Consider that non-Arab Moslem states such as Turkey, Iran, and nuclear-armed Pakistan could assume leadership roles in the Moslem world based on their power and the lack of power in the Arab world:
Today, the Muslim world feels the growing reach of Iran and Turkey. These two—and even perhaps Pakistan, another non-Arab state—will mark the greater Muslim world in days to come. The region is returning to older patterns, driven by the states that run from the Bosphorus to the Straits of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea. Along this line lie critical chokepoints and rich concentrations of resources in the fields of western Anatolia, the waters of Mesopotamia, and the accessible oil and gas deposits of the greater Persian Gulf. For a thousand years, non-Arab states along this line dominated the Middle East. Their heirs today hold weaker hands, but their ancient hegemony furthers their belief that they are the natural leaders of the Muslim world. The dynamics of the key states along this line—including the future interactions of Turkey, Iran, and a representative Iraq—will set the course of leadership in the Islamic world.
Only a few years ago, some in the West hoped that elections in Iran would mellow the country’s leadership and that reforms would follow. But the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard have turned to their most radical supporters to violently suppress dissent at home. In time, the regime may be toppled, but it won’t be readily turned. Iran’s nuclear weapons program has raced from rumor to credible reality, and it nourishes the mullahs’ dreams of regional dominance. Iran’s terrorist proxies prosper—Hezbollah secure in Lebanon, Hamas ruling Gaza. And Iran’s open defiance of the West has only buoyed her in the keen eyes of the Muslim world. Iran can today claim preeminence. Her influence moves where once the Arabs readily held sway—Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Palestine—and threatens Arab interests in the smaller Gulf states. Even Egypt, the largest Arab state, has lately complained of Iranian interference in its affairs.
Turkey, too, seeks a greater role in the wider Muslim world. Atatürk propelled the country to be modern and to look toward Europe for its future. The Turks shunned the fez and the headscarf, and they built a modern economy and one of the largest armies in NATO. But under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development party, Turkey increasingly looks away from Europe—which has constantly rejected the Turks’ desire for a path to EU membership—and back towards the Muslim world from which it arose. The age of terror has only reinforced Europeans’ unease in embracing the Turks, and in the arched halls of Istanbul, nostalgia is rising for the Ottoman era. Turkey has reached out to Iran and to radical forces such as Hamas. Such acts are an expression of its new orientation and ambitions.
If there is a third Muslim state that may play a significant role in the near term it is Pakistan. Militarized from birth, overmatched by India, it drove itself unwisely into alliance with radical groups and terror and prematurely into nuclear power. Its future role in the Muslim world will be the result of factors direct and indirect: its long and strong ties to Saudi Arabia and its complicated relations with China and India.
In such a world, it may be that Arab states already friendly to America will want stronger bonds to defend against these powerful regional states. And Arab states that view us as enemies may have no choice but to adjust their policies (and governments) to gain our support to avoid falling into the orbits of a regional giant.
Better the distant ally of America than risking siding with a close power that could come to dominate it. it is one thing to dream of recreating the Caliphate uniting all Moslem of the Middle East. It is another to contemplate living in such a caliphate run by Turks, Persians, or Pakistanis.
One day, there could be a Cairo speech that reaches out to America, seeking a new relationship between Arab Islam and the West, asking for an end to mutual suspicions--and wondering what Moslems can do to heal the rift rather than expecting us to cave in to their expectations.
