The dismal failure of Turkey's public diplomacy

It is doubtful that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's bodyguards feel even an inkling of remorse over the recent public relations disaster they caused for Turkey.

The violent fight they engaged in Washington with sympathizers of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) - which is outlawed by Turkey and the U.S. - and the People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria - which Ankara has failed to convince Washington is a terrorist organization, has done little to improve Turkey's international image.

The bodyguards have been primed for such moments at home and are therefore more likely to feel a sense of satisfaction for having "shown Turkey's enemies that they will give them no respite anywhere in the world, even the U.S. capital." 

The diplomatic fallout of their actions is clearly of no concern to them either. They live in the domain of impulsive rather than rational behavior, and acting in the manner they did comes naturally to them.

Considering the continued sense of outrage among Americans that it caused, the ramifications of this event, which elicited a non-binding resolution from the U.S. Congress condemning Turkey, will linger. 

It should not be hard for Turks to understand this outrage if one reverses the situation in one's mind.

 Imagine the reaction among Turks if U.S. presidential body guards attacked anti-American demonstrators in Turkey - of which there are always plenty - during a high-level state visit, leaving them bloodied and bruised. 

The bottom line is that whatever little success Erdoğan's visit to Washington had - and there was not much of that anyway - was seriously overshadowed by this incident. 

For Americans, the fight outside the Turkish Embassy was a concrete example of Erdoğan...