Turkey aren't going to give up Erdogan.

The frightening thing is that Turkey is in NATO; we are pledged by treaties to defend them if Russia attacks, even though in the Syria war they are fighting on a different side of this multifaceted conflict.

Let's see: Britain, Europe officially, and the USA are attacking IS or whatever they are called in the media this week. They support, but not militarily, the "Rebels" whose main raison d'etre is to oppose the Syrian state forces of Assad, but are also fighting IS. The rebels are a coalition which includes secular liberals, but also Islamist militias.

Assad, allied with Hezbollah and Iran, is fighting the rebels, but also IS.

Turkey is allied to NATO which includes US and UK, but the conservative (i.e. Islamist) Erdogan governmentm recently democratically re- elected with a big majority, supports IS but can only to so sneakily, and their support is confined to finance and harrassing IS opponents. The Turkish army, the biggest in NATO after US, who in the past have staged coups to remove the threat of Islamist rule, are a not very clever lot who operate a sort of Schlieffen plan. Whatever happens, attack the Kurds, and are happy because Erdogan is happy with that too.

The Kurds, whose main aim is a Kurdish national state, are fighting IS because IS took over chunks of Kurd liberated territory. They are the most dependable allies of US and UK but are proscribed by them as terrorists and denied military material support. Iran, Iraq, Russia and Turkey are militarily opposed to the Kurds, Iraq being however a bit hors de combat on that front at the moment.

The Iraqi government only wants the US to clear their oilfields (free of charge) so they can get back to selling it to get money to gas the Kurds and Shias. Oh yes, Shias, we'd forgotten about them. They would fight IS themselves if there was anyone left in the country who wanted to fight (for the government that is).

France are doing their own thing as always, but it does seem so far to be mostly against IS as far as we can make out.

And Russia, don't forget Russia, they want to join in to fight the "terrorists" in Syria just like the US and UK and France. But their main interest is to support Assad, so they will bomb IS if they are a problem, but mostly it's the rebels and the Kurds. And the Turkomans who no one had heard of till this week.

Israel are keeping quiet, being very happy to see Assad looking the other way and Palestinians whether secular or not lumped in with IS in the international mind.

Who've we forgotten in all this? Not the loyal ally of the West, Saudi Arabia surely? One sometimes wonders what they do with all that money.

So the solution is bomb the enemy and support our allies! If only we could work out who either of them are.