After the 1979 revolution, Iran’s Islamist regime emerged as the clear anti-thesis of a secular Turkey and two countries’ relationship was only sustained by political Islamists on both sides. According to Akin Unver, this 1979-2010 Islamist connection is also being reversed by the sectarian faultlines unearthed by the Arab Spring. Iran’s rapid fall from grace with Turkish Islamists is one of the most important recent structural shifts in the Middle East, Unver suggests. Such a break is far from marginal and yields several important points for consideration.

The Iraq war was a form of everyday bureaucratic governance with the Iraq government managing resistance and religious diversity and shaping a public culture in which soldiering and martyrdom became markers of privileged citizenship. The men and families of those who fought and died during the Iran-Iraq and First Gulf wars have memories not only of the political, social, and cultures changes in Iraq but also of the “normalization” of war.

Bayram Balci, Visiting Scholar, Middle East Program, Carnegie Endowment, analyzed the various aspects of Shia and Sunni revival, including the roles played by Turkey and Iran, and how Azerbaijan is reacting to these “new” religious cleavages. In his talk he contended that the Islamic influences from Iran (Shia) and from Turkey (Sunni) are recreating new dividing lines between Azerbaijani Shia and Sunni Muslims.