Whether or not the Syrian leadership meant it or not, the shell that took the lives of five Turkish citizens and wounded others in a border town that has already been fired on, during clashes between the Syrian regular army and the Free Syrian Army on Syrian territory, has served as a challenge to Ankara, which was obliged to respond to the locations from which the mortar bombs came. It was not possible for the Turks to be quiet this time about this violation, after they restrained themselves when a Turkish plane was downed in June, because of western, Russian and Iranian intervention, so that it would not escalate things. The mystery surrounding the downing of the plane was of this type: was it in Syrian airspace or over regional waters; did the Syrians warn the plane before taking action? The recent leaks about the results of the investigation, some of which indicated that President Bashar Assad ordered it, and that it was over regional waters, not to mention the various versions of how the pilots were killed, made a response certain this time. However, the details of and reasons for the Turkish response, which means dealing militarily with any Syrian border violations and moving the regional dimension of the Syrian crisis into a new phase, are very different than the Lebanese and Jordanian responses to border violations with those two countries. Amman has taken a hard-line stance vis-à-vis the Syrian violations, on more than one occasion, through shooting across the border, and announced that there had been attempts by Syrian intelligence bodies to penetrate the ranks of Syrian refugees on its territory. However, this is a calculated stance by the Jordanians, who do not want a confrontation with the Syrian regime amid a regional stance vis-à-vis such a step. Lebanon has been content to lodge political and diplomatic complaints, which was a bold move by President Michel Suleiman, going against the Assad family's historical domination of Lebanese decision-making. It was also bold amid the full political cover for the Syrian regime's violations provided by the allies of Damascus. Since the beginning of the crisis, they have themselves crossed borders to help the Syrians hold out in their confrontation with the rebels, as revealed by Sunday's funeral of members of Hezbollah who were fighting alongside the Syrian regime, in various places. The Turkish test comes amid fears that the Syrian regime is mulling the possibility of moving the crisis to neighboring countries, in a bid to dramatically change the current situation. The more it is unable to crush the rebels and the more it commits massacres, and steps up the pace of its massive destruction of Syrian cities, the option of a political transition that begins with Assad's departure becomes stronger. Meanwhile, the regime is trying to outflank this move; it believes that the insistence on Assad's departure will lead to more stepped-up confrontations, and thus a threat to regional security, which will occupy the world's attention and force influential countries to give up their idea of toppling Assad, in exchange for the priority of preserving regional security. The delusions of Syrian regime leaders and their allies have gone so far as talk that the regime of Abdullah Gul and Recep Tayyip Erdogan is headed for a huge crisis because some opposition politicians criticize their policies on Syria, and on the Kurds, and because of the actions by the PKK against the Turkish army, from Syrian territory that the regime has relinquished to the party. Moreover, there have been attacks from Iraqi territory, which also enjoy Iranian support. The virtual world inhabited by the Syrian regime has made it believe that in the event of an attack outside its borders, because it is so deeply involved in the theory of the war being waged against it by outside parties, that it can recover what it has lost in its war to defend its rule, and in confronting opponents who are determined to see the regime fall. The Turkish test took place a few days after the AKP conference, which began with a demonstration of the countries of the Arab Spring and the Muslim Brotherhood in various countries. The occasion could be described as depicting Turkey's important "cards" via the presence of Egyptian President Mohammad Mursi and the head of the Hamas politburo, Khaled Meshaal, and the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and the opposition in Syria, and others, as it shows how much Ankara has benefited from the Arab Spring. Ankara has made its stance on Syria a point of convergence between it and Egypt, despite their implicit competition over regional influence. On the other hand there are Iran's regional cards, which are gradually becoming less effective because of Tehran's wager that Assad's regime will survive, whatever the cost. Perhaps the violent Syrian outburst against Mursi and Meshaal is what explains the extent of the losses being suffered by the Syrian-Iranian alliance. If those who remain with the regime in Damascus are unaware of this climate surrounding the Syrian bomb falling on a Turkish village, as a result of this regime's delusions, its allies have begun to realize this.
