On Aug. 24, Turkish armed vehicles, warplanes and tanks accompanied by its Special Forces and allied moderate rebel groups embarked on a military offensive code named Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria.As President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared at the outset of the offensive, the operation's main objective is to put an end to terror problems on Turkey's border. The operation came days after a DAESH-linked suicide bomber killed 54 innocent people at a wedding ceremony in Turkey's southeastern border province of Gaziantep.In two days, Turkey launched its largest military operation around the Syrian city of Jarablus in an effort to cleanse DAESH terrorist elements from their last stronghold on the border with Turkey and halt their imminent threat to carry out more suicide attacks in Turkey.Erdoğan made it vehemently clear that the operation is not only to deter DAESH, but also to counter recent advances of the PKK terrorist group's Syrian affiliate, the Democratic Union Party's (PYD) People's Protection Units (YPG), which has recently crossed Turkey's most sensitive red line - the presence of Kurdish militants to the west of the Euphrates River.Turkish officials repeatedly reiterate that they would never allow an autonomous terror group-dominated buffer region along Turkey's borders because it would eventually constitute a backyard haven to the PKK, which has been conducting deadly terror attacks for more than 30 years in Turkey.During the five years of full-scale civil war in Syrian, another regional terrorist group, the PYD and its armed YPG, backed by Washington, which portray them as the sole effective faction combating DAESH, aimed to gain control of a wide stretch of territory in the north of Syria, an area called Rojavain in Kurdish. Unsurprisingly, the PYD attempted to unilaterally declare its autonomous "statelet" in the three main Kurdish militant-held cities of Jazira, Kobani and Afrin in the north of Syria.Ankara is not only concerned about the emergence of a self-governing terror group on its border, it is rather disturbed by the track record of the terrorist groups that are supposed to govern that entity. Last year, a video released by a PYD-affiliated group shows PYD militants threatening Turkey and vowing unity with the PKK. "We will obliterate those nasty borders and embrace our comrades," they said.Although the Turkish government has constantly reiterated that it staunchly opposes any presence of terrorist groups on its borders, it refrained from any direct military intervention in Syria to hinder such a development. So what has happened now that has caused Ankara to take such an unprecedented move?Supporters of the operation think that it is better late than never. Turkey should have intervened militarily in Syria a long time ago, not only to protect its national security, but also to alleviate the pressure of the ongoing influx of refugees to its southern provinces and to impose a no-fly zone that could shelter millions of displaced Syrians in the border area. Turkey is currently home to more than 2.7 million refugees.There is a widespread perception among a host of analysts that the plotters of the abortive July 15 coup attempt orchestrated dirty games to discourage Turkey's involvement at certain critical turning points of the Syrian civil war. The plotters are believed to have conspired to drag Turkey into a standoffs with Russia, with rumors surfacing that the Turkish pilots who downed the Russian jet on Nov. 24 were among those arrested for involvement in the deadly coup attempt.It is believed that Turkey, after the foiled coup attempt and the extensive ongoing purge of Gülenists from the military along with the recent drastic changes in the trajectory of Ankara's foreign policy with Russia and Iran, is now more empowered to make more sovereign, rational and strategic decisions unhindered by the manipulations of dirty hands and masterminds.Sam Kiley, foreign affairs editor at Sky News, straightforwardly stated that the Pentagon was utterly startled by Turkey's recent offensive has fundamentally targeted the U.S.-backed PYD and YPG forces in a move that bluntly shows Turkey's rebellion and determination to protect its interests away from U.S. President Barack Obama's administration's incomprehensible maneuvers.On one hand, Washington slams Turkey's operation in Syria and brands its operation against U.S.-backed terrorist forces as unacceptable, and on the other, continues to procrastinate the extradition of Fethullah Gülen, the leader of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) who is the mastermind of the coup attempt last July.That is why pundits have reasonable concerns emanating from the fact that both the U.S. and Russia are untrustworthy when it comes to their Middle East policies. Moscow's consent for the offensive is explicitly understood despite Turkey's declared denunciation of its ally, Syria's Bashar Assad.It is naive to think that Washington does not know that Turkey would never tolerate a contiguous pro-PKK enclave adjacent to its 911-kilometer border with Syria, and it would also be immature to believe that Washington's allies, the PYD and YPG, can perform a single move without Washington's consent. Yet paradoxically, the Obama administration proclaimed that it will cut all U.S. support to Kurdish militants if they do not conform to Turkey's requests and immediately move east of the Euphrates River.Understanding Washington's attitude in Syria is like completing a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that refuse to fit together. Turkey's unequivocal message, equally to its allies and foes, is strident and forthright: Turkey does not naively take bait or fall into traps. Turkey is not only allergic to the creation of a terror group-dominated enclave in northern Syria, it will go even further to eliminate any future schemes to rethink the whole notion.Unquestionably, Turkey's rebellion against Washington's monopoly and domination over Middle East policy is a proactive step that could certainly lead to an irrevocable rift between the two allies, and that would either be magnified or contained depending on the results of the upcoming U.S. presidential election and the foreign policy of the new administration.* Lecturer at Istanbul Aydin University