President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may have increasing difficulties with the West, but his position in the Middle East is not all that easy either.

His regional archenemy, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, continues to make headway, while his nemesis in Egypt, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, remains in power. The Qatar crisis caught him unaware and unsettled him. Meanwhile, he is bracing for the reign of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, who is an enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood, which Erdogan feels a close affinity to. In addition to this, Hamas, which Erdogan also supports strongly, is ready to concede to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his secular Palestinian Authority, while in the background to all of this Iran continues to consolidate its regional position.

Erdogan’s worst nightmare, however, is the Kurdish question that the Syrian crisis and developments in Iraq have spawned. He is trying to cope with this now by seeking cooperation with leaders he would rather have avoided.

Very little turned out as Erdogan wanted after the now all-but-forgotten Arab Spring. Ahmet Davutoglu, Erdogan’s overreaching foreign minister at the time, was convinced that “Turkey would steer winds of change in the Middle East.”