Deadly Ankara-West fault line cracks open at Syria's Manbij
Confrontation with the United States and the West is a necessary ingredient in Erdogan’s quest to consolidate his nationalist base, making it more likely that Turkey and the United States will collide over Manbij.
The town of Manbij in northern Syria has been gradually becoming a dangerous fault line between Turkey and the West, as Turkish strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his loyalists continue lambasting Western capitals — particularly Washington and Paris — one after the other for their lack of support for Turkey’s offensive against Syrian Kurdish groups.
One of the most recent and striking examples of this enmity came April 1, when Turkey’s low-profile deputy prime minister accused Western governments of supporting terrorist groups to “avenge the defeat of their grandfathers.”
