Turkey may be Obama's key to solving Syria crisis

But the twin ghosts of Iraq and Afghanistan seem to have paralyzed America in the Arab world.

On Thursday, Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will visit President Barack Obama in Washington. This is an ideal opportunity to throw American weight behind greater Turkish leadership in resolving the Syrian conflict -- and declare as much from the White House. The conflict is spreading fast outside of Syria, and unless regional powers such as Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia are empowered to act militarily, and swiftly, many more lives will be lost and the Middle East further destabilized, Kazinform refers to CNN.

Only this weekend, Bashar al-Assad's intelligence agencies were linked to two car bombings in Hatay, Turkey , that killed more than 50 people and injured more than 100. Syria is now home to radical Sunni Islamists from across the globe who want to bring down al-Assad, and Shiite fighters from Hezbollah who support the Syrian president.

Beyond geopolitics and games of nation states, Syria is a raw human disaster: Some 80,000 people have been killed, 1 million refugees have fled to neighboring countries, and millions more are displaced inside Syria. For how much longer will we stand by and watch?

I oppose direct U.S. military intervention in Syria, but recent actions by Israel, daring attacks on Turkey and last month's rapprochement between these two important nations means that there is now new scope for greater regional involvement in Syria.

Secretary of State John Kerry is right to pursue a new diplomatic settlement through Moscow, but his hand is only as strong as the force gathering on al-Assad's doorsteps. In other words, let us say yes to diplomacy, but not be naïve and think that al-Assad and his Iranian backers cannot outmaneuver the wiliest diplomats. They have rebuffed at least five other such attempts. Diplomacy must be backed by force. Al-Assad understands the language of military strength -- of armies keeping fighting factions apart, aircrafts enforcing a "no-fly" zone, bombs on his runways, tanks outside his presidential palace, ships on the seas.

That is not to say that the killings continue. Erdogan has been sensitive when dealing with PKK terrorists in not killing them for fear of collateral damage. That same spirit of protecting human lives must inform Turkish leadership in Syria.

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