If Turkey turns on the West, what hope is there for Syria and Iraq?

Turkey has long been a bridge between the West and the Middle East. Its record on free speech may be lamentable and it treats its Kurdish minority shoddily, but against that stands a genuine will to improve its human rights record and an ambition to become a modern, free and prosperous state. This has long been the basis of Britain’s support for Turkey joining the European Union.

But this week we have seen a reminder of how far the priorities of Turkey’s political establishment are from those of Europe. Its parliament recently consented to the use of an airbase at Incirlik by US forces launching airstrikes against the Islamic State, a move that could dramatically increase the number and effectiveness of such missions. But then President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave a speech that did not just reject launching strikes from the base but seemed to attack the very idea of western intervention in the region, accusing the US of being only interested in securing access to oil wells.

This analysis is paranoid and out of date: the US is on its way to energy self-sufficiency thanks to fracking, so it is a lot less driven by the need for foreign oil. Neither is America, nor the West in general, engaged in a mission which in any way compares with the invasion of Iraq in 2003. We are involved in the fight against IS in Iraq at the invitation of its government. Allied forces have limited themselves to airstrikes and supporting regional forces on the ground. Erdogan’s behaviour, however, brings that strategy into question.

It may seem obvious to us that the over-running of the city of Kobane by IS is an atrocity in the making, occurring under Turkey’s nose as its tanks stand idle. But in Istanbul, any defence of the Kurds is viewed as part of a process which could lead to the creation of a greater Kurdistan.