Time to hit Turkey with more sanctions

U.S. sanctions against Turkey were just announced yesterday. Some may believe this means we wait to see if Ankira will do anything different in Syria. Nope. It’s time to hit them with more sanctions. Why? Because they didn’t blink. They didn’t respond. They didn’t immediately call off their invasion while on the phone with Washington DC asking for sanctions to end.

In fact, the Lira actually rose as the world is essentially doubting the sanctions will have an effect. Therefore, it’s time to hit them with harsher sanctions immediately. There’s no reason to wait and see what Turkey does. They’re still heading down the same path.

This is not a situation in which we can try to wait them out. We don’t have time to let the sanctions percolate and degrade the Turkish economy. We need their economy to lurch as a result of U.S. actions. Anything short of an economic punch in the nose is meaningless and will only embolden Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan even further.

These sanctions amounted to a diplomatic love tap. Yes, they’re a NATO ally. Yes, we have two important bases there that include 50 tactical nuclear weapons. But right now we’re looking like paper tigers, even on the economic front where we’re supposed to be the ominous masters of the world. This is unacceptable. We need to hit them much harder if we want to get anyone’s attention and stop this invasion from escalating unnecessarily.

Turkey is laughing at us following the first round of sanctions. Yesterday’s move was not the economy-crushing blow that would dissuade Turkey from continuing their rapid invasion of Syria. It was barely a warning shot. We need to hit them much harder immediately.

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