On September 5, 2012, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that the United States "lacked initiative" in dealing with the crisis in Syria. "There are certain things being expected from the United States. Obama has not yet catered to those expectations," he said. A year later Erdogan finds himself at sharper odds with the U.S. administration, whose decision to head off planned strikes on Syria has left him in a lonely spot both at home and in the region.
To Erdogan, a strong advocate of regime change, anything short of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's ouster carries the risk of further weakening his hand domestically and regionally. Only a few years ago Turkey was praised as a non-sectarian actor mediating regional conflicts through its access to various actors from Iran to Israel, Hamas to Fatah. The Syrian conflict, however, has dealt a blow to its image as a regional superpower pursuing non-sectarian foreign policy. Turkey's active support for the Sunni-majority Syrian opposition in what has become a largely sectarian civil war has projected Turkey as a Sunni power with a sectarian regional agenda, thus making it appear less impartial and leading to a slide in its regional influence. With the Saudis taking over the Syria portfolio from Turkey and Qatar and the establishment of the recent Russian-U.S. deal, Turkey has been marginalized in regional and international efforts to tackle the Syrian crisis.