Yesterday from Istanbul, I wrote that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had probably learned his lesson. I predicted that he was going simply to leave the protesters alone. I was wrong: he learned nothing. Sparked initially by a government decree to bulldoze the last major park area in central Istanbul, this country is experiencing a widespread popular uprising protesting the autocratic behavior of its prime minister. At least 60 different protests have been active in different parts of this country of eighty million people, 16 million of whom live in Istanbul. I went to dinner tonight with my son, family, and friends to a large popular restaurant about a kilometer from Taksim Square, the focal point of the protest movement. Four times during the meal, the entire restaurant started shouting, singing, clinking glasses all in support of the protesters who had regathered in Taksim. When people in the restaurant accessed their cell phones, they saw what was happening or got...(Read Full Post)