During his tenure as Turkey’s president, and before that as prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been a source of frustration for the U.S.—supporting Hamas, intervening in Libya, and dismantling democracy at home. But, Michael Doran argues, two consecutive American presidents have failed to counter Erdogan effectively due to “a pervasive misdiagnosis of the problem.”

Regardless of what one thinks of Erdogan, his policies that have most enraged Washington—such as launching a military offensive last fall to drive American forces away from the Turkish border or buying the S-400 anti-aircraft system from Russia—have enjoyed very broad domestic support, precisely because the Turkish public reviles the policies of the United States. In short, America does not have an Erdogan problem; it has a Turkey problem. And that is a problem largely of its own making.

The source of America’s Turkey problem is U.S. support of the Syrian wing of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a terrorist separatist group formerly supported by the Soviet Union:

The disintegration of the Syrian state offered the PKK a new opportunity. Throughout 2013 and 2014, the PKK’s Syrian arm, “the Peoples Protection Units,” or YPG, established control of the Kurdish cantons all along the Turkish border. . . . The PKK openly presents Rojava, [as it calls this slice of Syria], as the southern part of a much larger polity that will encompass all of eastern Turkey. As Kurdish autonomous regions sprang up in Syria, a number of Kurdish towns in Turkey also proclaimed their autonomy.

Historically, the United States has respected the Turkish assessment of the threat. But as then-President Obama negotiated his way through the labyrinth of the Syrian civil war, he broke with precedent and allied the United States with the PKK by selecting the YPG as its main partner for combating Islamic State.

[A]rriving at [a strategic] accommodation with Turkey should be seen . . . as a top priority of American foreign policy—the key to managing the central contradiction in American policy vis-à-vis the Middle East. On the one hand, talk of withdrawing from the Middle East is rife on both sides of the political aisle, and the American public has no tolerance for significant military commitments. On the other hand, if the United States leaves the region, Russia, China, and Iran will fill the ensuing vacuum. America is thus betwixt and between.

Below, today’s newsletter will return to some other reflections on the one-year anniversary of the outbreak of the current war, but first something must be said of its recent progress. Israel has kept up its aerial and ground assault on Hizballah, and may have already killed the successor to Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader it eliminated less than two weeks ago. Matthew Levitt assesses the current state of the Lebanon-based terrorist group, which, in his view, is now “a shadow of its former self.” Indeed, he adds,

it is no exaggeration to say that the Hizballah of two weeks ago no longer exists. And since Hizballah was the backbone of Iran’s network of militant proxies, its so-called axis of resistance, Iran’s strategy of arming and deploying proxy groups throughout the region is suddenly at risk as well.

Hizballah’s attacks put increasing pressure on Israel, as intended, only that pressure did not lead Israelis to stop targeting Hamas so much as it chipped away at Israel’s fears about the cost of military action to address the military threats posed by Hizballah.

At the same time, Levitt explains, Hizballah still poses a serious threat, as it demonstrated last night when its missiles struck Haifa and Tiberias, injuring at least two people:

Hizballah still maintains an arsenal of rockets and a cadre of several thousand fighters. It will continue to pose potent military threats for Israel, Lebanon, and the wider region.

How will the group seek to avenge Nasrallah’s death amid these military setbacks? Hizballah is likely to resort to acts of international terrorism, which are overseen by one of the few elements of the group that has not yet lost key leaders.

But the true measure of whether the group will be able to reconstitute itself, even over many years, is whether Iran can restock Hizballah’s sophisticated arsenal. Tehran’s network of proxy groups—from Hizballah to Hamas to the Houthis—is only as dangerous as it is today because of Iran’s provision of weapons and money. Whatever Hizballah does next, Western governments must prioritize cutting off Tehran’s ability to arm and fund its proxies.