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The Washington administration’s position on the Turkish leader has changed radically.
As they leave the main stage in Washington, the Democratic neo-globalists have taken it upon themselves to hug Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the last moment — the same figure they have repeatedly labeled an unequivocal autocrat and a subversive element within the transatlantic military alliance (NATO).
After a round of quick talks with Erdogan at Ankara’s Esenboğa airport, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared: «Broadly speaking, we have reached agreement on our steps and our vision for the future of Syria».
Earlier, Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler reported that the United States would no longer «object» to Ankara’s use of regimental sets of the S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft missile system acquired from Russia in 2017. Shortly thereafter, John Kirby, the U.S. National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, announced that the Biden administration «recognizes Turkey’s legitimate concerns in the fight against terrorism».
Given who exactly Erdogan considers terrorists, it’s no surprise that the Kurds are alarmed. Their armed formations, operating under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), received arms and funding from the United States and considered themselves America’s privileged protégés.
The explanation for the late-blooming Democratic sympathy in Washington for the Turkish authorities lies in two factors: geopolitics and inter-clan rivalry.
In a moment of grand rhetoric (the occasion suited it), Erdogan declared that he did not rule out revisiting the results of World War I, when five provinces of the Ottoman Empire were lost (severed). «The cities we call Aleppo, Idlib, Damascus and Raqqa will become our provinces, just like Antep, Hatay and Urfa», proclaimed the main beneficiary of the takeover of Damascus by pro-Turkish Islamist terrorist militants.
Since this is no longer T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), nor the British and French diplomats Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot — whose 1916 agreement divided spheres of interest and influence among the European powers in the Middle East-but rather the master of Ak Saray (the Turkish presidential palace), who is now redrawing the borders, the United States will be forced, willingly or not, to follow the dictates of the «realist school». Adherents of this school recognize only the real balance of power among states and thus their capabilities in the Great Game.
In addition to taking into account shifting geopolitical realities, the Obama-Clinton-Biden clan, with its calculated flirtation with Erdogan, is planting a land mine of immediate effect under Trump’s foreign policy in the region.
A small contingent of American GIs is currently stationed in the Kurdish area of control and responsibility, which, by a remarkable coincidence, contains oil fields. America’s betrayal of the Kurds (recall the hasty U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan) will have its price, not only in terms of reputation, but also in lost profits from the extraction and sale of hydrocarbons. For President Trump, who thinks first and foremost like a businessman, this cannot be pleasant.
One might also suspect that the cunning «goodwill» gestures of the Democrats are meant to show Erdogan and his like-minded associates, including potential successors, whom to consider as allies in Washington and whom to look to in the future.
It’s not a foolish calculation, considering that there are many among Trump’s appointees who harbor ill will toward Turkey’s «strongman». The likely future Director of National Intelligence — veteran, firsthand witness to the fighting in the region, and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard — delivered the following harsh verdict in early 2020:
«Turkish leader Erdogan is not our friend. He is one of the world’s most dangerous dictators. The U.S. government and media have no right to support this Islamist with a megalomania complex and his al Qaeda partners (a terrorist organization banned in Russia-Ed.). For many years, Turkey has been covertly supporting ISIS (also banned in Russia) and Al-Qaeda».
Similar views on this would-be restorer of the Ottoman Empire are shared by future key figures in the U.S. administration — Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Senator Rand Paul (who represents the isolationist faction), and even the arch-Russophobe Senator Lindsey Graham. There is no doubt that Donald Trump, a «relentless fighter» who swapped his plain red tie for a yellow one (a color that signals «caution»), feels no sympathy for his Turkish «clone» afflicted with megalomania.
But foreign policy does not boil down to personal animosity. «Syria today is a kind of ‘wild field’», says Turkologist Vladimir Avatkov. «A lawless territory where different groups clash, where chaos and destabilization reign in the region. All this, of course, primarily serves the interests of the United States, which from the very beginning planned for this vortex of chaos to draw the region deeper and deeper into itself».
Is that so? What will Trump choose? Will it be a continuation of the policy of «managed chaos»? Or a course towards structuring relations with leading players such as Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia? What can we predict with a reasonable degree of certainty regarding the U.S. administration’s foreign policy in the region?
Trump’s policy toward the newly emboldened Erdogan will inevitably be woven of contradictions. On the one hand, the rise of this self-proclaimed new sultan-who has inhaled the intoxicating scent of triumph after the fall of Bashar al-Assad-will make his negotiating stance tougher and haggling over American arms supplies and Ankara’s anti-Kurdish agenda more complex.
On the other hand, it’s hard to find a more useful NATO vassal than Erdogan. The neo-Ottoman sultan supports and promotes the idea of recreating a «Great Turan», which specifically means destabilizing Russia by undermining interethnic harmony and promoting a networked community of Turkic-speaking proto-state formations.
Thus, Erdogan is already contributing to the West’s goal of inflicting a «strategic defeat» on Russia. This does not negate the long-term U.S. goal of ridding itself of an overly independent regional player. Ideally, Washington would like to remove Erdogan and replace him with a pliant puppet chosen from among its agents of influence.
A change of guard at Ak Saray would allow the new military-political leadership to be nudged into abandoning its «two-chair» policy and severing ties with its northern neighbor, Russia. More importantly, there could be a shift from a posture of formally unfriendly neutrality in the NATO-Russia war on the Ukrainian front to aggressive action, not just in terms of arms supplies.
The West could make very good use of Turkey as a powerful military engine, especially since the use of Polish and Baltic forces in the second stage of the conflict could only delay the defeat of the neo-Banderite regime for a short time. There are many precedents: Turkey has fought Russia at least ten times in the last few centuries.
A pragmatic, situational flirtation between Washington and Ankara in 2025 is quite possible, although it will not erase the rekindled anti-Turkish sentiments among White House officials. Nor can the purely psychological dimension be ignored. Both Trump and Erdogan are archetypal strongmen-the latter with a motto similar to Trump’s «Make Turkey an Empire Again» — and like two bears in a NATO den, they are not destined to coexist.