Fareed Zakaria: Rising Powers Need to Rise Up
[Fareed Zakaria writes a column for the WaPo.]
You can count on a few things during the annual U.N. General Assembly: New York traffic will be bad, the speeches will be worthy (if a bit dull) -- and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will say something absurd. This year the Iranian leader suggested that U.S. officials orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to save Israel and "reverse the declining American economy." (Has he noticed the actual effect the war against terrorism has had on America's fiscal state?) It continues to be a pity that a great civilization such as Iran is represented by such a character....
...[C]onsider Turkey. Twenty years ago, it too was perceived as a basket-case economy, dependent on American largess, protected by the American security umbrella and quietly seeking approval from Europe. It needed the West. But now Turkey has a booming economy; it is an increasingly confident democracy and a major regional power. It is growing faster than every European country, and its bonds are safer than those of many Southern European nations.
Its foreign policy is becoming not so much Islamic as Ottoman, reestablishing a sphere of influence it had for 400 years. Abdullah Gul, Turkey's sophisticated president, explains that while Turkey remains resolutely part of the West, it is increasingly influential in the Middle East, Central Asia and beyond. "Turkey is becoming a source of inspiration for other countries in the region," he told me in New York last week....
Read entire article at WaPo
You can count on a few things during the annual U.N. General Assembly: New York traffic will be bad, the speeches will be worthy (if a bit dull) -- and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will say something absurd. This year the Iranian leader suggested that U.S. officials orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to save Israel and "reverse the declining American economy." (Has he noticed the actual effect the war against terrorism has had on America's fiscal state?) It continues to be a pity that a great civilization such as Iran is represented by such a character....
...[C]onsider Turkey. Twenty years ago, it too was perceived as a basket-case economy, dependent on American largess, protected by the American security umbrella and quietly seeking approval from Europe. It needed the West. But now Turkey has a booming economy; it is an increasingly confident democracy and a major regional power. It is growing faster than every European country, and its bonds are safer than those of many Southern European nations.
Its foreign policy is becoming not so much Islamic as Ottoman, reestablishing a sphere of influence it had for 400 years. Abdullah Gul, Turkey's sophisticated president, explains that while Turkey remains resolutely part of the West, it is increasingly influential in the Middle East, Central Asia and beyond. "Turkey is becoming a source of inspiration for other countries in the region," he told me in New York last week....