S2E64 | Turkey's Cautious Leader: The Complex Legacy of İsmet İnönü Explained

When I consider the figure of İsmet İnönü, I find myself drawn not to the grand monuments or official portraits that typically define how we remember statesmen, but rather to a curious contradiction that seems to run through his entire political existence. Here was a man who wielded enormous power for decades, yet whose very approach to that power was defined by restraint, calculation, and what his critics often called excessive caution. Perhaps this is what fascinates me most about political figures of his generation—they understood that sometimes the greatest act of leadership is knowing when not to act.