Turkish regional policy has been completely ineffective, and Erdogan's slide has been accelerated by domestic political blunders, including construction of a $350-million mansion for himself and his routine suppression of mass demonstrators, in what is still more or less a democracy. With Turkey's vapid posturing , the withdrawal of the United States from the region, and Egypt distracted grappling with the 900-pound gorilla of the last 75 years of its history, the Muslim Brotherhood, it has devolved upon the medieval petro-kingdom of Saudi Arabia to put a restraining rod on the backs of the Iranian ayatollahs.