This book examines the decade in office of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its efforts to transform the Turkish republic toward a more Islamist-oriented system. If it succeeds, Turkey's dramatic shift will be the most important change in the Middle East power balance since the 1979 Iranian revolution and will have equally devastating effects on Western interests.

For more than 80 years Turkey has been ruled by the secular democratic structures created by Kemal Ataturk. Now, however, the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its series of electoral victories...