Vladimir Putin is a master manipulator. In turn, any diplomatic arrangement he agrees to which appears to weaken his interests should be scrutinized. He is up to something.

That’s exactly the case in relation to Monday’s presidential agreement between Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Vladimir Putin of Russia. Meeting in Sochi, the leaders announced a deal to stave off an imminent Syrian-Russian-Iranian axis offensive on Syria’s Idlib province. That province is controlled by a mix of Syrian Islamic-nationalist rebels and Salafi-Jihadist groups. But Erdogan rightly fears the offensive might kill hundreds of thousands of civilians and wants to prevent it.