The Arab Spring has diminished Iran's ability to wield soft power in the region. Instead, the momentum has shifted to Turkey, which has not been shy about stealing pages from the Iranian playbook for appealing to the Arab street.

In addition, Turkey has stepped up its use of soft power by attempting to influence the political processes of nations that have recently undergone “Arab Spring” revolutions, namely Tunisia and Egypt.

Critics may wonder how willing...Turkish leaders are to actually admit to the empire's "not so beautiful parts"... Still, it's noteworthy that the Turkish P.M. sees in the Ottoman past a...soft-power cachet, based presumably on the empire's extraordinary diversity and tolerance of many faiths...

The Turkish leadership’s anti-Israeli rhetoric has certainly helped boost Turkey’s popularity in the region. But this is not the only dynamic that explains Ankara’s growing soft power influence in the Middle East. Turkey’s economic success, liberal visa policies, and a desire to engage constructively with the main players in the region are also important factors.

Turkey has stepped up its use of soft power by attempting to influence the political processes of nations which have recently undergone “Arab Spring” revolutions, namely Tunisia and Egypt...Erdogan has found a window of opportunity in the Arab Spring to restore Turkey to regional hegemony at a time when it only serves to help his party's standing at home.

Whether one approaches Turkish sponsorship skeptically or not, the soft power approach of Turkey seems to have won the hearts of the people of the Balkans, who openly expressed the sentiment that without leadership, they would never have come this far.

That open-air midday prayer video on YouTube illustrates the operational capacity of Turkey as a natural extension of European soft power in the Middle East and North Africa. Turkey would definitely hold greater sway in the region if it was a member of the EU. But that requires visionary European leaders.

Soft power is more welcome in the world than hard power. In Afghanistan, Turkey is there with military power, but the Turkish military in Afghanistan acts more with soft power -- in the construction of mosques, schools, construction of roads, and that type of things.