U.S. Ambassador to Türkiye Tom Barrack on the Israeli attack on Syria’s Abu al-Duhur airbase: Let me give you the postulated theories. The first one is that the Israelis were baiting the Turks. If you remember, the Turks took out a Russian jet under the same kind of circumstances, right? Very dangerous game, having jets deployed on the border without notification, without some agreement. That was the serious and worrying part because I know that the Turks — their intelligence agency, their hierarchy, their foreign minister, the president, the head of intelligence — all are concentrating on restraint. It really is. That’s a fact. They’re not predatory. They’re not interested in attacking or even engaging in any kind of kinetic or adversarial relationship with Israel. It’s not good for the region. It’s not good for them. Everybody is looking for an off-ramp someplace. In Türkiye’s mind, the off-ramp, more than Iran, is a Palestinian solution. That’s really the problem in the Turkish population and the Islamic population. So one theory is they were just baiting Türkiye — that it’s a very aggressive, but maybe a well-received, pre-election concept. Source: @MarioNawfal