Turkey is a year away from presidential and parliamentary elections. Many Turks are starving. Literally. Their per capita GDP of around $9,500 has crushed many of them under a triple-digit inflation rate and a fast-depreciating national currency, while independent economists warn that this may be only the beginning of worse torment in a country of 84 million people, excluding 9 million refugees and migrants.

Many Turks, although starving, are nevertheless proud that they have a leader who can confront the “infidel West” – including their traditional rival and neighbor, Greece. It is precisely this feeling that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whose popularity has been plummeting in recent months, sees as a national weakness to stoke. Warmongering, the Islamist strongman evidently calculates, may convince the Turks to support revisionist bullying and ignore their misery.

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Erdoğan, in this latest gamble, appears both right and wrong. He is right that his warmongering consolidates his grassroots supporters – conservative Muslim and nationalist Turks, an unquestioning 20% of voters. But he is wrong that playing the regional neo-Ottoman bully will suffice to earn him a third term as president. Various opinion polls put his popularity at less than 30%, compared to the 52% with which he won re-election in 2018.

Read more: Gatestone Institute