I'm not sure if this belongs in editorial or here but good commentary.
US: once burned, twice shy about Turkey’s Erdoğan
TM
Abdullah Bozkurt
The growing US pressure on the government of President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan is perhaps the only avenue left to reattach Turkey, a faltering NATO ally, to the transatlantic alliance given the colossal and systemic failure of national institutions that buckled one after another under the unprecedented crackdown by the Islamist regime. It is crucial that other NATO allies and partners also be brought in with coordinated actions targeting the ErdoÄŸan government in order to send a more robust and sterner message to Ankara.
The belated US sanctions could have made much more of a difference if they had come earlier, when there was still a free media, a relatively independent judiciary, a daring political opposition and a vibrant civil society. Unfortunately, the Obama administration had merely appeased the Erdoğan regime, bought him ample time with a naiveté that things would eventually play out on their own when neo-nationalist and pro-Iranian elements within the Turkish government were solidifying their positions, dismantling state institutions and destroying the pillars of the secular republic.
It appears Erdoğan has finally found his match in President Donald Trump, who does not seem to be hesitating to directly confront Turkey’s thuggish leader when warranted. Trump’s sternly and publicly critical remarks about Erdoğan and the White House’s exceptionally strong policy against the Turkish government have apparently caught Erdoğan off guard and unprepared in his own game. For a long time Erdoğan and his team thought Turkey was indispensable to a NATO ally and that the US government would eventually acquiesce to the Turkish president’s wishes to persecute his critics including US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen and accept Turkish overtures to Iran and Russia. Unlike the Pentagon, the State Department bears partial blame in sending wrong signals to the Erdoğan government and emboldening Turkey’s dictator to press ahead and even hold American nationals and local employees of US diplomatic missions in Turkey as hostages. The erroneous reading of Erdoğan by people sitting at the Turkey desk of the State Department has contributed to the mess we face in Turkey now.
Read more at: https://www.turkishminute.com/2018/08/12/opinion-us-once-burned-twice-shy-about-turkeys-erdogan/
Sounds like the writer says we should try to get our Nato allies on board as well. Haven't Netherlands, Germany and maybe France too, all have had problems with the Turk government. Maybe Russia too, though, that's different.
