Turkey’s Middle East Policy Lies in Shambles
While Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan may still have some admirers in the "Arab street," he may be losing the admiration of many of the region’s leaders.
From the perspective of his unquestioning supporters in Turkey and the region, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the only leader who is active in the Middle East trying to correct all the wrongs from Syria to Iraq and Egypt. Despite coming under increasing fire from some Islamist quarters in Turkey over his government’s handling of foreign policy, Erdogan is also aware of the continuing support he has from his grassroots Islamist followers, and showers them with rhetorical remarks pleasing to their ears.
He revived a hobbyhorse of his over the weekend, for example, and hit at the UN Security Council, saying its inability to stop the killings in Syria would “go down in history as a dark page.” Addressing a crowd of followers in Istanbul on Sunday, Sept. 2, Erdogan said his young supporters has started a campaign which he too supported against the Security Council with the slogan, “The world is greater than the five.”
