Mick Hartley

A whole new set of problems are now arising in the Middle East, with Erdogan's Turkey at their heart. Interesting analysis from Richard Kemp in the Telegraph:

The future of Syria is going to be influenced by Israel and Turkey beyond all other forces. The two countries are far from friends, but both have national security interests in Syria. Until Netanyahu ordered the shattering of Syria’s military hardware last week, the country had for decades represented the greatest direct conventional threat to Israel. Courtesy of Assad, Syria was also the principal supply route from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Unlike Netanyahu, Erdogan has broader designs on the Middle East, including, at least in his mind’s eye, the resurrection of the Ottoman caliphate. He has close ties with Qatar and Sunni jihadist groups in the region, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which themselves may now gravitate further towards Ankara as Iran descends: an increasing threat for Israel and many of the Arab countries as his regional power strengthens.

More immediately the 3.5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey are politically problematic for Erdogan and he wants them sent home.

But his highest priority is ending the idea of a Kurdish autonomous region in northern Syria, which he sees as a direct threat to Turkey given the pressures over Kurdish separatism in his own country. There are indications now that Erdogan is winding up for a major assault against the Syrian Kurds.

Significant though they are, the Kurds are just one part of a complex ethno-religious patchwork of rivalry and often deadly antagonism, which includes Sunnis, Shia, Alawites, Druze and Christians. It is unlikely HTS leader Al-Julani will be able to re-unite a long-fractured country any more than Assad could.

As the influence of the Iranian Ayatollahs wanes, Erdogan now steps in. There are certainly indications that Turkey has designs on northern Syria. "You cannot encounter a son of the homeland whose heart does not tremble at the mention of Aleppo, because Aleppo is Turkish and Muslim to its core".