Following Turkey’s two-month long invasion of Northern Syria and subsequent takeover of the predominantly Kurdish town of Afrin, the logical question that remains is: what ‘s next for the ‘Mad Sultan’ Erdogan?

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Sunday victory speech didn’t lack for the usually robust symbolism denoting neo-Ottoman aspirations far beyond the borders of Turkey (Erdogan gleefully exclaimed, “Now the Turkish flag will fly over there! The flag of the Free Syrian Army will fly over there!” – while comparing the Afrin campaign to the Ottoman defense of Gallipoli during World War I at a ceremony marking the WWI allied powers assault to open the Dardanelles).

And true to form the Turkish president on the following day promised further “extensions” of his forces in the region, including into Eastern Syria and Iraq.

During a speech in Ankara on Monday, Erdogan declared “3,622 YPG terrorists neutralized so far” in Afrin, and promised more to come:

“We have now put a comma down and God willing we will make a full stop. We won’t be limited to this [operation]. There will be extensions. They will also be sorted out. Our intention is not invade but to carry out operations to cleanse terrorists and eliminate terrorist threats to our country.” 

As reported by the Turkish daily Hurriyet, Erdogan pledged to expand east into Syrian Kurdish YPG territory (Kurdish “People’s Protection Units” which Turkey considers an extension of the terrorist PKK), which would pit his forces (including his Free Syrian Army/FSA ground proxies) against the US armed and trained Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

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