Turkey is riding high. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump is paying dividends as the Trump administration seeks to fast-track the sale of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to Turkey. Turkey’s arms industry, run by the president’s son-in-law, reverse engineers military technology and makes billions of dollars, often selling drones and other weaponry to some of the world’s most odious regimes.
Meanwhile, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham, a Turkey-backed rebel group that ousted Syrian President Bashar al Assad on Dec. 8, 2024, now runs that country. While Syria historically was a threat to Turkey — the two almost went to war in 1997 — Turkey today is the dominant diplomatic and economic power in Syria. From Syria’s reconstruction alone, Turkish companies controlled by Erdoğan cronies stand to win billions of dollars in contracts.
Domestically, Erdoğan’s imprisonment of his top rivals without consequence leaves him feeling strong. Completing his apparent triumph is the fact that, after years of bombing, Turkey also forced Kurds to accept a ceasefire and lay down their arms.
Looks can be deceiving. While Erdoğan may imagine himself a sultan restoring the Ottoman Empire, Turks will likely remember him as the man whose arrogance led to the country’s collapse. With inflation high and the Turkish currency falling fast, Turkish prosperity is a mirage. Just as Iranian living standards fell far beyond peers following the Islamic Revolution, so too will Erdoğan’s slow-motion Islamic Revolution mark the collapse of the Turkish middle class.
Consider: While Trump may push Congress to approve the sale of America’s most advanced fighter jet, Erdoğan’s singular focus on Trump at Congress’s expense has plummeted Turkey’s influence in Washington. After the debacle of New York City mayor Eric Adams, many politicians believe dealing with the Turks is just too risky. Whereas the Turkish Caucus in Congress once numbered a few hundred members, it now sits at just one-third that number.
Trump may hold U.S.–Turkey relations together for now, but the mutual interests upon which bilateral ties were built have collapsed. Turkey’s brand is toxic; neither Republicans nor Democrats will rally to its defense.
Turkey’s gamble in Syria will also backfire. Without fail, every country that empowered Islamists abroad as a foreign policy tool suffered blowback, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Syria being the most prominent examples. Interim Syrian President Ahmad al Sharaa is already failing, but the extremists Erdoğan empowered will terrorize the region, Turkey included, for decades.
Turkey’s victory over the Kurds was also Pyrrhic. Erdoğan seeks to humiliate the Kurds, and he has refused to negotiate meaningful peace since the ceasefire went into effect. As the Turkish-backed Syrian government seeks their eradication, they have no place else to go than into the mountains of Turkey or the urban slums of Istanbul. When the fight resumes, perhaps with the Kurds enjoying foreign assistance, its center will be in Turkey itself. The calm Turkey has enjoyed for years, if not decades, will end.
It is Turkey’s embrace of Hamas, however, that provides the final straw. Erdoğan’s fierce advocacy for Palestinian independence sets a precedent that will boomerang on Turkey itself. He calls Hamas terrorism legitimate? Well, by analogy, then, Kurdish terrorism would be as well. He supports independence despite recognized borders? By the same logic, the United States, Israel, and the growing number of Arab countries upset with Erdoğan’s interference in their affairs could recognize Kurdish independence, drawing the map as they see fit. Turkey’s objections might not matter.
CARNEY ANNOUNCES CANADA TO RECOGNIZE A PALESTINIAN STATE DESPITE US OPPOSITION
The Palestinian and Kurdish cases are not completely analogous: There are 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, but at least five times that number of Kurds in Turkey.
When Erdoğan leaves office, he will leave behind a country collapsing upon its weakening foundations. A strongman successor is unlikely to emerge, so when the Kurds seize upon the Palestinian precedent, the Turks will have difficulty preventing partition. Indeed, if Ankara complains, Kurds will simply demand a plebiscite, the outcome of which will confirm that a unitary Turkey is as outmoded as a unified Yugoslavia.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is the director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.