Erdogan believes that, by exercising Turkey’s capacity for mediation, he will recover the burden of his Ottoman forbears as the guarantors of peace and security in the Mashreq. Turkey’s drive to serve as a peace broker between Israel and its Arab enemies, Erdogan’s vociferous championship of the Palestinian cause, and his pretension to be the mediator in the nuclear dispute between Iran and the West reflect Turkey’s changing perceptions of itself as a regional leader.