President Obama hoped that Turkey's "tame" Islamists would be an example for the Moslem world on how to run an Islamic state. How'd that work out?
As of mid-2020: Turkey is still tolerating ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) within its borders where the Islamic terrorists conduct illegal banking activities as well as obtaining supplies from black market or legitimate sources. Turkey has long tolerated black market activities and since the 1980s this has included Islamic radicals doing business with these covert trading and supply operations. This tolerance comes with an obligation to refrain from carrying out attacks in Turkey. ... ISIL leadership made it clear to its followers that access to Turkey was only possible if the “non-aggression” deal was honored. In short, no killing people in Turkey meant ISIL personnel can travel through Turkey and access Turkey based suppliers. This Turkish deal with ISIL was unpopular with everyone else in the region, including Iran, Israel, NATO and the Arab states. Turkey didn’t care.
With policies like this Turkey was becoming more of a problem for its traditional friends and allies. The main force behind this Turkish hostility is the Turkish leader Recep Erdogan.
If the Turks tolerate the jihadis in their midst too long, in time the jihadis will cause serious problems for Turkey itself. Erdogan might want to ask Assad how well tolerating jihadis who flowed through Syria to commit terrorism in Iraq worked out for him.
Do read it all. As an aside, I never read before that Erdogan had reduced his F-35 buy to a mere 8 aircraft, which is really just enough to sell access to them to the Russians and Chinese. I'm shocked it took as long as it did for America to cancel the sale and delivery.
