Turkey's Foreign Policy on Arab Spring Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Turkey's Foreign Policy on Arab Spring - Essay Example This has caused consternation to the West, who had hoped that Turkey would be an ally and would be able to help the West put pressure on these authoritarian Arab countries. In the meantime, Turkey has caused more problems for pro-Israeli countries, such as the United States, as the country has turned against Israel because of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and an incident where Israel killed a number of Palestinians who were a part of a humanitarian convoy. This is all a part of the Turkish pragmatic foreign policy, as it has realized that it needs to appease its neighbors in order to have security within its borders, as well as have free and open trade with the region, therefore it has embraced the Arab world. However, this caused problems for Turkey when the Arab uprising began. This is because Turkey, in its policy of zero problems with neighbors, embraced dictators. One of these dictators was Qadaffi, so the Libyan uprising put the country into a difficult position . Moreover, the embrace of other dictators in other countries, such as Syria and Iran, signaled to the Western world and the rebels in these countries that Turkey is not entirely on the side of the democratizers. ...   According to Onis (2010), Turkey currently has an active foreign policy approach, and this approach has been the hallmark of the AKP government era. This approach has had continuity between the first and second terms of office, as Abdullah Gul and Ahmet Davutoglu has played a key role in Turkey’s foreign policy initiatives. This active foreign policy precedes the AKP government administration, however, as it was a part of the Turkish regime since the post-Cold War era in the 1990s (Onis, 2010, p. 3). The AKP era’s central focus on foreign policy is that they use their power softly, and strive to improve relations with its neighbors (using the motto â€Å"zero problems with neighbors†). Pursuing a more ambitious role in regional and global power is another benchmark for the AKP government, as well as the desire to Europeanize. Nevertheless, the Middle East and the Arab world was also a focal point of the Turkish foreign policy initiatives under the AKP (Onis, 2010, p. 4). That said, Onis (2010) also states that the second term of office has been marked by foreign policy differences from the first phase, and the most glaring of these difference is that Turkey has weakened commitment to the European Union (EU). This has been shown in the fact that Turkey has acted independently of its Western Allies with regard to the international and regional conflicts (Onis, 2010, p. 4).

Find a web site about a vernacular dance forms. It could be anything Essay

Find a web site about a vernacular dance forms. It could be anything to do with ethnic, folk, ballroom, jazz, or tap dancing - Essay Example Shopping is divided into videos, music, books, gift cards, and customer service. The classifieds section offers a partner search and a dancewear section, while the directory offers teachers, studios, dance locations, vendors, services, clubs and teams, organizations, and other dance sites. The forum, or message board, is comprised of just about any topic that the reader may think of, as well as some others that may not be imagined. People can ask anything about anything related to dance. The site itself is full of a wide variety of information, and the information is arranged in a useful and easy to navigate manner. While the content provided is clear and concise, the site itself leaves much to be desired in terms of design. The site itself tried to appear fancy, though the colors, the fonts, and the attempts at adding sparkles to the fonts just end up making it look tacky. The videos themselves attempt to show the dances in a professional manner, however, the people look cheesy and fake, instead of like people who are genuinely interested in dancing; the overlaid text at the beginning of the videos is the same tacky fonts that are in use on the homepage of the site itself. If the site used something other than XHTML and javascript, the site could be done in a far more professional manner. Likewise, if the forum was to use phpBB instead of javascript, it would offer a far more professional look and feel. Overall, the site itself has a host of valuable information, and it is presented in an easy to use and easy to navigate manner, however, the style of the site leaves much to be desired. Ballroom dancing is supposed to be elegant and beautiful, and a poorly designed site tends to not only detract from that, but also shows disrespect to the art