Since US President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence started publicly speaking about their disappointment with Turkey, the decadelong debate about who "lost" Turkey and ending the strategic partnership has reappeared in the spotlight of Turkish and international media.

On the Turkish side, the status of Turkish-American relations is at best quite complicated. The common theme Ankara openly advocates is that Turkey doesn't need the United States. A "global anti-Trump alliance” has become the new focus of televised political discussions. Ordinary Turks have been protesting the use of US dollars as well as smashing iPhones, calling for NATO bases to close and carrying out rather counterproductive methods to boycott the United States. On the other hand, construction of the US Embassy in the Cukurambar district of Ankara continues as planned, while military operations in Syria and other NATO bases are mostly on track.

Most analysts watching the back-and-forth threats and demands between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have thrown in the towel and concluded, “Anything is possible; we will see soon.” Indeed, Hasan Yalcin, the strategic research coordinator of the ruling party's prominent think tank Foundation of Strategic, Economic and Social Research (SETA), complained about that attitude by Western pundits, and he has a valid point. It's crucial to discuss whatever options might be available.

The way it stands now, continuing the status quo is optimal for Erdogan. He wants to have his cake (by resisting and refusing the West) and eat it too (by enjoying the benefits of the alliance). This duality indeed generates cycles of crises between Turkey and the United States, and this ebb in their once-positive bilateral relationship could transform the much-wounded alliance.