Expectations Should Not Always Be

Turkey Has Its Own Interests And Historically, Turkey Conquered Most Of The Arab World, And The Arabs Had To Fight Wars Of Liberation To Free Themselves From The Turks. That's In The Past And That Doesn't Necessarily Shape What Is Going On But It's There And It's There In People's Memories.

Democracy Is Premised, In Some Measure, On Majority Rule, And Democracy Is Difficult In A Situation Of Concentrated Inequalities In Which A Large, Impoverished Majority Confronts A Small, Wealthy Oligarchy.

Israel Has Military Capabilities Including Nuclear Weapons, Far Surpassing Any Other Power In The Middle East, But It's A Small Country. The Rest Of The Middle Eastern Peoples Are Muslim And Israelis Are Not, So It Is Hardly In Any Position To Become The Leading Power.

Also, Of Course, For Most Of This Time Most Americans Thought Of America As A White Country With, At Best, Only A Very Segregated And Subordinate Role For Blacks.

The Core Of The American Set Of Beliefs Has Remained Pretty Constant.