Watch closely at the very beginning of the clip below. He’s in the limo; a bodyguard is leaning in to talk to him. There’s another guy, bald with an earpiece, on the stairs to the right. Bald guy heads down to the bottom of the stairs and looks back towards limo bodyguard, who appears to look back at him as if he’s relaying a command. Then bald guy takes off towards the crowd. A few seconds later, the melee erupts. Did the sultan didn’t incite a near-riot on American soil against peaceful protesters? Perhaps our government should try to find out.

The Turkish ambassador has been summoned.

Turkish Ambassador to the US Serdar Kılıç was summoned to the State Department on Wednesday following the violent beating of protesters that took place outside of the Turkish embassy in Washington earlier this week, a senior State Department official told CNN.

“The conduct of Turkish security personnel earlier this week is deeply disturbing,” the official said. “The State Department has raised its concerns about these events at the highest levels and a thorough investigation that will allow us to hold the responsible individuals accountable is of the utmost importance to us.”…

“We should throw the Turkish ambassador out of the country, we should identify those people that performed these unlawful acts of beating people up and they should be charged,” [John] McCain told reporters.

At NRO, Tom Rogan writes that the consequences should be steeper than that, up to and including suspending training exercises with Turkish protection agencies inside the U.S.

As for Erdogan’s personal culpability, consider this: Would his bodyguards really have stormed a group of protesters, in full view of cameras and D.C. cops, with their leader sitting right there without getting his approval first? They caused an international incident. Given the way Erdogan handles people who displease him, embarrassing him by picking a fight that he disapproved of could have led to some of these guys being imprisoned or killed once they were back home. There’s no way they would have rushed the crowd without his say-so, especially with him being present. It’s a travesty.