Since the death of Abdullah Bin Abdülaziz, the King of Saudi Arabia, great mobility and visible changes have occurred in the Middle East. I guess this was the most significant development of 2015 so far. Selman Bin Abdülaziz, who replaced Abdullah, started the “Determination Storm" operation on Yemen in order to stop the progress of the Iran-supported Houthi targets. While many countries, including Turkey, are supporting this operation under the lead of the Saudis, the U.S. didn't adopt a different attitude.

Without a doubt, the developments in Syria, which is one of the conflict zones in the region that is the closest to us and that interests us the most, were also related with this. Right before the marching of the Syrian antagonists, who started with one victory after the other in Idlib, we had observed that the Assad regime and the Iran-supported militia were in an intensely mobilized towards the Turkmen Mountain and Idlib. The pre-agreement between Iran and the P5+1 countries on the matter of nuclear weapons strengthened Iran's aggressive hand, which is no different than invasion, in Syria even more. For example, Keseb is now under the Iranian forces' control, and even the entrances-exits of the Assad regime's soldiers in Keseb are being controlled by Iranians. While the regime-sided forces in Lazkiye, where they were on standby mode for a long time, were drawn out of their positions and mobilized towards Idlib, this was done with Iran's intention to act quickly and progress towards Aleppo, which they wanted to invade for a long time yet already failed many times.

However, as the Conquest Army, which consisted of seven antagonist groups like Ahrar ash-Sham, Cündül Aksa, Ceyşül Sünne, Feylak Eş Şam, Liva El Hak, Ecnad Eş Şam and the Nusra Front, gained consecutive victories and as Idlib, Cisr El Suğur and many critical points in the Idlib rural area were captured, the winds have changed; the move of the Iran-supported forces, which were mobilized from Lazkiye and trying to provide support to Aleppo, were left hanging and the regime forces' connection between Aleppo-Lazkiye had been cut.

The next objective of the antagonists from now on is Lazkiye. Lazkiye is one of the key regions of the war in Syria. The coastal region, where the Alawite population is intense, is the soft spot of Assad. In the case the antagonists progress in this region, the ones, who will be obliged to exile in the farms and villages, will be trapped in the east-west line and in between the sea and ISIL. The only direction they can steer towards is Damascus; this risk and the Alawites' increasing complaints are creating great pressure for Assad. On the other hand, in the case that the threat directed at Tartus, which is of critical importance for Russia south of Lazkiye, is increased, Putin might be obliged to completely abandon Assad, whom he unwillingly supports. Of course, these are not things that will happen suddenly. However, the Assad regime can see that the wind in Iran has not been blowing from the same direction for the past two years. Though, both of their reactions to the developments are different. For example, the Syria government television's, who say that Turkey's support was behind the conflicts experienced in the brickyard at Karmid that is used as a military camp, state of connecting this to a nonsense like “Erdoğan needed bricks to finish AK Palace", or the Şebbiha's, who were trying to explain the defeat in Idlib to their supporters, and arguments like “We were fasting that day, that's why we couldn't fight"; these are all indicators that the psychological supremacy is changing. In connection to this, some sources are even saying that Assad, who wants to take revenge for Idlib, has lost control enough to think about carrying out a rocket attack on Turkey. When I ask them, “Is he planning to conduct this attack and blame it on the antagonists in Syria?" the answer I get is interesting; “No, he is planning to blame it on the opposition in Turkey". Think about the position of the people, who even take the risk of deviating from the political truthfulness line in order to support Assad.

My sources tell me that Assad wanted Iran's support for such a big attack; however he couldn't get a response. I guess this carries at least two reasons. First; Iran can see that the invasion process in Syria will now go the way they want, they have not gone mad like Assad and of course they don't want to start a world war for the sake of Assad. Second; following his statements that Turkey will not be accepting Iran's attempts to dominate the region, President Erdoğan's visit to Iran despite the people, who look at this intricate war with blinders, found it strange. Iran can see the message Erdoğan transmits with this approach; they see that despite everything they've done in the region and Syria, they still have a chance to give up and they want to keep this opportunity in their hands a little longer. Besides, after Saudi Arabia's King Selman appointed Minister of Interior, Prince Muhammad Bin Nayif Bin Abdülaziz, who defends the idea that more stern policies should be pursued against Iran, as his successor, Iran would not desire to reinforce the line forming against them by making a move against Turkey. Exactly because of this reason, after Cisr-el Şuğur was lost by the regime, we didn't experience the sad developments we experienced in parallel to the developments in Syria.

The regional developments in the summer of 2013, and, within the context of the Muslim Brotherhood hostility that is led by Saudi Arabia, the acquisitions lost by the antagonists in Syria, due to being left alone by their supporters in Iran, Russia and the Hezbollah and even Turkey, in their war against the regime that is being supported by the world, can be returned back in the forthcoming days. Everyone was thinking that the antagonists lost them due to being unable to unite and fought between themselves for the past two years; actually it's now being understood that a great amount of time has been lost because of the conflicts between the supporters of those antagonists. We can see that the priorities of the new King Selman are not the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey hostility like King Abdullah. Because, while the Gulf countries were honing in on Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran already moved on. Let's see; what will the balances, which change when the king changes, and the forthcoming days show us?