The visit of four parliamentarians of the main opposition Republican People’s Party [CHP] to Damascus on Thursday and their meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad has once again exposed an important weakness of the ruling Justice and Development Party [AKP] government.

As I wrote previously, the Turkish public doesn’t strongly support Ankara’s goal of toppling Bashar Assad and the Baath regime and replacing them with a new rule dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. But this capacity gap Ankara is facing in its Syria policy is not confined only to lack of adequate public approval and support. More crucial is the antagonism and polarization caused in segments of the society and national politics by the Syria policy.

The visit of the CHP delegation to Damascus and their meeting with Assad is an outcome  of this antagonism.

The AKP rule couldn’t transform its policy for regime change in Syria to a “national cause” by persuading the majority of the public. It simply could not goad the public to get excited by its policy. If they had been successful, the CHP delegation could not have gone to Damascus. They would have been worried about public reaction to such a visit.