The Intertwined Fates of Egypt and Turkey June 26, 2012 | 0350 GMT Mohammed Morsi, Egypt's president-elect

and member of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), likely settled into an oversize chair in the presidential palace in Cairo on Monday and took several moments to absorb the fact that he now occupies an office that was held for three decades by his arch-nemesis. At the same time, on a flight to Brussels, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was likely imagining what kind of support he would get from fellow NATO members Tuesday as he prepared to make one of the most important foreign policy decisions of his career: how Turkey should respond to Syria's downing of a Turkish reconnaissance plane. The fates of Erdogan and Morsi are tied together in many ways. From Erdogan's perspective, the ascent of a moderate Islamist to the Egyptian presidency creates a path for Turkey to expand its political, business and religious links in North Africa. Indeed, the rise of Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) under Erdogan over the past decade is the modern exhibition of a political Islamist's struggle against a secular-statist military. Turkey hopes to mold Egypt's MB into an ally that will look to Ankara for guidance and thus provide a wider opening for Turkish influence in the Arab world. The MB (which, like any Egyptian group, wouldn't take kindly to foreigners suspected of imposing their will) is unlikely to meet all of Ankara's expectations, but it will be taking to heart lessons from the Turkish Islamist experience. Morsi may be sitting in the presidential office, but the MB victory is hollow. As the Turkish model shows, it would take decades of steady infiltration into the Egyptian military and security apparatus before the MB could match its popular support with real authority. And just as the MB can learn from the AKP, Egypt's military leaders can similarly take note of pitfalls faced by the Turkish military in its political decline. If anyone understands Morsi's dilemma, it is Erdogan -- a man who has maneuvered all kinds of political mazes to consolidate power for the Islamists in Turkey. But the Egyptian military is not the only obstacle on Turkey's mind. In private discussions with Turkish political thinkers, a notion that comes up frequently is the idea that Syria is "in the way" of Turkey's path of influence in the Arab world. If the Syria question can be resolved, the thinking goes, Turkey would gain more sway in the Arab power center of Cairo, the oil-rich parts of the Maghreb and, perhaps most critical, the Mesopotamian lands now largely controlled by Turkey's Persian neighbor, Iran. In other words, if Syria can transform in such a way that puts Damascus back in the hands of a Sunni majority (preferably a moderate Islamist Sunni power that, like the Egyptian MB, would look to Turkey as a model), then Ankara will be far better positioned to establish multiple corridors of influence into its Arab backyard. But at what cost? Turkey has the option of invoking Article 5 of the NATO charter on collective defense to try and force an allied military response in Syria aimed at bringing down President Bashar al Assad's regime and pave a political path for the Syrian MB. The

problem with this option is that no NATO ally, especially the United States, wants to commit to another war in the Islamic world. Turkey is also leery of deploying troops on Arab soil at this stage of its regional ascent, as well as the prospect of unleashing another Iraq-like sectarian fallout in the Turkish periphery. Morsi and Erdogan are contemplating the many obstacles in their paths. However, at the same time, both men come from political experiences where patience and cunning have delivered the best results.