In a recent statement, the Turkish foreign minister mentioned that he had an informal meeting with his Syrian counterpart last year, in which the two discussed reconciliation between their countries, and ways to resolve the Syrian civil war. This points to a sharp departure from the expressly anti-Assad position Ankara adopted when the war began in 2011, from its support for anti-Assad rebels, and from the direct clashes between Turkish and Assad-regime troops in 2020. But as ever, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s primary enemy remains the Kurdish quasi-state in northeastern Syria. Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak puts these recent developments into context:

The Turkish economy’s weakness, its growing reliance on Russia, and a drastic shift in Turkish foreign policy compelled Erdoğan to mend ties with Assad, his former adversary. . . . As a result of the war’s impasse, rising anti-Syrian sentiment in Turkey, and Turkey’s mounting economic burden over the years, Erdoğan wants to reassure his supporters that he was able to resolve the Syrian issue in time for the June 2023 elections.

Despite this strategic and economic imperative, Turkey’s engagement in the Syrian civil war is characterized by accepting Syrian refugees, supplying logistics and ammunition to opposition groups, and deploying Turkish troops into active war zones, limiting Ankara’s maneuverability.

To divert attention away from the antagonism between the two Arab parties, namely the Assad regime and the opposition, Ankara has designated the Kurdish [forces] as the common enemy against which to try to unite all belligerent Arab parties. Ankara expects that by implementing such a policy, it will be able to eradicate the challenge posed by the Kurdish . . . autonomous region along its border.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”