I'm John Batchel with my colleague Gregory Copley of Defense and Foreign Affairs.

Syria.

Damascus is dominated by Syrian ambitions.

MIT is a state security operation out of Ankara.

At the same time, the Iqwan, that's the Arabic for the Muslim brothers, are more than half of the decision makers

in Ankara. And they were exiled from Egypt. And they owe very little to Bashar al-Assad.

So let me see if I can put all this to Gregory and get an explanation. The Turkish government,

dominated by Iqwan intentions, wants to put Assad on trial as a war criminal. The Russians may

or may not cooperate based upon getting that air base or that naval base secured. At the same

time, the Iqan want to return to Egypt, where they were exiled by General Sisi, who is now

President Sisi. Have I started enough wars here, Gregory? Does that all add up to something in one

direction? Are we talking about

broad purposes? Well, it's definitely moving into the area of instability. I think that Russia

will be very reluctant to return Bashar al-Assad to Turkish custody or send him into Turkish

custody for trial as a war criminal,

because that would end a lot of the credibility of Russia as an independent player

and make it look as though Russia was cartouing to Ankara.

So hence these latest reports that former President Assad may have been poisoned and is ill

in Moscow and in hospital, that may be part of a move to ensure that he can't be moved

and he can be quietly sort of put out to pasture without Moscow giving in

to Ankara. As far as the Egyptian situation is concerned, we saw President Erdogan

of Turkey visiting Cairo in the past few months and making up with... Yes, it was mysterious because it looked like Turkey was going to enter into the Gaza War,

...