ASMEA meets again
Oct 27th, 2009 by MESH
From Mark T. Clark
On October 22-24, 2009, the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) held its second annual conference, entitled “The Middle East and Africa: Historic Connections and Strategic Bridges.” At the welcoming reception on the first night, Vice President Peter Pham announced the creation of the new, refereed journal, The Journal of the Middle East and Africa, to be released early in 2010. The subjects for the journal—as a reflection of the unique approach of the association—will fall within a broad range of geography, encourage multi- and inter-disciplinary perspectives, and will not shy away from offering scholarship that will have policy-relevance as well as academic merit. As much as we value high quality scholarship at ASMEA, we also believe it is imperative to share such scholarship with elements of the government—and anyone else for that matter—who seek a deeper understanding of the issues in our regions.
Turkey’s ties with its neighbors have been transformed since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power almost seven years ago in November 2002. Some analysts have described the AKP’s foreign policy as a “zero problems with neighbors” approach. Under the AKP, Ankara has indeed eliminated problems and built good ties with some neighbors, such as Syria and Iran, and signaled a thaw with Armenia, with whom Turkey shares a closed border. On the other hand, Ankara’s traditionally good ties with other neighbors such as Georgia and Azerbaijan have deteriorated under the AKP, and Turkish-Israeli ties could unravel despite diplomats’ best efforts. The AKP’s foreign policy, far from producing “zero problems with neighbors,” has resulted in significant ups with some neighbors and significant downs with others—especially those that are pro-Western.
The past several days have witnessed not one but two momentous, even stunning, developments in Turkish foreign policy that are reverberating through the region. Both are the work of Ahmet Davutoğlu, a former university professor who became Turkish foreign minister last year. Before that, Davutoğlu (shown on far right with his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem) served for several years as the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s chief foreign policy advisor. In a manner perhaps befitting a university professor, Davutoğlu has aspired to give Turkish foreign policy a comprehensive and consistent conceptual basis. He laid out his vision in his book Strategic Depth: Turkey’s International Position (Stratejik Derinlik: Türkiye’nin Uluslararası Konumu). According to this vision, whereas in the past the Turkish Republic followed a policy of quasi-isolation and self-imposed quarantine from its neighbors, today it should instead seek to take advantage of the cultural and historical links it shares with other countries in its region. As foreign minister, Davutoğlu has been working tirelessly to put his stamp on Turkish foreign policy. The past week has offered two dramatic examples of Turkey’s new foreign policy orientation.
The Obama administration has finally woken up to the fact that Iraqi parliamentary elections scheduled for January 16 are in real danger of not taking place as scheduled. The realization has been lamentably slow in coming and, with just two days to go before an Iraqi government-imposed deadline expires, may have come too late.
The Washington Post 
Egypt’s National Democratic Party (NDP) conference is fast approaching, but the meeting—which will formally set the stage for political succession—isn’t making headlines these days. On October 6, the Los Angeles Times 
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