Given the vituperative and angered reaction from Turkey’s “secularists” following today’s “yes” vote to bring the country’s 1982 constitution further into line with EU standards, Mr. Erdogan would be wise to put those words into action.

Turkey’s “secularists” are the fierce defenders of Ataturk’s vision of a modern, Western-oriented Turkey, where religion and state are, rightfully, separate.  They are suspicious of the AKP, a party with a pious membership and a mosque-going leader.  Most are convinced that he is, as one woman described to me on a return flight from Istanbul a few months ago “turning Turkey into Iran.”  Today’s “yes” vote has put all of them on the defensive and, worse yet, offensive. Turkish tensions are running high.

You can read this or watch this for details about the constitution – why it needed to be changed, what was changed and what it means.  My point is this:

Mr. Erdogan now is the time to prove that you represent Turkey’s 72 million people and show your commitment to a modern, secular Turkey.

I am no fan of the Turkish Prime Minister. Still, I credit him with lifting so many Turks out of poverty into the middle class, increasing female education and representation in Turkey’s labor force and engaging so many citizens in the democratic process.  If Turkey is, as the European Commission acknowledged, Europe’s fastest (and perhaps only) growing economy, if it has a seat on the G-20 and the UN Security Council, it is because of Erdogan’s hard work.

Now Mr. Erdogan Turkey needs your leadership.

In the months leading up to the referendum, he did not display much of that.  Not only did Erdogan fail to reach out to “secular” Turks to convince them that the constitutional reform would be in Turkey’s collective interest, he has displayed a taste for authoritarianism.  As prime minister, Erdogan has censored select media that rails against him and arrested senior military officers on obtuse charges of plotting against the government.

Some would like to use this to paint Erdogan as some sort of Putin.  I do not agree.  I do believe, however, that Prime Minister Erdogan needs to lift his head up out of the deep political well he has dug himself into and rise up to be the leader that he himself knows Turkey desperate needs.

At the same time, as my friend and Turkey-expert Aengus Collins wisely pointed out, the secularists have a responsibility too.  In order for Erdogan to lead, the Turkish public must follow.  He is, like it or not, Turkey’s democratically elected leader – by a majority.  That doesn’t mean they blindly follow or do not challenge.  On the contrary, those who voted “no” should rigorously challenge Mr. Erdogan to work, as Aengus wrote me, “constructively with other leaders to craft a more comprehensive/democratic solution.”

Following this afternoon’s results, the Turkish Prime Minister reached out to the opposition with a conciliatory message, pledging to listen and work together – to “represent each and every” citizen in Turkey.  It is the opposition’s responsibility to engage him and challenge him to do it.

Israelis believe so.  “The IHH..is widely considered a terrorist organization by a number of bodies – including the Israeli government,” wrote Jerusalem Post’s Ben Hartman.  “Israeli authorities say IHH bolsters Hamas…It also charges that the group has links to al-Qaeda…”said the New York Times.

IHH officials deny this.  “IHH’s aims are humanitarian, not political,” said Omer Faruk Korkmaz, an IHH board member.  “We are Muslims that is all.”  And that is precisely what is raising eyebrows.

IHH was formed in 1992 during the Balkan wars to provide aid to Bosnian Muslims. It has since grown to become a multi-million dollar charity supporting Muslims in over 120 countries around the world.  Much of this support goes to orphan care, educational programming, including the building and repair of schools, and food aid programs.  It has several thousands of volunteers and supporters outside of Turkey, as demonstrated by the various nationalities aboard the Mavi Marmara.

“IHH’s funding is drawn from a broad base of middle-class donors,” Korkmaz told the Financial Times.  The middle class has become a significant economic and political force in Turkey, as the country’s ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party will tell you.

The AKP’s rise to power in the late 1990s came at the hands of a growing class of entrepreneurs from the Anatolian heartland.  These entrepreneurs, pious and traditional, made millions, with which they pursued policies that reflected their devout views.  Breaking the illegal blockade of Gaza is a recent example.

