On 30 July, Joseph Aoun became the first Lebanese head of state to set foot in Turkey in seventeen years. Erdoğan received him in Ankara with full ceremony, promised “all possible support” for rebuilding the devastated south, and floated the idea of folding Lebanon into the regional security bloc Turkey is assembling with Syria’s neighbours.
Three weeks earlier the prime minister, Nawaf Salam, had been in Istanbul, pressing for the relationship to be raised to what he called the level of a strategic partnership. And in June, before either visit, Erdoğan had stated that Turkish security “does not begin in Hatay, but in Aleppo, Damascus and Beirut,” and called the two Arab capitals sisters of Istanbul.
From there the story more or less tells itself, and much of the regional press has been telling it. It has an ironic side to it as well. A year ago, Turkey was talki…
