Time to return to the fundamentals

There is no point in mincing words. Hardly anything has turned out the way Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had planned, predicted or hoped for in the Middle East.

It is hackneyed at this stage to point out that their “zero problems with neighbors” approach has been a dismal failure. But that is the case.

Government supporters point out that this failure is not of Ankara’s making, but due to external factors, and unexpected turns that circumstances have taken that could not have been foreseen. This is true, but only tautologically so. To put it in plainer language, that is stating the obvious for a region where uncertainty and unpredictability have always been the rule and not the exception.

There was a time, however, when Davutoğlu was defying the obvious and claiming that Turkey, due to its history in the region, knew the Middle East better than anyone else.

One wonders what he thinks of these remarks now and whether he still believes them.
Whether he does or not, the truth is there to behold.

Turkey is being chased out of one Arab country after another, where the prevailing powers see Ankara’s involvement in the region as unwelcome meddling. Meanwhile, the lives of ordinary Turks living across the Middle East and North Africa are increasingly in danger due to Ankara’s misplaced policies.

One accusation Justice and Development Party (AKP) supporters liked to bring up in the past is that Turkey’s policy toward the Middle East before Erdoğan came to power was passive. It was not passive, however. It was cautious because the region is strewn with political minefields that Ankara had traditionally tried not to walk into. That...