Two senior experts – Dr. Hai Eitan Cohen Yanrojak of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, and Oded Eilam of the Jerusalem Center for Foreign and Security Affairs and former head of a department at the Mossad – warn:
Erdogan aspires to restore the Islamic-Sunni order of the Ottoman Empire, and Syria is only the first step. "What drives Erdogan is neo-Ottomanism. He sees himself as the ‘original factory’ of the Middle East and wants to restore Sunni hegemony to the region,” says Cohen Yanrojek, in an interview with the Jerusalem Center for Foreign and Security Affairs’ East to West podcast.
Elam adds: “Israel cannot afford a Turkish presence in southern Syria – it is a direct threat to its security.”
According to them, Erdogan is exploiting Turkey’s internal instability to divert attention outward, and the Syrian arena – including plans to arm the new Syrian army through Julani – is the main tool.