All Policy Analysis by Soner Cagaptay

For the long-term benefit of both, Ankara and Erbil share a strong interest in maintaining their partnership.

Local and regional developments over the past two years suggest that Turkey and Egypt's contentious relationship is unlikely to improve so long as Erdogan and Sisi are in power.

Arab Spring success stories have generally not been easy to come by, yet one may be playing out in a regional non-Arab state, Turkey, where ties between the Turks and their Kurdish adversaries have been improving.

Amid tensions, Ankara must decide how much U.S. leadership it can stomach and Washington must decide how much it values Turkey as a partner.

If the United States and its allies fail to manage the Syria and Iraq crises, victorious "anti-order" actors such as Russia, Iran, and ISIS could usher in an unstable era similar to the late 1930s.

The current stalemate between the two adversaries will persist unless ISIS overreaches or Turkey becomes more proactive in clamping down on jihadists.

Ankara's security and political concerns may drive it to establish buffer zones unilaterally, while Washington's hesitance could cost it a coalition.

Turkey's primary objective in Syria is to oust the Assad regime, so it is unlikely to materially help the besieged enclave without U.S. and Kurdish commitments toward that goal.

Turkey has thus far avoided overt participation in the international airstrikes against ISIS, reflecting its continued vulnerability to the group and its complex policy priorities in neighboring Syria.

On August 10, Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued his prolific electoral run by collecting almost 52 percent of the vote in Turkey's presidential poll, easily besting his chief rival, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, who represented the left-right CHP/MHP coalition. A large part of Erdogan's success lay in peeling away conservative MHP voters through

Despite the authoritarian impulses of Turkey's long-governing AKP, the country's civil society has become too diverse for President Erdogan or any other single leader to control entirely.

Ankara's efforts to become a regional power player have backfired. It's time to renew old partnerships instead.

Davutoglu's long track record of Ottoman revivalism has exposed Turkey to dangerous regional threats, and defusing them will likely preoccupy him in his new post.

Erdogan will go down in history as the leader who transformed Turkey economically, but the liberals will transform it politically.