Former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was always flamboyant, but he grew even more bizarre during his decades in power. The former Libyan army colonel who seized power in a 1969 coup was famous for openly embracing terrorism.
Gadhafi was also a revanchist: He was ill-content with Libya remaining within its borders.
Gadhafi was also a revanchist: He was ill-content with Libya remaining within its borders. When his efforts to unify with Egypt failed, he sought to seize the Aouzou Strip, reputed to be rich in uranium, from Chad, which defeated Libya in a 1987-1988 war over the territory. In Gadhafi’s later days, he would visit Europe but pitch Bedouin tents rather than stay in luxury hotels or foreign ministry guesthouses. He also assembled a unit of all-female bodyguards to add to his flamboyance.
Gadhafi not only squandered Libya’s wealth on his profligate lifestyle, but he also envisioned grand schemes to reshape the country’s geography. While Egypt has the Nile, Libya has no permanent rivers. So, Gadhafi launched a scheme to build the Great Manmade River, a series of wells and pipelines under the Sahara Desert, which remains incomplete due to Gadhafi’s 2011 demise — a $30 billion boondoggle and a testament to Gadhafi’s hubris.
Enter Turkish President Recep Erdoğan. Like Gadhafi, Erdoğan is flamboyant. Uncontent with the existing presidential residence, he built a palace 30 times larger than the White House. He also submerged Hasankeyf, one of the world’s oldest and best-preserved Kurdish cities, under 200 feet of water by building a dam that few wanted. Like Gadhafi, Erdoğan openly supports terrorist groups, allowing Hamas to open offices and operate from Istanbul.
Now, in his twilight years, Erdoğan has taken a cue from Gadhafi with his own mega-project — the Istanbul canal. Because the 1936 Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits governs traffic through the Dardanelles and Bosporus, Erdoğan is seeking to cut a separate canal to connect the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara.
Erdoğan’s increasingly grandiose projects are, like Gadhafi’s, more a testament to ego and a mind run amok than any reasonable development plan.
Most foreign policy analysts view the canal through the lens of its implications for the Montreux Convention provisions, which prohibit warships from traversing the Bosporus during times of war. If an alternate route exists to the Black Sea, could warships flood the Black Sea? On this, Moscow may have greater objections than Washington, at least so long as NATO considers Turkey more an asset than a Trojan Horse.
Still, this may be missing the broader point: Erdoğan’s increasingly grandiose projects are, like Gadhafi’s, more a testament to ego and a mind run amok than any reasonable development plan. Indeed, to ascribe logic to Erdoğan’s ambitions may be too generous, rather than recognizing them for what they are: Gadhafi-level madness.
If Erdoğan wants to divert tens of billions of dollars away from the welfare and existing infrastructure of Turkey, that is his business. But, rather than watch from the sidelines, let alone applaud, Washington should call it as it is: A vanity project for which all Turks will suffer, which, even if complete, will never last, given the soil conditions and earthquake zone through which it would pass.
Published originally on November 26, 2025.
