U.S.A and Turkey: The reactivation of the strategic partnership in Middle East

Abstract

This research focuses on the two most active players in the Middle East, the first is the United States as an international player that has dominated during the past two decades in managing files of crisis in the areas of tension in the world, including the study area. It follows the changes in the strategy of the current U.S. administration (the administration of President Barack Obama), and the means that should be employed to redefine its relations with the countries of the region on the one hand, and achieving its interest on the other. While the second regional player is Turkey in spite the critical turnings it has passed through in the history of its relationship with the region and the world together, Turkey re-identifies itself through its new political elites, its interests and role in Middle East. Therefore, Turkey is planned by the ruling Justice and Development party to be an international force through leading the region and employing its subjective and objective possibilities that would help to achieve this goal. Both players, the international and regional, need each other to achieve a wide range of shared interests in the region and reduce the problems and difficulties that impede them. What makes them differ is the difference of their attitudes towards the crises that happened after the Cold War, especially during the stringent policy of U.S. former President George W. Bush Jr. and his administration, its excessive use of force as the best means to deal with the problems and crises of the region, and its exaggerating to ignore the roles and interests of the allies and what they can present in this scope. This means that the two players, the American and Turkish, in a dire need of a careful reading of their common interests and what each one can do for the other, review the new relationship between them to overcome the points of contention which have increased difference between them during the last phase in the framework of large-scale operation to re-activate the already existing alliance relationship between them in structure of NATO since 1952, the date which witnessed the membership of Turkey in the previous alliance.