Obama and Erdogan had divided up Arab Revolt missions between them, targeting another two Arab rulers, Muammar Qaddafi and Bashar Assad, for eventual eviction – first by diplomacy, then by force - when Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi jumped in with a demand for NATO to halt hostilities in ...

Prime Minister Netanyahu has dropped his long-time ally and partner-in-policymaking Defense Minister Ehud Barak and turned to hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman as his only adviser. But essentially, Bibi has dispensed with a circle of advisers and taken over the solo lead in all defense affairs and important foreign relations.

The Syrian army went into action Tuesday, June 21, the day after the Assad speech, to drive back to their homes the nearly quarter of a million civilians who fled towns and villages on the Turkish border to escape military persecution. Syrian President Bashar Assad remains undeterred by the risk of a showdown - even after the ominous phone conversation between US President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Ministeror and Obama's demand that his regime end the "outrageous" violence now.

Turkey considers giving Bashar Assad a last chance before resorting to military action after receiving the promise of a US shield against Iranian or Syrian missile retaliation. Assad, for his part, is rigidly fixated on his harsh crackdown and a victory over the rebels against his regime.

Assad's decision to bank on the army to extinguish the revolt against him is paying off. The US and the West could have starved him of funds for his crackdown by an embargo on Syrian oil experts – but refrained from doing so. In any case, the Syrian economy ...

Iran Tuesday, June 14, warned the US against military intervention in Syria. debkafile reports an American naval and ship-borne missile interceptor build-up in the Mediterranean along with US fleet movements in the Aegean, Adriatic and Black Seas. The US Bataan with 2,000 marines, 6 fighter-bombers and 27 helicopters aboard is deployed opposite Syrian shores. Warned of a possible US operation against Syria, Hizballah is moving its ground-to-ground rocket arsenal from northern Lebanon to the center.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is championing the Sunni Muslims of Jisr a-Shughour against the tanks and helicopters of his erstwhile allies Bashar Assad, Iran and Hizballah, to promote his ambition as a leading Muslim power. Sunni Muslims outside are avidly watching the Muslim Brotherhood's first challenge in any Arab uprising to an Arab army in battle, hoping for large-scale Syrian army defections in defiance of the ongoing massive purge of the rebellious town.

The Syrian crisis has taken a dramatic turn: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Friday night, June 10, decided to move his army into northern Syria where battles were blazing in Idlib, Maarat al-Numaan and Jisr al-Shuhour, debkafile's sources report. His government is considering defining its mission as the protection of civilian lives against a barbaric ruler citing the UN Security Council resolution on Libya. Refugee camps will also go up on the Syrian side of the border to stem the flow into Turkey.

Bashar Assad's survival unscratched from the uprising against him would have been impossible without expert and active aid from Iran and Hizballah. It has left the radical Iran-led axis alive and kicking. And the Syrian experience has honed the Syrian-Iranian-Hizballah collaboration into a formidable pro-Shiite combined fighting force. Assad ...

US President Barack Obama is building an alliance with Turkish premier Tayyip Erdogan to spearhead Washington's evolving Iranian and Middle East policies. Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member, is slated to replace Egypt as America's senior Middle East Muslim partner. The two leaders share the conviction that together they can come up ...

Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas follows Saudi, Libyan and Syrian rulers in turning their backs on the Obama administration. He opted for a partnership with the military-capable Hamas and thereby thrown the US-Turkish-Israeli axis off-course.

US President Barack Obama continues to avoid direct action against Bashar Assad's increasingly savage crackdown on dissidents by consolidating his partnership with Turkish Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan. After talking on the phone early Tuesday April 26, they voiced "deep concern over the unacceptable use of violence" in Syria – but no condemnation of the Syrian ruler or his tank charge against civilians. Assad has thus won another couple of days at least to finish off the brutal purge of his opponents.

The uprising against the Assad regime in Syria finally knocked over the Turkish-Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah axis. Erdogan's vision of Turkey as the all-purpose super-mediator vanished into the blue yonder. He is now trying to climb back on the horse through the Muslim Brotherhood chapters of Egypt and Syria.

Assad, though helped by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and even the US, is in a panic because his domestic support is crumbling and he is running out of loyal troops to defend his regime .  The Syrian ruler knows better than most how fickle external support can be.  When the chips are down, no foreign power will help him outgun or outrun his own people - and they refused to be pacified by the bones he tries throwing them.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahuhas his hands full calming the uproar in his cabinet over infrastructure minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer's failed meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu in a bid to narrow the widening rift between their governments. debkafile reports the prime minister has four days to stabilize his government before flying off to Washington.
Erdogan is exploiting the upset in Jerusalem to intensify his smear campaign against Israel.

Israel's infrastructure  minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer met Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu secretly in Zurich Wednesday, June 30 in an effort to alleviate the crisis in relations.  Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu knew about the encounter, but not Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who accused the prime minister of a betrayal of trust. debkafile reports that Ankara, whose anti-Israel campaign is in full flight, saw in the initiative a mark of Israeli government weakness.

Before leaving for the G20 summit in Toronto, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan came in for an exceptionally acerbic US rebuke: Top Obama official Philip Gordon accused him of alienating the US and the West and told him he needed to demonstrate Ankara's commitment to their (NATO) partnership.
At home, his generals and the public accuse him of sacrificing national security to his anti-Israel campaign, so causing military setbacks against the Kurdish PKK.

Turkish PM Recep Erdogan is spoiling for more trouble with Israel, irrespective of the peaceful outcome of the Rachel Corrie incident. debkafile's sources disclose his funding of the IHH terrorist group's purchase of 8-10 large vessels for more Gaza flotillas. He has secretly replaced professional intelligence and security chiefs with Islamist cronies. Rising demand for the international probe against Israel to also focus on the Turkish government's ties with a terrorist group.

The Turkish army, NATO's second largest, is showing little fight against the pro-Muslim Erdogan government's mass arrests of top military chiefs, past and present. Washington and Brussels ask which way it will jump in a war involving Iran.

Turkish prime minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan has engineered a fresh assault on the already crisis-laden relationship between Turkey and Israel by putting up members of his ruling AK Islamic party to accuse the Israel military of planting bugs at Turkish military headquarters in Ankara for covert surveillance on Iran and Syria.
Erdogan is determined to stamp out the last remnants of the once-warm ties between Turkish ...