Turkey's bitter failure in Syria

Was travelling "a few hours" to the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, performing Friday prayers there and emerging out as a sort of a neo-caliph of a neo-Ottoman state an often cited dream of Turkey's ultimate policy? The end result, if that assumption is correct, is a Turkey assigned to seal some 100 kilometers of a troubled border to guard the Western World against the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) terrorist gang.

To what degree is that a success of failure? It depends from which perspective the issue is approached. If looked at from the gargantuan and exuberant palace or anywhere politically close to it, of course there is no such thing ("Turkey is a bulwark of stability and progress in a troubled region.") However, if looked at from a critical perspective or even somewhere outside of Turkey devoid of the imperial oppression on freedom of expression, Turkey has become a country in "precious isolation," as was once said by a key aide of the Turkish president.

The interests of the United States, or any one of Turkey's allies, in this country and in this region might not always overlap with those of Ankara. But when and if allies' interests always contradict or when an alliance member no longer shares the norms, values and democratic understanding, which are the minimum requirements of membership, the allied relationship might become nothing more than a veil covering a serious tension among allies. Did not Turkey move to multi-party democracy back in late 1940s so that it could join NATO? If today's Turkey has moved on to an oppressive regime and is heading towards consolidating that oppressive regime into an elected dictatorship with "Turkish style presidential rule," it is probable that some of Turkey's allies might have some sort of confusion...