The big threat facing several democracies, including Poland, Israel, and really much of the European Union, is not the delegitimization of rule of law or erosion of checks and balances by elected authorities, but legal institutions running amok to seize power to realize Plato’s concept of Philosopher King via the rule of the Jurisprudent. A dictatorship of the judiciary essentially overpowers sovereignty and democracy on behalf of a failing progressive elite. Bastions conserving the nation’s sovereignty, democratic will, and proper judicial-branch role, such as the Constitutional Tribunal in Poland, thus becomes the first and most urgent target of that failed elite and its judicial battalions. Iranians should be familiar with this concept, and we might well want to see what their anti-regime intellectuals can tell us.

That was tried for 33 years. It didn’t work. In fact, few experiments ever conducted had the context stacked for success as much as this idea and the Oslo framework behind it. And yet, it still spectacularly failed. Not once, not twice but a half dozen times, all of which ended in an orgy of bloodletting on all sides.

Turkey and its Führer, Herr Erdogan, needs to can its ridiculous, offensive and frankly unhinged rhetoric. If he and his minions persist in this rhetorical insanity, it can lead to war. And if it does, Turkey will regret the day they elected this lunatic. Israel’s armed forces are several leagues above Turkey’s. They do not stand a chance, despite their inflated opinion of their current strength. Remember Nasser. Believing one’s own unhinged bravado does not end well.