During the first years of his meteoric political career, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan liked to use the phrase “win-win.” That was when he was seen as an asset for a multitude of leaders around the world, thanks to the image he promulgated: that of a forthcoming political neophyte leading an aspiring nation and an ascendant country in the international system.
Today, he is seen as more of a liability with no real friends, increasingly relying on the loyalty and the blind faith of his ever-narrowing and inward-looking, xenophobic power base in Turkey.