A few months before Friday’s attempted coup in Turkey, pro-government media outlets there published reports that the United States was actively plotting to depose Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Things came to a head at a State Department briefing in late March, when a Turkish reporter confronted spokesman John Kirby with the rumor: “Does the U.S. government try to overthrow the Erdogan government?” he asked.

Kirby called the question ridiculous and refused to dignify it with an answer. There was no evidence to the charge. And when Turkey’s military actually did move against Erdogan on Friday, the Obama administration swiftly condemned the action.


That doesn’t mean Obama has any love for Turkey’s longtime leader. Though he once saw him as a potential role model for Muslim leaders, Obama now considers Erdogan a thuggish autocrat who threatens Turkey's democracy almost as much as the generals who tried to overthrow him. But Obama also understands that he's stuck with Erdogan, a NATO partner he must deal with on critical security issues like the Islamic State and Syria. "You have to deal with the Turkey you have, rather than the one you'd like to have," said James Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey under Obama.

But the strained relationship could grow even more tense in Obama's last months in office, as U.S. officials fret that Erdogan, having survived the coup, may consolidate his power further. Current and former U.S. officials now say Obama, having verbally defended Erdogan against the coup plotters, must again put his foot down in the name of democracy, imploring the Turkish leader not to use the failed putsch as an excuse to persecute political enemies and further stifle civil society—even as talk swirls anew within Turkey of a U.S. hand in the coup.

A Saturday White House statement sounded that last note, calling on "all parties in Turkey to act within the rule of law." And in a call to his Turkish counterpart, Secretary of State John Kerry urged "restraint... and respect for due process" as the Turkish government investigates the coup's origins, according to a State Department statement.

Doing more to defend Turkish democracy would be a change for a president who, critics say, has put America's strategic partnership with Turkey ahead of defending human rights and democracy within the country — imposing little price on Erdogan as he has ousted political opponents, intimidated journalists and overseen the arrest of thousands on charges of criticizing the president. Experts say that escalating climate of repression may well have contributed to the military's dramatic move. Some also complain that Obama has little to show in return from Erdogan, who has been at best a reluctant ally in the fight against ISIS and a supporter of Islamist groups the U.S. opposes, including Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

“We basically have turned a blind eye to Erdogan’s drive towards an authoritarian, one-man system of rule in Turkey,” said Eric Edelman, a U.S. ambassador to Ankara from 2003 to 2005 and a deputy secretary of defense under George W. Bush. “The president has acknowledged it, but we haven’t really done much about it, if anything.”

That needs to change, Edelman said. “If there’s anything we’ve learned from the last six years in that part of the world, it’s that one-man rule isn’t very stable.”

Whether or not Obama bears any responsibility for it, the crisis gripping Turkish politics is a profound disappointment for a president who once held up Turkey and its leader as a model for the Middle East.

Soon after his 2008 election, Obama began to court Erdogan, whom he saw as a moderate Muslim democrat who could help him stabilize the Middle East. The men spoke constantly in Obama’s first term, exchanging parenting tips and commiserating for 45 minutes after the death of Erdogan’s mother. In a 2011 Time interview Obama named Erdogan, along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron, as one of the five world leaders with whom he had the strongest bonds.

Even then, some observers had qualms about Erdogan’s commitment to democracy and civil society. But Obama, eager to make the U.S. less responsible for the Middle East’s problems, was all in.

“Obama wanted to believe that he could have a strong Turkey that would step in and take on the role of a strong power in the Middle East that would allow the U.S. to step back,” said Blaise Misztal, a Turkey expert with the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C. “Erdogan said all the right things, and we believed him partly because we wanted to believe him.”

But the relationship soured as Erdogan took a dark turn toward authoritarianism. Particularly since the Arab Spring toppled Muslim leaders in several countries, he became more repressive, and violently quashed popular protests in Istanbul in 2013. He also created a cult of power around himself, forcing out political rivals, posing like a modern-day sultan with actors dressed in Ottoman-era garb, and constructing a new $615 million, 1,000-room presidential place for himself.

“He has become more isolated and paranoid” since the Arab Spring, said Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Islamic Exceptionalism.

Though Obama privately calls Erdogan a disappointment, he mostly holds his tongue in public for fear of rupturing relations with Ankara. One exception came in early April, after Obama spoke to Erdogan at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington. (Obama had pointedly declined to receive the Turkish leader at the Oval Office.) Saying he was "troubled" by Erdogan's moves against press freedom — including his government's recent seizure of a major Istanbul newspaper Zaman, which was later shut down — Obama recounted telling Erdogan that he “came into office with the promise of democracy” but was now engaging in the “repression of information and shutting down democratic debate,” and needed to change his ways.

Erdogan is open about his own disappointment in Obama. Last month he told reporters that he’d hoped to build a “model partnership” between Turkey and and the U.S. “Unfortunately our expectations did not come true,” he added.

A Turkish police officer walks past destroyed police and civilian vehicles near the presidential palace in Ankara on July 17. | AP Photo

Erdogan has frustrated Obama not just on domestic issues, but also when it comes to the fight against ISIS. Erdogan is impatient with Obama's cautious strategy in Syria, urging more direct action to depose Syrian President Bashar Assad. He has also dragged his feet on steps the U.S. insists are crucial to defeating ISIS, like sealing Turkey's border, and supporting Kurdish rebels in Syria whom Erdogan considers a terrorist threat to his own country. But U.S. military officials say their use of the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, which Erdogan approved last year, makes their air campaign against ISIS far more effective.

In a sign of the deepening mistrust between the two countries, however, rumors flared anew in Turkey that the Obama administration had played some role in the coup. Erdogan has said the coup was directed by a reclusive Muslim cleric living in Pennsylvania, Fethullah Gulen, who retains considerable following in the Turkish military and police.

On Friday, Erdogan demanded that the U.S. arrest or extradite Gulen, whom some Turkish media outlets and politicians say enjoys at least de facto support from the U.S. in his alleged plots against Erdogan. Kerry said on Saturday that the U.S. would consider doing so if Turkey could provide evidence of his guilt.

But clearly troubled by persistent talk that Obama supports Erdogan's non-democratic ouster, the State Department said Kerry told Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu that "public insinuations or claims about any role by the United States in the failed coup attempt are utterly false and harmful to our bilateral relations."

