Dissent in the Ranks; Scrambling ot Stop Subsidies; Iran's Anti-Family Bill Fails to Pass Muster; Iran Hearts the AKP

Another step forward for Nabucco; North Korea arms bound for more than Iran?; Turkey deal on Iran sanctions -- breakthrough or delay tactic?; Turkmen leader endorses new party; Political gridlock in Baghdad

What a difference a few years can make. A little more than a decade ago, regional rivals Turkey and Syria nearly went to war over the latter's sponsorship of the radical Kurdish Workers Party in its struggle against the Turkish state. Today, however, cooperation rather than competition is the order of the day, as highlighted by recent news that the two have kicked off joint military drills for the second time in less than a year.

The thaw in Turkish-Syrian ties is a microcosm of the changes that have taken place in Ankara over the past decade. Since November of 2002, when the Islamist-oriented Justice and Development Party, or AKP, swept Bulent Ecevit's troubled secular nationalist coalition from power, Turkey has undergone a major political and ideological metamorphosis. Under the direction of its charismatic leader, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the AKP has redirected the Turkish ship of state, increasingly abandoning Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's ideas of a secular republic in favor of a more religious and ideologically driven polity.

YEMEN INCHES TOWARD PEACE; WITH AN EYE ON IRAN, ISRAELI UNVEILS NEW DRONE; U.S. REAFFIRMS CENTRAL ASIA TIES; AKP STEPS UP BATTLE AGAINST MILITARY IN TURKEY

New movement in "New Europe"...; ...amid intransigence in Istanbul; A nuclear football of a different sort; Zero-sum in South Asia

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD PICKS A NEW LEADER; THE SAUDI STAKE IN YEMEN...; ...AND THE ROLE OF U.S. SPECIAL FORCES THERE; SECULARISTS SCORE A VICTORY IN TURKEY...; AND SUFFER A LOSS IN EGYPT

TURKEY LOOKS TO IRAN; ALL EYES ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH; SYRIA: A NEW SAFE HAVEN FOR AL-QAEDA?; ENERGY WARS IN CENTRAL ASIA

"This is the way the world ends," T.S. Eliot wrote in his epic 1925 poem "The Hollow Men," "not with a bang but a whimper." Had he written it today, Eliot could easily have been speaking about the strategic divorce taking place between Israel and Turkey - a monumental decoupling with the power to alter the correlation of forces in the greater Middle East.

Sounding the alarm over al-Qaeda in Yemenl Hamas reconsiders strategy; All eyes on Turkey and missile defense; Iraq's political map takes shape

Watching the watchmen;
A new nuclear client for Moscow