Ankara Vs. Damascus

The Turkish government is now talking about a “limited” military operation in Syria to “protect civilians.”

I’ll be surprised if anything like that actually happens, but I’m also surprised to discover that anyone in Ankara is even thinking about it, let alone talking about it.

Turkey and Syria nearly went to war once over the Assad regime’s sponsorship of PKK terrorist operations, and Damascus hasn’t messed with Turkey even once since. Most Westerners aren’t aware this ever happened, but Assad has never forgotten it. The Turks could demolish the Syrian army almost as quickly and easily as the Israelis can, and the Syrians know it, believe me.

I’m not exactly sure what to make of this yet, but I like Claire Berlinski’s take at Ricochet:

Turkey’s scared to death by this situation. Expect a nice warming in Turkish-Israeli relations now. The AKP has just received such a loud phone call from reality that even they can’t pretend it was just a wrong number.

Before you say, “Well, that’s good news!” re-read my last sentence: This is a phone call from reality so loud that even the AKP can’t ignore it. That means the phone just jumped off the nightstand and body-slammed them. If you’re still sleeping well, that’s your clue that you shouldn’t be.