US needs Turkey for its al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorist links

Exactly a decade after the United States sought a pioneering role for Turkey by launching the regime change project in Syria, it has solicited help from Ankara for another political transition in the Greater Middle East — in Afghanistan.

Analogies never hold 100% in politics or diplomacy but the similarities are striking.

In Syria, Turkey provided not only the logistics for jihadi fighters from all over the world to enter that country to join Islamic State (ISIS) and al-Qaeda but also equipped them and supported them — even nursing injured fighters — to wage a protracted, horrific war against Assad.