No president likes to be called a fool, least of all Tayyip Erdogan.
He is a man who jails people who make jokes about him, as thin-skinned and paranoid as a late Ottoman sultan. So his reaction to Donald Trump’s letter on October 9, the day Turkey launched its unilateral attack on Syria, was entirely expected.
‘Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool! I will call you later,’ Trump wrote, in his now infamous attempt to hold Erdogan back from another Syrian misadventure.
Erdogan’s people say he threw the letter in the bin. The Turkish president later told journalists he would get his revenge: ‘When the time comes the necessary steps will be taken,’ he vowed.
But with its naked threats and assumption that the world runs on mob boss rules, Trump’s message is one that Erdogan gets. He has now dominated Turkey for more than 16 years, a bullish constant in his own country while the whole world has changed around him.
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