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.

While no one admits this, the military campaign to topple Muammar Qaddafi has stalled with no solution other than diplomacy. The first peace proposal has come from the coalition's target, Qaddafi himself.

While offering Washington its good services,Turkey is taking advantage of US trust to deepen its ties with Iran, its superpower status for the Muslim world and its plans for a new anti-American Muslim bloc.

The mounting opposition to Erdogan's policy comes from his own president and party leaders, who criticize his Middle East orientation as strengthening Iran at the expense of Turkey to the detriment of its future economy.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had the thankless task of writing finis on the Obama administration's two-year effort to persuade Israelis and Palestinians to talk peace. It was time "to grapple with the core issues of this conflict" - borders, refugees, settlements, water and Jerusalem – she said, without mentioning timetables. debkafile reports the administration has now turned to a new plan for employing Turkey - first to broker a deal with Iran, then an Israeli-Syrian accord.

Russia's Vladimir Putin has reached out to the beleaguered Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to get in on the ground floor of the as-yet untapped Lebanese offshore energy fields, debkafile reports. He has also tested the ground for dipping into the Israeli gas bonanza, while offering Turkey substantial benefits in Moscow's Lebanese scheme. If Putin's multi-faceted plan works, Russia and Turkey will have a stake in Hariri staying in power and a stable Lebanon.

Israeli and Turkish representatives have just held two meetings for the purported objective of patching up Turkey's quarrel with Israel. All that has come out of Ankara so far, however, is a fresh torrent of anti-Israel abuse from Turkish leaders and harsher terms for settling the feud over the Israeli commando raid of May 31 which killed 9 Turkish activists leading a flotilla to break the Gaza blockade, debkafile's Middle East sources report.

By bowing to Ankara's demand to omit Iran, Syria and their ballistic missiles as a threat from the NATO agreement to establish a missile shield base in Turkey, President Barak Obama has rendered worthless any US security guarantees offered Israel - especially in view of his quiet consent to placing the facility under a Turkish general.
So what exactly is the missile shield meant to guard against - if not Iran?

China has decided to throw its military support behind Iran and the radical Middle East camp it leads including Syria and Turkey. Beiijng likes the Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan's plan for reviving the Non-Aligned Movement established in the 1950s.

The arrival of a new Middle East player has startled Washington and Jerusalem: debkafile's military sources disclose that when Turkish Prime Minister Tayyep Erdogan met Syrian president Bashar Assad in Damascus Monday, Oct. 11, they talked less about the Kurdish question and more about the role China is willing to play in the military-intelligence alliance binding Syria, Iran and Turkey. Chinese warplanes took part in Turkey's recent air maneuver after breaking their journey to refuel in Iran.

The Turkish prime minister is going to extreme lengths to blacken his military commanders, such as plotting to overthrow his regime and sabotaging the war against Kurdish rebels, reaching as high as the chief in staff.

Israel has finally moved on from its fractured relationship with Turkey. The Israeli Minister of Trade and Labor Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer's last-ditch bid to save the relationship by meeting Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutolu last week was a flop.  But Israel has meanwhile welcomed Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's interest in slotting Athens into Ankara's place as Israel's strategic partner in the region.

Obama got no answers when he challenged to Erdogan to state if was loyal to the West or his new radical friends led by Iran. He found the Turkish prime minister all fired up to continue his campaign against Israel.

Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan is determined to lead an anti-Western, anti-Israel Muslim bloc of nations, but has still to choose his senior partner - Iran or Egypt.

Ankara is leading a Muslim campaign for a worldwide boycott to strangle Israel. Jerusalem declares the Turkish IHH, a vital prop of its Islamic regime, a terrorist organization as dangerous as al Qaeda.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly, in its latest issue out Friday, looks at the overt battle of wills, watched helplessly from Washington - but also into the shadows, where NATO's only Muslim member is locked in clandestine combat with the Jewish state.
To subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly, click here

Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad assured Turkish leaders whom he met in Istanbul Tuesday, June 8 that Iranian "aid" vessels heading for Gazan waters within days will not shrink from a head-on clash with Israel.  On the Turkish-Israeli conflict, he said it would "change many issues in the world and mark the final countdown for Israel's existence."
debkafile reports Iranian and Turkish leaders agreed to synchronize the hoped-for clash with the Security Council sanctions vote - as a stunt for heading it off.

The war projected between Israel and the Iran-led bloc of Syria, Hizballah and Hamas is suddenly overshadowed by Turkish-Israeli hostilities over a deadly Israeli commando raid on an aid flotilla from Istanbul. Against the US president Barack Obama's bid to bridge the rift, Turkish generals are drawing up plans to break Israel's Gaza blockade and avenge 9 deaths, while Israel is bound by its war on terror to thwart them. DEBKA-Net-Weekly offers details of their preparations on the brink. To subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly, click here

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