Just a month ago, the Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad threatened to extend the civil war in his country to "the entire Middle East." He had, in fact, been trying to do so for months, with military incursions into Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan and mortar attacks along the Turkish border. He'd also resumed arms shipments to the PKK, a Kurdish group fighting against the Turkish government. Another test of Turkish nerves came when Assad's Russian missiles downed a Turkish fighter on a reconnaissance mission over the border.
This week, Assad took his campaign against Turkey a step further by ordering mortar attacks against the Turkish border town of Akcakale, killing six civilians.
Clearly meant to send a message to Ankara, the attack came hours after the end of the conference of Turkey's governing Justice and Development Party — which had attracted over 100 foreign dignitaries, including new leaders of Arab Spring countries who came to thank Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan for his support.
Hamas leader Khalid al-Mishaal went further, praising Erdogan as "a leader not only of Turkey but of the Muslim World" — a formula that angered Iran, where "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei claims to be Islam's paramount chief.
Did Assad's sponsors in Tehran order him to "teach Erdogan a lesson," as Khamenei's newspaper Kayhan urged last week?
Russia may also be involved in a wider plan to pressure Turkey, which has assumed an active role in helping change the geopolitical map of the Middle East.
Moscow fears that losing Syria, its last remaining ally in the Arab World, could be a prelude for the overthrow of an even bigger ally in Iran. Emerging from Arab Spring turmoil , the new Middle East may have little room for Russia — yet Vladimir Putin has launched an aggressive campaign to regain zones of influence that Moscow has lost since the fall of the Soviet Union.
At any rate, Erdogan saw the attack on Akcakale as a step too far. He retaliated with two days of artillery bombardments against Syrian positions along the border in Tal al-Abyadh, killing more than a dozen guards.
The 550-mile border between Turkey and Syria passes through a great deal of rugged terrain and has provided countless points of passage for armed bandits and adventure-seeking tribes for more than 2,000 years.
Because Turkey is a NATO member, continued attacks from Syrian territory could strengthen those urging the alliance to take a more active role in helping overthrow the Assad regime.
Arguments in favor of humanitarian intervention in Syria are more varied and more convincing than those cited in Libya's case in 2011. Yet NATO has so far equivocated (while asserting solidarity with Turkey).
British sources tell me that much of the equivocation is due to "mixed signals" from the Obama administration.
It seems that President Obama is determined to stick to his policy of drifting with events. He refused to back the Arab Spring from the start, most dramatically by trying to prop up Hosni Mubarak in Egypt until the very end. On Libya, Obama was forced to support military action when it became clear that not doing so could provoke an open split with key NATO allies.
Many in Ankara hope that Obama's current ambiguous posture on Syria may be due to electoral calculations — that he's wary of key supporters on the left who oppose military intervention even in support of pro-democracy movements.
Russia and Iran appear determined to keep the pressure on Turkey, both through Syria and by encouraging further PKK attacks from bases in Iran and Iraq. The question is how far they can go without provoking a major regional war that would inevitably suck NATO in.
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