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Excerpt
“The thing is, we don’t really know what the real vote is, because it was always clear from the start that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the leader of Turkey for 20 years, was not going to lose. He would not allow himself to lose. ... A man like Erdoğan, who is so corrupt, and so despised, has to win, or he will be in big trouble. It’s like Putin. If Putin had an election, would you wonder who would win? He has to win. He can make it look like a real contest, but in the end he has to win.
... Turkey could come back as a democratic country, but in the meantime it’s not, and beyond that it means that [Erdoğan] is head of a country which is a very important member of NATO but is not a faithful member of NATO. He is working with the Chinese. He is working with the Russians. I don’t think Turkey should be a member of NATO at this point. It’s not democratic. It’s not on message with the rest of the institution. Among other things, it prevented Sweden from becoming a member this year. I think NATO should either expell Turkey so long as it is under Erdoğan, or it should reorganize into a NATO 2.0 that is the same as the old NATO, except minus this disloyal ally, Turkey.”
