A sort of lunacy prevails in Ankara regarding Turkish foreign policy on Syria. The Turkish military casualties in Syria’s Idlib and the advances of the Russian-backed Syrian government forces have led the Turkish administration into a frenzy that betrays a lack of rationality and sobriety — two essentials in foreign policy-making. 

Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, is the quiet strongman of the current power distribution in Turkey. Without his support, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would not have been able to win the 2018 presidential election, which paved the way to tighten his grip over the judiciary and the security establishment.

Bahceli has a reputation for virulent speeches, but his latest talk on Feb. 11 was one of the weirdest. Bahceli called on Erdogan to “conquer” Damascus to take revenge against the Syrian regime after the Turkish death toll in Idlib reached 14.

“The Turkish nation should go into Damascus,” he said in an address to his parliamentary group. “Let’s burn down Syria; let’s demolish Idlib.”