I primarily mean that the Council on Foreign Relations has been, for nearly a hundred years now, one of the most powerful deep state* organizations. They have determined much of the course of US imperial policy since the inter-war period, including forcing the establishment of nominally government institutions such as the CIA and National Security Council.

In this article in particular, the critique seems to be primarily that Erdogan isn’t toeing the US line on the “Israel-Hamas War.” They blame Erdogan specifically for general anti-US sentiment in Türkiye. They harp on the fact that Erdogan doesn’t consider Hamas a terrorist organization, which is a position expected by the US led “international consensus.” The final paragraph is especially telling:

Erdogan could have initially contributed much to the search for a compromise in this conflict. He has eschewed the little trust Washington may have had in him with the stridency of his anti-American language. He appears to have dealt himself out of the U.S.-led negotiations.

/* I mean deep state in the academic sense as theorized by C. Wright Mills, Peter Dale Scott, and Aaron Good.