The day before yesterday, when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that “what happened in Libya is now happening in Syria,” he did not merely mean to point out the similarities in the two cases. It was more likely that he was trying to remind people of Turkey's stance when the February 17 revolution in Libya first broke out. At the time, Ankara was doubtful about the goal of toppling Muammar Gaddafi; it maintained its contacts with the Libyan leader and opposed the decision by the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone on Gaddafi's planes, which had begun to bomb rebels and their positions. Turkey sought to negotiate with Gaddafi, by acting as a mediator between him and the opposition. A few weeks later, Turkey's position then changed, as it supported intervention by NATO and aided the effort by facilitating the carrying out of the mission. In his recent comments, Erdogan meant to say that he was doing something similar with Syria, before the international community moves to a more decisive stance vis-à-vis Damascus. Perhaps he wanted to signal, by drawing comparisons between Syria and Libya, that the international community will move to a new phase of dealing with Syria, and that his country would fall in line with such a move, as it did with Libya, despite the differences related to the difficulty of resorting to international military might in Syria – this is due to many reasons, which would prompt Ankara to announce that it does not agree with them. Up to now, Turkey has not demanded that President Bashar Assad step down. Instead, it has remained extremely angry about the Assad regime's use of killing to confront popular protests. Ankara has called on Assad to lead a reform process, as it encouraged him to do in the early days of the popular uprising, in the city of Daraa and elsewhere. By undertaking the reforms, the regime would expand its popular base, which can be considered decrepit, when compared to the aspirations of the Syrian people. Turkey advised the world's leading powers to refrain from moving toward demanding that Assad step aside, as it preferred to give him a chance. But as the regime continued in its “security” method of confronting popular protests, Turkish officials became angrier, with the Syrian leadership ignoring all of the advice and written proposals that had been conveyed to the Syrian leaders. The anger was compounded by the fact that Turkey combined its advice to Damascus with advice to the opposition, urging it to move toward realism and refrain from demanding to topple the head of state. This move represented the "flip side" of Turkey's hosting conferences of opposition leaders and establishing good relations with the various components of this opposition. This policy did not please the Americans very much, because they were never convinced that the Syrian leadership was credible in terms of its reform promises. Ankara has been the country most concerned with following the events in Syria, as well as the promises, the repression, and the many refugees who have streamed toward Turkey. In the past, Ankara has sought to use all means to convince the Syrian leadership to change its policies. Turkey made contacts with Tehran when the crisis began, notably the visit by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to Tehran on 1 July, to convince Tehran to use its influence with its key ally Bashar Asasd to in turn convince him to halt the use of force and resort to serious reforms. This stance was met with understanding by the Iranians, who did not conceal their belief that the Assad regime was in need of reform to survive, despite Tehran's firm policy of responding to what is happening by labeling it a “foreign conspiracy.” The efforts by Erdogan and Davutoglu have led to an end to Turkish patience, because Ankara has informed those concerned that Assad, by using “a policy of collective punishment,” has increased popular anger at him and widened the social base of the opposition rather than the regime. Assad has made it difficult to return to the status quo ante, and instead taken Syria into a new phase, one in which there is a serious danger that events will move in the direction of religious and sectarian confrontations. This threat has prompted Ankara to inform many countries, and especially Iran, that it can no longer tolerate, in any form, seeing Syria become the second state on its borders that witnesses such bloody confrontations, after Iraq. Contrary to the expectations of many people, the change in the Turkish position is a decisive one. It includes a military movement, meant to put pressure on the regime in Damascus. The Turkish leadership's behavior shows that there are limits to its influence in Syria, despite the special political and geographical relationship between the two countries. Moreover, Turkey is also convinced that it cannot cross the border itself into Syria. It would prefer to see the international community, of which it is a part, undertake a move that overcomes its own “limited” capabilities, noting that the Russian stance is moving relatively closer to that of western countries. Erdogan's likening the situation in Libya to Syria, in terms of letting the United Nations take over management of the Syrian issue, should not prevent one from noting a number of differences between the two cases. Turkey adhered to the international position on Libya, while it has taken the lead in trying to see an international stance formulated on Syria. If this stance evolves, in the direction of international sanctions on Syria, Turkey will be one of three countries sharing a border with Syria that will be assumed to adhere to these sanctions, in addition to Iraq and Lebanon. However, one thing in common between the two cases is that as in the case of Libya, the moves against Syria will take time.
