President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey cannot stop picking fights. He questions the mental stability of President Emmanuel Macron of France, a fellow Nato member with which he has already clashed in the eastern Mediterranean.
He is settling comfortably into a vendetta with the Sunni Arab leaders in the Gulf he is challenging for regional supremacy. And he is daring President Donald Trump, who until now has shielded Turkey from US sanctions for flouting the embargo on Iran and buying Russian arms, to throw any sanctions he likes at him.
To top it all, he and fellow-strongman President Vladimir Putin are blowing hard on the embers of the war Turkey narrowly avoided with Russia in February’s heavy clashes in north-west Syria. Fires have a habit of spreading.