Tempting as it might be to envision a NATO without Turkey, President Erdogan knows that the West needs Turkey as much as Turkey needs NATO. There is a national election coming up in June of 2023. Symbolically for his people, it will be the centennial of the founding of the secular Republic of Turkey under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. With Turkey’s economy in a shambles, inflation approaching 80% weakening his hold even on his political base, Recep Tayyip Erdogan (RTE) is playing a high stakes game to stay in power. A continuing poor economy should normally sound a death knell for a longtime incumbent, but like President Obama in 2012, he may defy the odds.
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