For decades, Turkey was one of the United States\u2019 most pliable allies, a strategic border state on the edge of the Middle East that reliably followed American policy. But recently, it has asserted a new approach in the region, its words and methods as likely to provoke Washington as to advance its own interests.<\/p>\n
The change in Turkey\u2019s policy burst into public view last week, after the deadly Israeli commando raid on a Turkish flotilla, which nearly severed relations with Israel, Turkey\u2019s longtime ally. Just a month ago, Turkey infuriated the United States when it announced that along with Brazil, it had struck a deal with Iran to ease a nuclear standoff, and on Tuesday it warmly welcomed Iran\u2019s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the Russian prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, at a regional security summit meeting in Istanbul.<\/p>\n
Turkey\u2019s shifting foreign policy is making its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a hero to the Arab world, and is openly challenging the way the United States manages its two most pressing issues in the region, Iran\u2019s nuclear program and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.<\/p>\n
Turkey is seen increasingly in Washington as \u201crunning around the region doing things that are at cross-purposes to what the big powers in the region want,\u201d\u009d said Steven A. Cook, a scholar with the Council on Foreign Relations. The question being asked, he said, is \u201cHow do we keep the Turks in their lane?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n