Daniel Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack
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imbroglio in the Middle East, aligning Turkey with £¬¡¢ and the
United States, and portraying the country as a secular, westernizing
nation that deserved membership in the ¤. By the turn o this cen-
tury, Turkey seemed to be growing ever more stable and westernized
as it moved away from domestic military dominance. Long friendly
toward the West, it was now on the path to democracy, turning into
a normal European state, with strong institutions.
Erdogan had other plans. Since he became prime minister, in
2003, Turkish policies have repeatedly whipsawed. The regime sup-
ported its Kurdish citizens and then persecuted them; worked with
Assad, tried to overthrow him, and then cooperated with him again;
rejected Russia and then embraced it; cooperated with Israel and
then denounced it. Domestically, Erdogan shelved democratic reforms
and heightened his repression.
Part o the about-face can be attributed to opportunism and real-
politik, but much o it reÁects Erdogan’s response to perceived per-
sonal slights and his pursuit o glory. In 2010, an Israeli raid on a
Áotilla trying to break the blockade o the Gaza Strip led to the deaths
o ten Turks on the ship the Mavi Marmara. Despite decades o close
strategic cooperation between Turkey and Israel, Erdogan demanded
an apology, recalled the Turkish am-
bassador to Israel, and moved closer to
Hamas in Gaza. A year later, he viewed
Assad’s crackdown on demonstrators
as yet another slight, since it gave the
lie to his claim that he could temper
the Syrian dictator, prompting Erdogan
to back an array o opposition forces
against Assad. An analysis o the Turk-
ish leader’s verbal output by the scholars Aylin Gorener and Meltem
Ucal found that he scored high in believing he can control events and
in distrusting others but also that he sees the world in black and
white, is hypersensitive to criticism, and has trouble focusing on the
implementation o policies. Erdogan seems convinced that he and
only he is equipped to save Turkey from its enemies.
An alternative leader, even one who managed to channel the same
anti-Western political coalition that Erdogan has, would probably
have pursued a remarkably dierent foreign policy. Indeed, members
o Erdogan’s own party have espoused dierent views on the Kurds,Russian President Vladimir
Putin exempli¥es how a
wily leader can parlay a
relatively weak position
into a much stronger one.