The ongoing Arab aggiornamento is essentially a call for freedom and human solidarity. As such, from a secular point of view, it can be interpreted as an example of Camusian rebellion rather than one of ideological revolution. Due to its patchwork of ethnicity and religious difference, Syria more than any of the other Arab nations exhibits the stubborn refusal to engage in sectarianism in the face of enormous state repressive measures and strategies meant to incite and fuel such strife. Turkey, a vast nation of Sunni Muslims wishing to view itself as monolithic and homogenous, has been unable effectively to seize the moral initiative and high ground that would have enabled it to play the leading role as an intellectual leader of the awakening or opening. On the rocks of the Syrian conflict, Turkish foreign policy has hesitated exhibiting reticence rather than daring action, and preoccupied by their new regional role reflected in the irksome metaphor of acting as a bridge between East and West. This metaphor has prevented Turkey from a leadership role in the Arab aggiornamento and questioned its role as a political mentor to the new emerging regional political order...