Patrick Cockburn: An obvious first step – close the jihadis' highway

Over the past year, Turkey has done something, but not nearly enough to close the border to jihadis. The problem is that the US, Britain, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others have pretended that they are backing a powerful non-jihadi opposition movement capable of displacing Assad. This was the justification for keeping the border at least partly open. But the rebels are dominated by Isis, Jabhat al-Nusra (the official al-Qa'ida affiliate), Ahrar al-Sham and other jihadis. The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has still not quite taken on board that his campaign to get rid of Assad by backing the jihadis is bankrupt and has failed.  Read more