Biden Should Cut the Gordian Knot With Turkey
Erdogan has long since dropped the pretense of friendship with the West.
Time to let go.
Photographer: Sedat Suna/AFP/Getty Images
Turkey has long since abandoned the West. Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has aligned his country with an axis of powers openly hostile to Western interests: China, Russia and Iran. This is his prerogative as a popular, elected leader.
But Erdogan also craves the protection of the West’s military partnerships and membership in its economic associations. He wants Turkey to remain within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization even as he buys weapons systems that undermine the alliance’s security and hurls insults at heads of member states. And he seeks “mutual trust” with the European Union even as he threatens to flood it with millions of migrants.