Lots of pretend shock and outrage as Syria war leaks into Turkey

Erdogan and his Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu are making all kinds of foreboding pronouncements after twin car-bombings in the Turkish town of Reyhanli, widely regarded as a major conduit in cross-border trafficking of weapons and fighters by the Turk-sponsored rebels.

The Turkish government long had amicable relations with the Assad regime, but were prevailed upon by their NATO masters to facilitate the ill-fated "uprising" next door. Originally marketed as the next manifestation of Arab Spring, most Western pundits spent the first year and a half predicting that the Assad regime was weeks away from collapse.

Now that the "Syrian uprising" is well into its third year, Erdogan and Davutoglu have good reason to be furious with the NATO geniuses who pushed them into this adventure. As for what they can do about it at this point, the answer is "not much."

It's a little late to start observing international norms against conniving to burn down one's neighbour's house. Now that they've got a roaring blaze going across the fence, the Turks can expect many more episodes of blow-back erupting on their side of the line.

New "giant" rises in Middle East

That's from the fevered imagination of Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, and yes, that would be Turkey he's talking about.

The Erdogan regime is becoming increasingly aware that it has been left holding the bag on the Syria Question by all those allies who were only too quick to rush to the recognition of the Syrian "rebels" as the only official representatives of the Syrian people months and months ago.

The most recent pronouncements on the fate of al-Assad, after two years of claiming he is weeks, days, possibly hours from fleeing the country, seem to be, "oh well, guess he's not going anywhere after all..."

The Nations of Virtue have lost interest, and have now discovered even greater threats to freedom and democracy in the middle of the African deserts.

So Erdogan and Davutoglu sound increasingly pathetic as they try to redirect Western attention to the horror show they have unleashed next door.

The latest cry is for humanitarian aid. While there is no question of a humanitarian crisis in Syria, that can be laid in its entirety at the feet of those who spent hundreds of millions of dollars instigating the fiasco in Syria. In other words, the US and its regional proxies Qatar and Saudi, and last but not least, Turkey.

It's a curious kind of giant Erdogan is raising up there; a NATO ally that has a "strategic arrangement" with China, an ally in the war on terror fomenting terror in it's next door neighbor, an aspiring EU candidate that continues to buy Iranian oil...

Perhaps not quite a giant yet, but certainly creating a giant heap of contradictions.