As the United States and leaders from other countries, including Israel, encourage young men and women, particularly in Muslim majority countries, to take up entrepreneurship as a means of lifting themselves of poverty and out of the grips of figures such as Hezbollah leader Nasrallah they should consider similar outcomes.

Just as in Turkey, the rise of a Muslim middle class will inevitably result in more and more philanthropic support for Muslim-based causes.  Not all these causes will be extremist or violent.  They will be, however, causes that, as the Mavi Marmara demonstrated, at times, will challenge Western policies – and might outright oppose them.  Does that make them wrong?

In his new book, Reset: Iran, Turkey and America’s Future, Stephen Kinzer argues why – and, more importantly, shows us how – that position toward the Iranians is worth pursuing.

Kinzer, a former New York Times reporter who reported from Iran, does so by writing not just about Iran.  Reset covers the greater Middle East, specifically Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey.  Along with Iran, these countries, Kinzer says, hold the key to America’s foreign policy in the region.

They are keys, Kinzer says, that have been traditionally in the hands of Saudi Arabia and Israel.  That was when the cold war made the kingdom’s riches and the Jewish state’s anti-communism indispensible to America.  With the collapse of the East-West, however, those factors are less relevant.  In fact, Kinzer says they’re “undermining America’s own interests.”

Without overwhelming us with history, Kinzer skillfully chronicles Washington’s financial relationship with Saudi Arabia and military one with Israel.  Saudi Arabia’s “open checkbook” not only encouraged the United States to take a bold and active stand in the Middle East, it, along with America’s “distorted” bond with Israel, gave rise to the Islamic extremism that plagues the world today.

Kinzer calls America’s relationship with Israel distorted because it is not based on “historical reasons” or “regional peace.”  Until the end of the cold war, it was based on American military power.  “Eager to wage covert cold war battles in various parts of the world but were hampered by troublesome legal restrictions,” he writes, “Israel became a prized semisecret partner of the United States: a trainer of anti-Communist forces that the United States could not directly train, a conduit for arming regimes and rebel groups the United States could not openly arm, and a productive source of intelligence from around the world.”

The end of the cold war should have changed that relationship.  It didn’t.  Washington, Kinzer argues, continues to “treat Israel in a way that weakens Israel’s own security,” by promoting policies that lurch “helplessly from crisis to crisis.”  That is counterproductive for everyone.  The solution Kinzer proposes is for Washington to “reset” its foreign policy focus away from Saudi Arabia and Israel toward a closer engagement with Iran and Turkey.

Turkey, a place Kinzer lived for four years in the late 1990s, has always been an American ally, despite recent tensions in the relationship.  That Kinzer attributes to Turkey’s new approach to the world.  The country has “turned away from its traditional foreign policy, which was based on relations with Europe and the United States.”  Today, under an Islamic-inclined government, it is much more active in the Middle East, adopting a “zero problems with neighbors” policy.  Though Kinzer finds this encouraging, he acknowledges the discomfort that has given many in Washington who don’t like seeing Turkey engage with the likes of Syria and Iran.

Precisely because Turkey can engage with Syria and Iran is why, Kinzer writes, the United States should develop a closer alliance with Ankara.  As the only democratic Muslim country in the region, “Turkey can go places, engage partners, and make deals that America cannot.”

“But is the United States,” Kinzer asks, “so long accustomed to acting on its own, ready to be guided?”  Here, the Reset author, is less confident.  “America has little experience in listening to other powers.”  Given Hillary Clinton’s temper tantrum following the nuclear fuel swap deal Turkey concluded with Iran last month, with Brazilian support, this appears to be true.

Washington flatly rejected the very nuclear agreement it offered Tehran just six months earlier, but that the Islamic republic accepted when its western neighbor and Brazil proposed it.  Why?  Kinzer believes it’s because the United States shapes its foreign policy toward Iran based on emotion rather than logic.

