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Input: âStep by step  we will clean our entire border â Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared over the weekend. But the operation has created an international mess.
With  Erdogan  âintensifying  his  threats to extend the Turkish offensive to the areas farther east  where the U.S. military maintains troops  a larger conflict looms â my colleagues wrote  "A Turkish attack on Manbij [a strategic border town] would present the United States with a major dilemma " forced to pick a side between their allies on the ground and a historic NATO partner.
The U.S.-Turkey relationship has been in free fall over the course of the Syrian war.  Erdogan  grew furious with the Obama administration for not doing enough to challenge the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while also emboldening Kurdish factions on Turkey's doorstep. President Trump's arrival offered hope for a reset  but that  too  quickly faded.
A phone call last week between  Erdogan  and Trump did nothing to resolve the simmering grievances. Turkish officials challenged a White House readout of the conversation  denying that Trump had âexpressed concernâ about anti-U.S. propaganda coming out of Ankara or the escalation of violence in Afrin.
In Turkey  the offensive has let loose a new tide of nationalist feeling.  Erdogan  once championed a historic opening with Turkey's long-suppressed minority Kurdish population. Now  he  casts  himself  as the merciless enemy of Kurdish separatism  rallying right-wing Turks to  his  banner. Pro-Erdogan media outlets belt out a steady stream of vitriol against both Kurdish separatists and their supposed puppet masters in the West. Meanwhile  Turkish authorities have clamped down on dissent or opposition to the military offensive.
âDespite his best efforts to build a stable majority as the foundation of his new regime  his policies of demonizing the opposition have created a deeply polarized society. Half of Turkey despises him and will never accept him as its leader â wrote Soner Cagaptay  a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy  for The Washington Post. âBut  Erdogan  has failed to grasp this fact  becoming even more authoritarian since the 2017 referendum that granted  him  sweeping presidential powers.  Erdoganâs  current trajectory will deepen Turkeyâs crisis  potentially even triggering civil conflict.â
Cagaptay said NATO allies like the United States need to walk  Erdogan  back from  his  hysteria by slowing support for the Syrian Kurds and siding more clearly with Turkeyâs geopolitical interests in Syria over those of Russia and Iran.
But thatâs not an easy sell. Foreign-policy and national-security elites in Washington have soured on  Erdogan   while the Kurds command a great deal of affection. The Trump administration seems to have no choice but to grapple with the growing contradictions underlying its Syria policy.

Turkeyâs Erdogan wages a dangerous war on many fronts