Pulling away from America. Partnering with Russia. Crushing democracy and rule of law. And now this:
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday said German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats were enemies of Turkey and called on Turks in Germany to vote against major parties in next month's elections.
Stoking tensions to try to create a 5th column within Germany (or to convince Germans that there is a 5th column, which leads to the same thing) is not something an ally does.
But Erdogan is not much of an ally.
I've long said an imperfect ally is better than an enemy. Erdogan has not tipped Turkey over that point. But he sure is trying. I wonder if he'd like NATO to make the break to avoid repercussions from the Turks who are still pro-Western and pro-NATO.
Can we pull Turkey back from the brink and influence Turkish society to reject Erdogan's creeping dictatorship that could reject collective NATO defense in favor of restoring the Ottoman Empire (in influence if not in fact)?