“Some powerful Americans are still trapped by their anger at Iran, stemming from the deeply traumatic hostage crisis of 1979-81… These Americans have spent decades trying to punish Iran.”  Part of that punishment has been a refusal to negotiate with Tehran.   Yet after thirty years, that refusal hasn’t gotten America closer to the “peace” and “stability” it says it wants to see in the Middle East.

“The states have become too high for Americans to accept that option,” Kinzer writes.  The time has come for the United States to change its policy toward Iran and the entire region.  It must start by Washington distancing itself from Saudi Arabia and Israel and fortifying a new “power triangle” with Turkey and Iran.

Kinzer acknowledges that, “in order to become a reliable American partner, Iran would have to change dramatically.”  So too would the United States.  Barack Obama’s campaign comments are an indication it is ready to do.  Perhaps after reading Reset: Iran, Turkey and America’s Future it actually can.

Dialogue 2010 is the brainchild of Rose Deniz, an artist, writer and designer from Wisconsin, now living in Turkey.  In collaboration with Expat+Harem author (and goddess) Anastasia Ashman, they produced Dialogue 2010 to be a platform for people living a “hybrid life,” to convene and collaborate.

What’s a hybrid life? It’s a life in between and across cultures: an American married in Turkey, a Dutchess living in Seattle and the daughter of Turkish immigrants who grew up in Brooklyn.

I’ve spent my entire life switching between conservative Turkish Muslim traditions and free-thinking American independence.  It was not something I enjoyed.  But it wasn’t until I was chatting with nine other ladies who were located in Seattle, Idaho (via Beijing), Istanbul, Prague, and Rome did I realize that I was so angry about it.

“What have you had to leave behind in order to live more fully?” was one of the questions Rose posed to us.  We had already discussed how each of us defines a hybrid life and how had our worldview shifted as a result of location.

“Anger,” I immediately jumped in.  “I had to let go of how angry I was about living amid a conservative and traditional culture within an open and encouraging society.”  Ironically, as I said it I wondered, “am I still angry?”

As I listened to the others talk about letting go of expectations of themselves as well of others and letting go of fear I realized that I am angry – and I couldn’t be happier.

We often think of anger as a destructive, negative emotion.  For the most part it is.  What occurred to me during Dialogue 2010 was that my anger is defensive, and what has allowed me to keep a hybrid identity.

Too often we’re forced or force ourselves into a single social group or order.  I have refused to choose between my Turkish and American self.  And my anger is precisely about that.  It’s about defending the ability to live between two cultures, against a world that tells me to choose just one.  I want and need to be a Turkish-American.

So Dialogue 2010 ladies, I change my mind, I’ll take my anger with me.

Greece is on the verge of bankruptcy.  As a member of the European Union, and more importantly the “Euro zone” this has become a problem for the entire club.  Many fear that it can drag Spain, Portugal and Italy in the crisis.  That’s half the EU.  No wonder German and French leaders are scrambling hard to figure out how to rescue Athens.

There is speculation that Berlin will have no choice but to bail out Athens.  My question is: where does Berlin get the money?  Where every other government gets money, the taxpayer. From the looks of it, Germans are not at all happy about this.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is resisting making any announcement about financial assistance.  I fear she won’t be able to hold out any longer.  And that makes me fear even more for the nearly two million Turks living in Germany.  Like most minorities in any country, the Turks are the first to get blamed for Germany’s economic malaise.  They’re accused of taking away jobs and burdening social services.  If the German taxpayer feels they have to dole out even more in tight times in order to support “foreigners”, their patience for their country’s Turkish minority might further dissipate.

Is the Greek crisis the start of trouble for the Turks?

Not all Muslims are, as I can personally attest, fundamentalist jihadists. In fact, moderate Muslims outnumber extremists significantly. Interestingly they are growing in power and influence in places such as Turkey and Dubai.

Moderate Muslims are growing in power so much so that Vali Nasr, a professor at Tufts University and currently an advisor on Afghanistan and Pakistan to State Department envoy Richard Holbrooke, believes that they will be the “forces” that will eventually topple the Osama bin-Ladens menacing the world. It is a thesis we should all take a look at.

