Secretary of State Antony Blinken knew he was entering a hornets nest when, last week, he stopped off in Ankara to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan has been a problematic partner at the best of times: He plays Washington and Moscow off each other for profit and sells Ukraine drones while helping Russia evade sanctions to fund its war effort. He instigated if not directed Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh’s indigenous Armenian Christian community and used the world’s distraction with the Israel-Hamas war to pulverize Kurdish civilian and economic infrastructure in Syria. Erdogan’s embrace of Hamas should surprise no one. He has openly backed the group for almost 20 years, supplied al Qaeda affiliates in Syria and Libya, and gave logistical support to the Islamic State.

High on Blinken’s agenda in Ankara was to win Erdogan’s promise that Turkey would finally bless Sweden’s NATO membership. Diplomatic sources say Blinken came bearing potential gifts, everything from new formulations to provide F-16s to Turkey to a White House visit for the Turkish strongman. Blinken should know better on both counts. Turkey uses F-16s to bolster its irredentist claims, not improve NATO security. He may convince himself Erdogan is reasonable and sincere, but history suggests otherwise. Erdogan plays Blinken like a fiddle, playing the same tune he did with then-Secretary of State Colin Powell before the 2003 Iraq war. Then, as now, Erdogan promised to put forward the proposition to parliament, only to feign surprise when his own party members balked. Twenty years ago, Erdogan had a good chuckle when he excused parliament’s rejection of the deal as proof of Turkish democracy even though parliament’s rejection was a pre-planned good cop, bad cop performance.