When Turkey jailed Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s biggest rival at the weekend, thousands of protesters took to the streets. Notably less vocal were the country’s Western allies.The Turkish president and commander of NATO’s second-biggest army is banking on the world needing him more than it needs to join a fight over the country’s democracy.

The arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu has unleashed the largest protests Turkey has seen in a decade. He was officially nominated by the opposition as its presidential candidate for elections in 2028.