Can Turkey Win a War Against Syria?

As the first news broke last week that a second Syrian artillery shell had struck Akcakale and killed five civilians, Turkey had already begun taking decisive action. Turkey immediately returned fire, and the following day, parliament approved the prime minister’s request to conduct cross-border military operations. The armed forces have since responded to every errant Syrian artillery strike by shelling military targets inside Syria. Having met both the shooting down of a Turkish F-4 and the first artillery shell fired at Turkey with a mix of stern words and troop deployments on the border, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government determined that this time Syria had gone too far. Or—to crib an old adage—Assad’s army had committed its third strike.