President Biden made it official on April 24th, 2021 (the 106th year memorial) by rightly calling the WWI era deliberate massacres of at least 1.5 million Armenians what it actually was—Genocide.  Turkey’s President Erdogan railed against the announcement, but he reaped what he sowed by arrogantly ignoring the values and ethics of other NATO allies and democratic countries alike. It is no wonder the E.U. will not let Turkey join them. 

In eighteen years, Erdogan has managed to increase his power to a level not seen since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (the founder of modern Turkey). However, Erdogan’s power grab has come at a steep cost: Turkey’s economy teeters on the brink of disaster, the Turkish youth have turned against him as well as the families and friends of the thousands of Turks jailed in a failed coup (seeking a true democracy), and a political rival’s (Ekrem Imamoglu) popularity is growing.

Meanwhile, Erdogan continues to violate Greece’s territorial space. Is he poised to begin a war with Greece to fix his problems at home?  Is he willing to gamble that the US and other countries will simply look the other way?  Greece will not back down from a fight because they know they are in the right.  Erdogan’s threats of unleashing thousands of refugees will not get him his way forever.

My intuition tells me Erdogan’s heavy-handed methodology against his own people—students as well as adults, will lead him to become more reckless, aggressive, and erratic. As Turkey’s economic woes threaten his political future, he will feel trapped…and like a trapped animal, he will be dangerous to others as well as his own people.