What has changed since the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared in 2009 a policy of zero problems with neighbors? The Arab Spring. The revolutionary developments starting from Tunisia in December 2010 that spread to a number of countries in the Middle East caught the Ankara government by surprise. Until then, Erdogan had a rock star popularity on the Arab street while advancing his gains in the Arab world by building strong relations with leaders being brought down by people today – although  maybe not in Syria. Erdogan’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, claimed they knew everything about the Arab world, and particularly wanted to show the country’s secular, Kemalist population that the previous governments were wrong for turning their back on the Middle East and keeping regional relations at a low profile. They vehemently argued against those who questioned whether this new policy was a sign of Turkey shifting from the Western axis to the East. The more Erdogan used Israel as the whipping boy, the more these concerns were raised, and more the Arabs loved Erdogan.

Today, however, is a different story. His popularity in the Arab world is no longer assured; he can no longer rally people behind him the way he used to by attacking Israel. There is now something bigger in the making. It’s not only about Israel any more. Erdogan seems to have opened a front with everyone in the region who disagrees with him. Calls from his senior Justice and Development Party (AKP) officials for the resignation of Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), provides a prime example. It reveals that his neo-Ottoman approach to the region was all about his arrogant belief of dominating it. The Erdogan government is not only criticizing the Egyptian army for the coup that brought down the elected Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi, but he is taking aim against all those countries — even including Saudi Arabia — that have a different approach to this affair to his.

The swords came out when senior AKP officials started to publicly slander Ihsanoglu as if they were using him like a punching bag for all those things that they cannot say directly to the Arab leaders who disagree with Erdogan. Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Aug.19:  “There is something that the secretary-general of an organization with ‘Islam’ in its name can do besides what states can accomplish. A secretary-general is not only a person who sits there. Did he make a proposal to member countries: ‘There is fire in Egypt; so many women, children, people are being killed. The ones who are doing the killing are conducting persecution. We need to build a stand as OIC.’ If he were to take such a proposal to them, and the member countries did not respond to it, he could then argue that he cannot make a statement on behalf of the OIC.” Bozdag claimed that Ihsanoglu could have made a statement consolidating Turkey’s position regarding the military coup in Egypt. “He should have said, ‘As I am not able to accept the silence of an organization that carries the word Islam in its name in the face of such persecution, of such a massacre — and as I am not going to be able to accept such a dishonorable position — I am resigning from my duties.’”

This is quite a strong wording while calling for Ihsanoglu’s resignation. But it also reveals how short-sighted AKP policymakers can be when being driven by their emotions. First and foremost, Ihsanoglu has only four months left in office as secretary-general before turning it over to the next secretary-general, who is from Saudi Arabia. If Ihsanoglu were to abide by AKP’s call for resignation, would a secretary-general from Saudi Arabia be more helpful to Turkey’s position? Absolutely not. The main point is that the member countries don’t have a joint position on the Egyptian military coup, and the secretary-general has a duty to represent all member countries.