Recent developments have driven Ankara’s Syria policy farther down a dead end, leaving a frustrated Erdogan government to invest more hope than the situation merits in the decision by the United States to send light arms to the Syrian opposition in the expectation that this will somehow tip the balance against President Bashar al-Assad.

One of these developments is the defeat of the opposition in the strategic city of Qusair by Assad forces with overt backing from the Lebanese Hezbollah and covert support from Iran. For Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, this has raised the specter of Assad winning the war and remaining in power.

Apart from delivering a blow to their desire to see a Sunni-dominated government in Syria, a victory by Assad would also pose a security threat for Ankara reminiscent of the days when Damascus backed the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in its terrorist campaign against Turkey of nearly three decades, starting in the mid-1980s.

Another unexpected development for Ankara was the mass demonstrations across Turkey against the Erdogan government, of course, and the manner in which they were repressed violently by the police. These events have made a shambles of Erdogan’s arguments against Assad based on respect for democracy and human rights, a fact about which Syrian officials are no doubt gloating.