The conversation between US President Barack Obama and Turkish Erdogan reiterates Washington and Ankara's common strategy in the Middle East. Statements by agencies around the world confirm the willingness of the US and Turkey to increase military pressure on the Caliphate and at the same time arm the "moderate opposition" to the Assad government.
President Obama would have gone as far as confirming to his ally Erdogan the support in the repression of the PKK, the leading Kurdish communist party in the fight against independence within the Turkish territory.
The words of Obama formulated under the brand of other administrations would have horrified intellectual circles and progressive chancelleries of the five continents. The Nobel president, however, often enjoys wide credit and those who broke up at the time for the Kurdish Ocalan, today pretend not to hear.
On this heading we have already analyzed the controversial role played by Turkey in the current Middle Eastern scenarios (v.articolo).
It is worth investigating in the light of the convergences between Erdogan and Obama that confirm what has already been discussed.
Let's see better.
Turkey is a NATO member of the '52 and since the early years of the 70 shared the southeastern border with an Assad: first the father, then the son. As already supported by us (v.articolo) the Damascus dynasty, though hostile on paper to the West and Israel, was preferred for forty years to the political vacuum for reasons of regional balance. In particular it was the open hostility to Arafat's PLO, crucial for Israel, to guarantee long life to the power of the Alawites in Syria.
In this specific game Turkey, especially as long as it enjoyed excellent relations with Tel Aviv, had its direct interest: a stable power in Syria made it possible to freeze the Kurdish question, a problem shared with Damascus. The YPG, Kurdish People's Defense Units ideologically related to the PKK, are the Syrian side of the peshmerga and incidentally also the most reliable and motivated militias in fighting the Islamic State.
The impasse of military supplies to Syrian Kurds with inevitable delays in the outcome of the ISIS war in the north-eastern Syrian sector is explained by the pressures of Turkey. 
The picture is clear. Much less clear to understand what drives Turkey to refrain from securing an area that for half a century has wanted and had to keep stable. A weak Syria is the first of the great problems of Ankara, both due to the consequent assumption of political weight by the Kurds (already stimulated by autonomy in Iraq), and by the ineluctable flow of refugees already today difficult to manage.
When the United States and Turkey speak of "moderate factions" fighting the Assad government, they essentially refer to Jaish Al Fatah, the Army of Conquest, active on the northwest front (not far from the Turkish border) and now a sign of convergence of various Sunni Islamist fronts. Among the major political contacts of Jaish Al Fatah are the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, which cast a disturbing imprint on the existence of a radical Islamist Sunni axis of international reach. Beyond the ideological differences, Isis is basically exactly the same thing.
What is now evident is that Turkey, in a secular containment strategy that has allowed it to consolidate its role as a regional power, now prefers adherence to a Sunni front with no shadows at all. Behind Jaish Al Fatah there is first of all Saudi Arabia, a big brother of the Sunnis, in particular of that ultraconservative component that refers to Wahhabism.
That the Turkish MIT (intelligence) has decided to play with fire is not yet known. However, operational contacts between Israel and Russia must also be considered in this sense.
Whatever the objectives of Ankara, its long-term gain is all to be seen. Of the Islamic drift of the Turks, on this column we have already spoken (v.articolo).
It is difficult to understand the evolution of the scenarios, especially in the light of the early November elections, where Erdogan and Turkey play everything.
On the other hand, it is easier to guess why the United States is playing the Turkish game or at least being complicit in it. Putting aside alien theories that read Islamic offshoots in the US levers of power (in the financial ones there are ...), we must remember how much the United States needs Turkey and its allies in the Persian Gulf, Saudis above all. The attempt to make sense of a presence in the region put in serious difficulty by Netanyahu's victory in the March elections in Israel adds to the control of crude oil production (and therefore of the price). Obama's very serious error of exposing himself against Likud is now bearing fruit: without Ankara and the Sunni cronies in the Gulf, America in the Middle East today would in fact be alone.
The fact that the trespassing of Russian fighters in Turkey has more media space than the search for a common strategy against the Caliphate, explains many things. Among these, the US and Turkey are not fighting ISIS and in any case they are not doing it to win.
(photo: Türk Ordusu / web)
