ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on patterns of continuity and change in Turkey, Iran, and Lebanon. Popular disaffection with the ruling elites spread throughout the region, whether in Islamic Iran, secular Turkey, or sectarian Lebanon. After the military intervened in politics to curtail the activities of the political Left in 1980-1983, centrist or right-of-center parties dominated Turkey's governing coalitions. In defending Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's secular legacy, the military may have ignored another central principle of his heritage: democracy. A constant pattern running throughout the history of the Turkish Republic has been the conflict between the Kurdish desire for a form of cultural and political autonomy and the Turkish state's efforts to prevent that autonomy. More democratic than most states in the region, Turkey, Iran, and Lebanon all reveal the huge challenges Islamist political parties face in containing the conflicting forces at home when regional conflicts carry such powerful potential to play themselves out on local soil.
