The old adage about “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” has never been more put to the test than in the Middle East today. How to explain the shifting sands of the region where Turkey – sworn enemy of President Assad’s murderous Alawite-dominated regime in Syria – now finds itself bombing Islamic State (IS) positions inside Syria, a move of clear strategic value to Assad? The answer, as usual, is complicated and to simplify it risks distortion out of all recognition. Turkey’s attitude to the Islamic State threat has up to now been ambiguous. Its external priority has been to remove Assad from power in Syria. Its intelligence service is known to have had many links with Islamist elements in Syria and if IS were to prove – as hitherto it has seeme