This Will Come To A Head

 Biden feels like a character who comes in to a story to clean house and right wrongs. He is correcting the mistakes made early in the Obama Administration of trying to find Republican votes for Democratic priorities. My guess is that if Republicans try and use the debt ceiling as leverage, Biden will simply nuke the debt ceiling. And that will be a good thing.

On American foreign policy, Biden has already committed to ending the Forever War in Afghanistan, and I really think he is going to follow through on this. An area where I'm also enthusiastic is in Biden's apparent decision to label the Armenian Genocide as such. That Turkey committed genocide and ethnic cleansing against its Armenian population is largely uncontested in non-Turkish historical circles. Yet, it's been an issue of profound sensitivity to the Turks, so American presidents have largely used euphemisms to describe it. Biden is basically telling Turkey to suck it up. 

Turkey has long held a form of immunity because it is a NATO member that is overwhelmingly Muslim and controls access to the Black Sea. The base at Incirlik is a critical military installation for American operations in the Middle East. But as Erdogan has retreated from democracy and increasingly acted contrary to shared NATO interests, the fewer allies he has in the halls of Washington. Trump may have liked Erdogan, but fewer and fewer policy makers do.

Among the potential actions America could take if Turkey continues to estrange itself from NATO would be to recognize an independent Kurdistan in northeastern Iraq. Move the airbase from Incirlik to Erbil. The Kurds are really our only friends in the region and after Trump screwed them over, it's the least we could do.

The worry, I suppose is that Erdogan might cozy up to Putin, but Turkish suspicions of Russia are older than the nation itself. All dictators require the military on their side, and if Erdogan's actions lead to an independent Kurdistan, and overtures to their ancient enemy to the north, the military might just decide they've had enough of Erdogan.