Statesmen and diplomats are quick to claim success, but few acknowledge their role in failures. To date, the State Department has not issued any report on how the United States lost Turkey , once among its most trusted NATO partners.

There is plenty of blame to go around when it comes to Turkey’s transition from ally to adversary. Both Republican and Democratic administrations allowed wishful thinking to trump reality in their assessment of Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Speaking alongside Erdogan in Ankara, then-President George W. Bush told the then-prime minister, “I appreciate so very much the example your country has set on how to be a Muslim country and, at the same time, a country which embraces democracy and rule of law and freedom.”

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