Just published in The Times.
After years of alienating his allies, Erdogan has no one to turn to
The danger of claiming to stand alone and proud against the world comes when the world takes you at your word.
Nato was meeting in emergency session this morning and the United States is offering words of sympathy, but after years of aggressively alienating his historic allies it is hard to see where President Erdogan, the Turkish leader, can turn for help today.
He has spent years decrying Europe, spouting conspiracy theories about America trying to overthrow his country, and taking the side of the Muslim Brotherhood against Turkey’s natural pro-western Sunni Muslim allies in the Gulf and Egypt. He tore up Turkey’s sometimes uncomfortable but nevertheless useful friendship with Israel.
He told his followers — and perhaps he believed it himself — that through the mediation of a fellow populist authoritarian, President Putin, he could forge a new axis of influence, a balance of power, in the post-Arab Spring Middle East.
It was a fantasy. President Putin could offer him a certain amount of support against the Kurdish militia — the PKK — and its regional offshoots. But neither of Turkey’s neighbours to the south and east, in Damascus and Tehran, had any interest in allowing Mr Erdogan a voice in their plans for the region, and in particular in their war against Syrian rebels.
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