World
Erdogan’s Ottoman Dreams Lie Broken in Syria
Turkey’s push to become a world power is unraveling after alienating NATO allies and being made to look vulnerable by Russia.
Smoke billows over the town of Saraqib in the eastern part of the Idlib province in Syria on Feb. 27.
Photographer: Aref TAmmawi/AFP via Getty Images
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When Recep Tayyip Erdogan was inaugurated as Turkey’s president with enhanced powers in 2018, Venezuelan counterpart and admirer Nicolas Maduro called him the “leader of the new multi-polar world.”
In Syria, however, Erdogan appears to have tested to destruction the ability of a country with no nuclear arsenal, few natural resources and an economy roughly the size of Spain’s to carve a sphere of influence for itself.