Why will the Turkish Armed Forces not leave Syria?

The Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) did not enter Syria contemplating departure in the foreseeable future. For, there exits absolutely no mission that the TAF could complete in the short term in Syria. I do not imagine that the TAF’s chain of command is unaware of this stark fact. You may well have noticed that I speak of the TAF entering Syria rather than making mention of entering Afrin. For, this is what has happened. The Afrin operation, officially named “Olive Branch”, is one of the fronts of the battle that is dragging Turkey in.
A second front has opened in recent days. And its name is the “Idlib Front”. A week ago, the TAF sent a large force into the Al-Eiss region south-west of Aleppo and took up position there. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Syrian army immediately face it in Al-Hadher three kilometres to the east, and the TAF transported a similar force to the Tell Touqan region twenty kilometres to the south of Al-Eiss four days ago. Units equipped with heavy weapons and tanks, capable of fighting, if need be, rather than playing an observatory role in the non-conflict zone.
The TAF had a problem-free passage through the areas under the control of Al-Nusra (now known as JSF), which has been excluded from the scope of non-conflict; it could not conceivably have been otherwise.
Appearance and reality are different.
In appearance, the parties to the Astana Process between Russia, Turkey and Iran reached agreement in September over these two observation points and the locations of the others. The TAF was to station itself here, anyway.
But, with Afrin and thus the PYD/PKK being involved, Ankara moved fast. The TAF immediately entered through Reyhanlı in October, stationed itself along Afrin’s entire southern front in areas previously under Al-Nusra’s control and set up three observation stations.
So, why was a wait made until February to transfer forces to Al-Eiss and Tell Touqan?
This is the point at which reality comes into play.
It is because the Syrian army, Iranian Revolutionary Guards and militias launched an attack with Russian air support in Idlib and captured everywhere to the east of a line from Aleppo to the north of Hama.
If you wonder why the TAF has now been dispatched to Tell Touqan, look at the map: following the battle of Abu al-Duhur which ended in the regime’s victory, the turn came of most strategically important Saraqib close to Idlib.  The true purpose of the TAF’s Al-Eiss and Tell Touqan operations is to block the regime’s way and thereby prevent the fall of Saraqib and thus Idlib.
This move has an understandable aim: the Assad regime will be kept engaged for a further foreseeable period. Consequently, Turkey, too, will retain a military presence in Syria for this period and will need to do so to ensure that it thereby both remains strong at the table and the regime correspondingly weak. Ankara realises that it will be very hard to live alongside Assad, whom it has wounded. It had not taken this into account. It thus wants to create its defence in Syria going forward. Idlib will be a tampon. This is the intention. The venture is most risky and time will tell whether it will succeed.
The same national security logic applies to the YPG/PKK.
For as long as Ankara maintains its military outlook and attitude towards the PKK issue, it will not wish to be neighbours with a strengthening YPG/PKK presence just over its Syrian border. Regardless of who is in power, the military/security-based approach will oblige Ankara to intervene.
For example, in the new Center for Economics and Policy Studies (EDAM) report titled “The Olive Branch Operation: A Political and Military Assessment” penned jointly by Can Kasapoğlu and Sinan Ülgen, it is stated that, if there is no intervention, the YPG could turn within a decade into a military force possessing a considerable missile capacity similar to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Included within the Syria policy followed by the AKP government between 2011 and 2015 are all the errors needed to drag Turkey to this point.
Let those who now say, “I have no regrets” stand in shame.
Meanwhile, the opening of a third front in Manbij is also on the cards.
Turkey’s prevailing national security concept obliges the TAF to remain in Syria until a comprehensive political solution is found in this country.
However, this will be an exceptionally demanding and complex mission.
You see, the TAF is clashing with the YPG/PKK in Afrin, but is at the same time confronted by Syria, Iran, the USA and Russia.
Syria is moving the YPG and its arms into Afrin and the USA is training and arming the YPG once it has passed into Afrin, the Shiite militias dispatched to Afrin and the YPG are also using weapons supplied by Iran, and Russia is closing the airspace to the Turkish Airforce any time it likes as well as maintaining a unit at Tell Rifaat and keeping the TAF away from there.
On the Idlib front, too, the TAF find themselves up against the Syrian army, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah and militia forces.
Behind them is Russia, which set up the game and can change it any time it likes, and which is playing with everyone.
Sustaining the least damage while in Syria will be dependent on reading and managing the contradictions between these forces well.