Abandoning Syrian regime change, Turkey takes its own bite of Syria

Having given up overthrowing Assad, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has wasted no time seizing what territorial leverage he still can in Syria with a powerful incursion to retake the ISIS border stronghold of Jarabulus.

Jarabulus is a vantage point on the upper Euphrates in its descent from the Anatolian highlands towards Mesopotamia, and the operation is appropriately dubbed "Euphrates Shield": by securing the river in this border sector, the Turkish and Turkish-supported Syrian rebel forces which comprise the expedition will be in a position to threaten further Kurdish territorial gains against ISIS - under the convenient pretext of fighting ISIS.

This is Turkey's response to the recent capture from ISIS of Manbij, further south in northeastern Aleppo province, by the Kurdish YPG militia-dominated, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). As the coalition effort to clear ISIS from the north of the province intensifies, Ankara is jockeying for a slice of the action, with the imperative of preventing the SDF from linking up the main Syrian Kurdish federation, predominantly along the Turkish border east of the Euphrates, with the small Kurdish enclave in the far northwest corner of Aleppo province (also bordering Turkey).

Strangely, this is the effective proxy war between the Pentagon and the CIA: the former supports the Kurdish-Arab rebel SDF while the latter backs the "moderate" rebel coalition of Arab groups such as Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Ahrar al-Sham alongside Turkic-speaking outfits like the Sultan Murad Brigade and Nour al-Din al-Zinki.

For the time being, US airpower and probably special forces are participating in the Turkish anti-ISIS campaign around Jarabulus, meaning that Langley has one-upped the Pentagon into at least partly appeasing Ankara. President Obama himself has doubtless concluded that if he wants Turkey to remain in NATO (i.e. not drift fully into Russia's orbit), he must make at least this token concession of legitimate national interest to Mr. Erdogan. It remains to be seen, though, just how he'll balance the two - the Turks versus the Kurds - as both want a role in liberating northern Aleppo province and thereby shaping its post-ISIS future.

The other wild card obviously is the Assad regime. While unsurprisingly protesting the Turkish incursion, Damascus can't do much about it: it needs to play off Turkey against the Kurds to maximize its own position at the bargaining table against the rebels. While Assad wouldn't welcome a longer Turkish presence in Syria any more than he'd recognize the Kurdish federation, he perfectly understands it's a reasonable price to pay for Erdogan's assent to keep his rump of the core of western Syria intact.