After Years Of Muddled Policy, Here's Why Turkey's Cautiously Joining The Fight Against ISIS In Syria

Turkey's policy vis-à-vis ISIS has always been relatively clear. Ankara has not supported the group and has thought of it as a terror organization for the past one-and-a-half years.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, for example, has criticized the ideology of the foundational Islamist thinker Sayyid Qutb's and believes that his understanding of Islam is incorrect. Davutoglu, who is the architect of current Turkish foreign policy, argues that Qutb's concept of Islam is too heavily influenced by Western political theories.

These theories, he says, are incongruent with the concept of Dar al Islam, which he believes is a better source of political legitimacy in the Arab/Muslim world. Thus, any suggestions that the AKP supports IS because of an overlap in religious points of view, or a shared ideology, is false. The same applies to Al Qaeda. There is no sympathy in the Turkish government for the ideology underpinning either group.

Turkey, however, did give some support to Jabhat al Nusra, for two reasons.

First, after Turkey changed its Syria policy in August 2011, Ankara "bet the farm" on Assad falling in 6 months. After Assad was able to hold on to power, Turkey began to support a slew of rebel groups - including Nusra. Ankara felt that it was imperative to put pressure on the regime to force Assad from power. Nusra was and is an effective fighting force that works with Free Syrian Army rebel groups to battle the regime.

Second, the Turkish government believes that the Assad regime is the root cause of extremism in Syria - so if the Syrian president were forced form power, the appeal of the Jihadists would decrease. In turn, Nusra would be devoid of any widespread popular support and eventually be marginalized in the "New Syria." Turkey wanted this new Syria to be run by the Muslim Brotherhood.

These assumptions guided Ankara's decision-making up until mid-July 2012. At that stage of the conflict, Assad pulled his forces away from Kurdish-controlled areas. This left the three Kurdish cantons, known collectively as Rojava, to the PYD - a group with links to the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), the long-standing Kurdish insurgent group in Turkey.

Turkey reacted negatively to Assad's withdrawal from Rojava. First, Ankara threatened to intervene and "establish a buffer zone." After backing down from this threat, Ankara tried to put the PYD under the thumb of the Kuridstan Democratic Party, the leaders of Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government. This also failed.

These stymied efforts eventually prompted Ankara to reach out to members of the PYD - most notably, Salih Muslim. The two sides appeared to reach some sort of agreement that allowed them to live in quasi-harmony with each other. Turkey, however, was not comfortable with the status quo.

Ankara has kept the border gates with Rojava closed since mid-July 2012 and has only recently begun to intermittently open two entry points along the border to accommodate thousands of Kurdish refugees fleeing from Kobane.

Turkey continued its relatively lax border policy - albeit only in non-Kurdish majority areas - up until March 2014. Turkey still believed that the key to resolving the conflict was forcing Assad from power. And Ankara continued to believe that foreign fighters contributed to this goal, even if they were jihadists using Turkish territory as a staging area. The opening of a rebel front against the PYD in Rojava was also seen as a net benefit for Turkish security because it degraded an ally of the ever-troublesome PKK.

In March, Ankara began to crack down on ISIS oil smuggling. Shortly thereafter - and in particular, after the video of American journalist Steven Sotloff's murder - Turkey also began to crack down on the foreign fighters.

Ankara argues that it should not be singled out for the foreign fighter issue because the majority of combatants are coming from European and Arab countries. They have a point. In the early days of the conflict, intelligence sharing between the EU and Turkey was far from ideal. Things have changed.

According to my sources, the EU and Turkey began to cooperate on the foreign fighter issue about a year ago. The program has since ramped up. And then the US got seriously involved after Sotloff's murder. Put it all together and you can see the evolution of Turkey's border policy.

Turkey's policy options got even more complicated after the ISIS takeover in June. Ankara ignored warning from the KRG and its allies in Iraq and kept its Mosul consulate open. (A consulate they purposefully built on the "Arab" side of the city in 2006 to send a message to the Kurds, I might add).

During the siege of Mosul, ISIS took 46 Turkish hostages. These hostages "tied the hands of Turkish government" and, at least according to Ankara, prevented Turkey from adopting more forceful anti-ISIS language. (Side note: Davutoglu thinks the term "radical Islam" is an orientalist construction used to justify US and Western intervention in the region to advance their interests. These interests, he argues, are incongruent with Turkey's. So you are never going to hear the type of language used in Washington in Ankara. Not gonna happen.)

The hostages were released a couple of days ago in what appears to have been a prisoner swap. The details of the exchange are still coming out, but the Turkish daily Hurriyet has reported that Liwa al Tawhid - a Syrian rebel group that has close links to Turkish NGOs and the Turkish government - arranged for the release of the hostages. President Erdogan has since hinted that Turkey may adopt a more hardline anti-IS policy.

Ankara now thinks that the US's approach has finally started to reflect Turkey's preferences for the use of force in Syria.

But as I mentioned above, Ankara had already begun to take more forceful action in March. In addition to the border policy changes, Turkish counter terrorism officials, in conjunction with their counterparts in the EU and US, are working together on the recruitment of IS fighters in Turkey. The three sides are comparing notes on "IS fighter profiles" and are working together to break up recruitment networks. This is certain to continue.

Now, this does not mean that Turkey supports the US anti-IS plan. They don't. Ankara does not support the idea of a "limited" operation to "degrade and destroy" IS in a similar manner to the operations being conducted in Somalia and Yemen. Ankara argues that limited military action is insufficient.

Turkey is also concerned that once the US has "degraded" IS, it will declare "mission accomplished" and pack up and leave. This will then leave Turkey with two failed states, Iraq and Syria, on its borders. Ankara is eager for the US to use air power to topple Assad. Turkey still views him as the root of all the problems in Syria.

The international community should temper their expectations. Ankara has historically been very wary of allowing US aircraft to operate from Incirlik air base. At some point, one has to ask: is it worth the headache of basing out of Turkey, when the Arab states are far more willing to accommodate US aircraft.

This is not an AKP-specific thing. This is a Turkey thing - and it dates back to well before the AKP's election. History suggests that even if the hostage situation did not limit Turkish action, Ankara would have reacted skeptically to a US request to use Incirlik Air Force base.

The freeing of the hostages does provide Turkey a with a bit more wiggle room in terms of its anti-ISIS rhetoric. Erdogan has already stepped it up a bit, telling Charlie Rose "We have to make sure we dry out this swamp." However, Turkey still points to Assad as being the evil that led to the creation of the "swamp."

Thus, the international community needs to get used to a Turkey that does not sanction military action from NATO air bases in Turkey, and instead limits itself to anti-ISIS operations on the border.

Turkey was certainly late to the anti-IS party. And Ankara is likely to continue to limit its role in the anti-US coalition to the activities it's already doing. These activities help. One should remember that the US program to arm and train the Syrian rebels uses a CIA run office in Reyhanli. This operation is coordinated with MIT - Turkey's intelligence agency.

Turkey's current policy is far better than their previous approach to the conflict. And Ankara would argue that the US's approach has finally started to reflect Turkey's preferences for the use of force.

The two sides are continuing to work together to combat ISIS. Differences remain. But both are better off now that they are working more closely together.