His tremendous book Forces of Fortune analyzes the rise of a moderate class of Muslims who embrace a conservative brand of Islam but reject anything that resembles the jihad.

An Iranian-American, Nasr previously authored The Shia Revival, knows all-too-well about the dangerous affects of jihadi ideology. That makes him a convincing authority we should listen to on how to best defeat it. That doesn’t mean, however, we shouldn’t question some of the things he says.

Some of the things he says pertain to the rise of a moderate Muslim class in places like Turkey and Dubai. Nasr devotes a lot of ink to the “Anatolian tigers” who are conservative businessmen from central Turkey who took advantage of the country’s economic reorganization in the late 1990s and became lucrative entrepreneurs. They helped create jobs and draw large-scale investments into Turkey. That has helped bolster Turkey’s standing in the globalized world. And that has helped devout Muslims to rethink their attitudes toward capitalism – and extremism.

For so long, secular governments in the Muslim world such as Turkey and Indonesia denied their Islamic origins, dismissing pious Muslims as “yokels.” But with economic liberalization, places like Turkey and Dubai saw that despite their religious disposition, observant Muslims were no different from their secular brothers and sisters.

Nasr uses the example of Dubai to illustrate his point that observant Muslims want to stay at “five star hotels and pray at five star mosques.” They are religious and interested in fine service and luxury – one does not preclude the other. Thankfully so, Nasr says, because it is this desire to blend Islam with high-quality living that has allowed a moderate Muslim class to emerge in Dubai and in Turkey. And that, Nasr believes, provides a welcome alternative to extremism. No one who shops for Prada wants to die.

It is a persuasive point, but Nasr fails to mention that Saudi Arabia has long mixed Muhammad with bling. In fact, many of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis who were not poor yokels, but hailed from the middle class.

In person Nasr acknowledges this point. He says that it is true that the 9/11 hijackers were well off. But they weren’t self-made entrepreneurs. Saudi Arabia, he maintains, is an oil-rich country that suppresses its people and doesn’t allow them to innovate. And that is the root of extremism.

In Forces of Fortune Nasr argues that it is the entrepreneurs of Turkey, Dubai and Indonesia that are transforming the Muslim landscape. And that the West can help them succeed by removing tariffs and providing investments. He argues that instead of trying to promote “free and fair elections” in the Middle East, the U.S. should develop an economic-based policy toward the region that will lead to more job creation and growth. More jobs, Nasr rightly points out, give young men and women who make up the majority in the Middle East a stake in their communities.

One point that Nasr ignores in his book is the role of women within this new moderate Muslim class that he admires. He touches upon the headscarf issue, pointing out that contrary to belief that men strong-arm women to don the veil, many Muslim women voluntarily cover themselves. He tells us about progressive threads within Muslim communities in Egypt and elsewhere where women have become imams and lead prayer. He cites a Muslim cleric that talks about the equality of women in Allah’s eyes.

The trouble is Allah doesn’t run governments. And none of the moderate Muslims Nasr praises includes women in decisions or leadership. This is true in Turkey with the Justice and Development Party (AKP) that Nasr admires and hopes will be an example for other Muslim-majority countries, especially his own Iran. In the AKP there are a handful of female parliamentarians but none have decision-making power or are in Turkish Prime Minister and AKP party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s inner circle.

That is unacceptable, but a point that Nasr believes we must unfortunately accept. In a conversation I had with him he told me that while these moderate Muslims were progressive they were not liberalizing. Many draw their roots from small towns and villages where traditional values still dominate. The unfortunate consequence of that, he says, is that they are not as open to women’s rights as they should be.

Still, Nasr believes that while it is not good news for women today, the rise of this new moderate Muslim class will lead women to the economic and political equality that they deserve. There’s no doubt that he has a point, and that Forces of Fortune is a great value add to our knowledge about the Middle East, but as a Muslim woman I’m tired of waiting.