ISTANBUL — Sitting in his son’s wedding gown shop in a conservative neighborhood here, Sabah Bakirci heaped praise on Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with swagger matched only, perhaps, by Mr. Erdogan’s own.

“He’s a real man,” Mr. Bakirci said. “His decisions are always the best.”

But even Mr. Bakirci worried about his government’s policy toward the war in neighboring Syria, which has periodically forced violence across the border, along with more than half a million refugees. “I would prefer if the military didn’t get involved,” Mr. Bakirci said.

On Thursday, Mr. Erdogan, a strong advocate for military intervention in the Syrian war, reacted angrily to the United States’ decision to delay a military strike there — a decision analysts said had left Mr. Erdogan more politically vulnerable at home. In a speech to a trade group, Mr. Erdogan said that the Russian proposal that headed off the planned airstrikes amounted to little more than a stalling tactic and that he did not expect President Bashar al-Assad to ever actually give up his chemical weapons stockpiles.

“The Assad regime has never kept any of its promises until now, but broke them all to buy time for more massacres,” he said.