Once friends, Turkey and Iran are finding that their reactions to the Arab Spring revolutions are driving them apart and renewing an old regional rivalry.
…people-power uprisings have helped transform the Turkey-Iran friendship into an escalating rivalry.
So far, analysts say, Turkey appears the winner in pushing for secular, democratic outcomes in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and especially Syria – even if more by default than by design. And Iran, offering little more than nondemocratic Islamic rule and anti-Western vitriol, at this point appears the loser.
The result is a rekindling of a centuries-old rivalry for influence between the Persians and the Ottomans, with an outcome that “will affect the security architecture of the Middle East for years to come,” according to Gonul Tol and Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute in Washington in a recent analysis.
