"Triumph of the Turks
Turkey is the surprising beneficiary of our misadventures in the Middle East.
By Owen Matthews and Christopher Dickey | NEWSWEEK
Published Nov 28, 2009
Archibald Wavell himself could scarcely have imagined how horribly accurate his prediction would prove to be. Having watched in dismay as the victorious European powers carved up the Ottoman Empire after World War I—"the war to end war"—the British officer commented that they had instead created "a peace to end peace." And sure enough, the decades since have spawned a succession of colonial misrule, coups, revolutions, and an epidemic of jihadist violence. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 could be viewed as a last-ditch attempt by the world's sole remaining superpower to impose order on the region. Instead, the net result was to create a power vacuum, leaving Iraq too weak to counterbalance its neighbors and threatening to destabilize the whole map."
More:Why Turkey Was the Iraq War's Real Winner | Newsweek International | Newsweek.com