well as its growing cultural and political influence in the Middle East.
So it's totally understandable that Egyptians and Tunisians should think to themselves, "Hey, I want all that for my country."
Read Full Article »