The book's arguments may be summarized around the following points:Turkey's foreign policy is undergoing revision under both domestic and foreign influences. Ankara increasingly perceives its national interest in independent terms. Turkey's national interests are diverging from those of the United States, and Washington can no longer count on Ankara to be a loyal ally under any and all conditions. Turkish and American interests are most troubled in issues relating to the Middle East. Ankara is uncomfortable with US interventions in the region when they conflict with its interests, and Turkey across the political spectrum sees the US as the chief destabilizing factor in the region.
For the first time in its modern history Turkey is moving towards becoming a major player in the Middle East. "While this, 'return of history' partially dilutes and complicates Turkey's relationship with the West, it also enriches and complements it." Turkey's search for an independent foreign policy may be currently irritating for the US, but in the long run it will serve the best interests of not only Turkey but also the Middle East and even the West.
Fuller's study of Turkey's new foreign policy, especially after the coming to power of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the US invasion of Iraq, provides a penetrating analysis of the changing nature of the Ankara-Washington relationship. It also convincingly accounts for Turkey's growing involvement with the Middle East for both strategic and economic reasons. But it underestimates the profound impact of the European Union on Turkish domestic and foreign policy.
Since the mid-1990s the perspective of EU membership has encouraged Turkey to significantly liberalize its democracy and to modernize its economy along EU norms. It is true that the reform process has stalled since 2005, due mostly to the new French government opposing Turkish membership and the unresolved Cyprus problem complicating the EU-Turkey relationship. Turkey, however, is still engaged in accession talks with the EU, and the main issue in Turkish society today is still whether Turkey will continue to reform and move closer to the EU or fail to do so and move away from the EU.
The basic political divide in Turkey today remains to be the one between forces who favor an open, democratic regime that will consolidate by joining the EU, and those who favor a closed and authoritarian one that will pull Turkey away from the West. Despite its many failures and hesitations, the leading force in Turkey's democratization and Europeanization has been the Justice and Development Party (AKP). A recent move to ban that party may aim at nothing less than subverting Turkey's EU accession process.
Fuller's characterization of the AKP as an "Islamist" (be it qualified as "moderate," "modernist" or "liberal") party is not only grossly misleading but also serves the interests of authoritarian forces in Turkey who maintain that the party has a "hidden agenda" to put the country under Shariah rule. The AKP surely has its roots in the Turkish Islamist movement, but it has disclaimed Islamism both in discourse and in performance as the governing party since 2002. The AKP is not an Islamist but a non-ideological, pragmatic, centrist party which can best be compared to Christian Democratic parties of Western Europe. Many of its leaders may be devout Muslims, but the party is committed, more than any other party in Turkish republican history, to economic and political liberalism. It is Turkey's unifying party which enlists support from almost all social segments and regions of the country.
Fuller, in another book, "The Future of Political Islam" (2003), rightfully argued that Islamist movements and parties have the potential to transform themselves and can even adopt liberal positions. On those grounds his advice to Western governments was to engage in constructive dialogue with these parties and movements rather than confront them. These valid arguments should not, however, lead him to regard even post-Islamists as Islamists. This is nearly as absurd as regarding social democratic-socialist parties of the West as Marxist because of their background in Marxism.
