When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ascends the podium at the United Nations General Assembly, the question for Turkey watchers and journalists is not what he will say. After all, Erdoğan is in his rhetoric, his antics, and his nepotism increasingly like Muammar Qadhafi version 2.0. Rather, the looming question is when his body guards will attack protesters on the streets of New York. Alas, it seems that a series of decisions, first made by then-Secretary of State John Kerry and more recently from his successors Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo, make such incidents more likely.

The problem is Erdogan’s propensity to violence in the face of opposition, not only in Turkey but overseas as well. In 2016, as Erdogan prepared to mount the stage at the Brookings Institute, his agents moved through the audience to forcibly eject and, in some cases, beat those considered too critical. That was bad enough, but then, on May 16, 2017, during a subsequent visit to the U.S., cell phone video appears to show Erdogan giving the order for his security agents and political supporters to charge and beat peaceful protesters on Massachusetts Avenue in front of the Turkish ambassador’s residence.