As Assad lingers, Turkey focuses on ISIS
Despite its predictions and aspirations, Turkey has lost what grip it had on many of today's political and military conflicts, to the amusement and satisfaction of many in the region.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has rarely been correct in his predictions about Syria. Just about every plan and expectation he had for this country has gone awry in ways he never factored in. Some of his assessments about the current situation appear equally questionable. For example, he is saying now that Turkey's new bane in northern Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), is in league with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
In a rare admission that things are not going according to his expectations, Davutoglu now acknowledges, albeit indirectly, that the activities of radical Islamists in Syria are making Assad the lesser evil for the international community. This stands in stark contrast with his predictions less than two years ago that Assad had only months, if not weeks, to go.
For Davutoglu, the situation in Syria was simply about a ruthless dictator killing his own people. He never considered the possibility that this crisis had the makings of a civil war, not unlike the one in the former Yugoslavia. Davutoglu’s assumptions were based on the notion that in time, the Syrian regime would fall just like those in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and be replaced with an elected government.
In hindsight, that all looks like wishful thinking. Such assumptions also appear seriously off the mark for someone who should have been better informed about the demographic structure of Syria and the depth of the sectarian fault lines in the country.
