Indeed, it seems Erdogan’s Syria policy is largely responsible for his turnaround and willingness to accept Israel’s apology. It’s perhaps true, as some analysts argue, that given the situation in Syria, including Assad’s use or potential use of chemical weapons, the Turks’ need for intelligence cooperation with Israel helped change Erdogan’s mind. But there’s a much larger strategic issue at play here as well.

As I argued earlier this month, Erdogan’s Syria policy has proven unpopular at home and has also demonstrated the limits of Turkish power. Erdogan was not able to stop Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s killing machine, nor was he even able to prevent Assad from launching artillery rounds at Turkish towns across the border or shooting down a Turkish jet.

As long as Erdogan and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu believed that Turkey was a rising regional power, Ankara could afford to hold its ground, making ridiculous demands of Israel that no state could possibly agree to. It was only when Assad and Syria shattered the Neo-Ottoman dream that Turkey started to see the wisdom of scaling back its regional ambitions and its demands on Israel.

What Obama truly deserves credit for—and it’s no small thing—is realizing that an ally in whom he’d invested so much confidence was essentially a blowhard. Moreover, he saw that Israel, with whom he’d had contentious relations, was an ally he could count on. And that’s a very big win in Netanyahu’s column.