The Wall Street Journal quotes VP and Rafik Hariri Center Director Francis Ricciardone on Turkish influence in the Middle East:
Of course, with a modern economy, NATO’s second-largest army, and strategic position Turkey still remains a crucial power.
“They are influential and important, and what they say will always matter to the United States,” said Francis Ricciardone, vice president of the Atlantic Council in Washington who served until earlier this year as the American ambassador in Ankara. “They were not alone in making wrong guesses along the way,” he added.