Does anyone else get the feeling that there could be a deal on between Turkey and Saudi Arabia for the division of Syria? And that their troops might be on the ground in Syria sooner rather than later?
The likely deal would involve Turkey getting control of a slice of northern Syria extending 100-150 kilometres south from its own border. Saudi Arabia would take all the remaining lands occupied by IS.
​The benefits of this deal for Turkey would be that it gets control of the Kurdish region in which the YPG is setting too good an example to Turkey's own restive Kurds of what an independent Kurdish state might look like.
The benefits to Saudia Arabia have been covered in earlier blogs and can be read below.

Why sooner rather than later?
Because of the Russians.
Saudi Arabia might have always had a long term plan to put troops on the ground in Syria, but until recently there was no rush. The longer the civil war in Syria dragged on and the more horrible and intractable it became the more likely it was that a Saudi intervention would be seen as a blessing.
Now that the Russians have rejuvenated the Assad loyalists, however, and there is talk of them re-taking Raqqa, the Saudi's need to get involved while there is still some Islamic State territory left for them to liberate.
Ideally the Saudi's would like to take Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, before they put boots on the ground inside Islamic state territory, but with their troops approaching the outskirts of Sanaa as this article is written, and the campaign for Sanaa generally progressing well for the Saudi's, it seems likely that they have decided that they need to seize their moment and will commit to fighting in two theatres.
The Turks, are also no doubt wanting to put a stop to the possible linking up of the two Kurdish controlled regions of northern Syria, a scenario which becomes increasingly likely as the continued aerial bombardment of IS makes them less able to fend off the Kurdish YPG advances.
Turkey was particularly concerned by the YPG's recent seizure of territory on the western bank of the Euphrates: which put the YPG one step closer to linking up their two bodies of territory along the Turkish border.
Another concern for both Turkey and Saudi Arabia is the prospect of a deal being struck between Assad and the Kurds. It would be advantageous for them both to act before such a deal came into being and further strengthened the Assad regime's reviving claims to be the legitimate, and still ruling, government of Syria. 

If the Turks get the North and the Saudis take the South who gets the East and the coast of Syria?
This is a good question.
With Russia giving the Assad regime considerable support one would have to say at this stage that the Assad regime is likely to retain control of the territory they already have and may well takeover most of the rebel areas which are not either Kurdish or IS. This would leave Syria divided into three spheres of power with Assad on the coast and in the coastal mountains, the Turks in the North and the Saudis controlling the remaining, mostly desert regions, to the South and South-East. 
With Russia having become so invested in supporting the Assad regime it is natural that the Turks and the Saudis would be very wary of trying to extend their intervention to the coast, but if both of these countries had their armies in the field and the tacit backing of the United States then they may well dare to take the fight to Assad and the Russians.
Then again, Russia's main concerns at the moment are with its Eastern European border and it could well be bought out of the fight in Syria if the US were to allow it significant gains in Ukraine, for example.

It's all about the Russians
The Russians, the Assad regime and even the Iranians have begun sabre rattling in response to the Turkish and Saudi announcements that they are willing to put troops on the ground in Syria. Naturally, it would be disastrous for the Russians, the Assad regime and Iran if either Turkey or Saudi Arabia or both intervened in Syria. Therefore they will be willing to go to lengths to prevent such interventions. Consequently, all of these parties are now engaged in a sabre rattling face-off.
Much will depend on the disposition of the US and the European Union in negotiations conducted far from the Syrian battlefields.
​Perhaps the Russians will succeed in staring down one or both threats.
If they do it will be a significant victory for Putin, leaving the Russian backed regime as the most likely final victor of the Syrian civil war.
Will the US allow this to happen?
The Syrian civil war could be about to enter a new phase of significant foreign intervention.

In stepping up its involvement in the Syrian conflict to include airstrikes and actual troops on the ground Russia has several ways that it can gain a geopolitical advantage.
To begin with, however, a reminder of the basics. For the moment, for Russia, everything is about The Ukraine.
So how does getting involved with Syria influence events in the Ukraine?
There are several potential positive answers to this question for Russia.
Firstly, if they make it impossible for Assad to be overthrown while they are supporting him, then they raise the possibility that the US and the Europeans will have to do a deal with Russia in order to get the outcomes they want in Syria, and, of course, that means that Russia can negotiate for the outcomes they desire in The Ukraine.
Secondly, if the US want to maintain a hard line against Russia and Assad, it is possible that the Europeans or Turkey might start to see the Americans as standing in the way of a settlement, and Russia consequently gains by dividing its opponents (in the Ukrainian context).

Of course, on entering the Syrian civil war the Russians could not know which way the cards would fall as events played out.
It was possible that the US would hold its allies in line through the sheer strength of its global influence, but even if it did so, the Russians would lose nothing by this. Putin's calculation must surely have been that there was little to lose by intervening in Syria and much to gain if things went well.
So far, the Syrian intervention is playing well for the Russians.
In a much publicized UN speech Putin put forward strong arguments for backing the Assad regime as being the shortest way to end the civil war and eradicate the Islamic State. In doing so he managed to make the US look like they are pursuing a foolish policy in trying to fight (almost) all sides at once; a diplomatic coop for Putin

Since then, the massive increase in Syrian refugees trying to find asylum in Europe has further played into the Russians' hands.
In trying to deal with the asylum seekers, the European countries are now being impacted by events in Syria and, regardless of whether they are closing borders or opening arms, they would much rather they didn't have too. Consequently, the Europeans are now much more eager for a quick settlement of the Syrian civil war, and the US must worry that if they don't provide their allies with some prospect of a resolution to the asylum seeker problem soon then the Europeans may well go behind their backs and deal with the Russians independently in an attempt to end the Syrian crisis. This, of course, is all good news for the Russians, their relative influence vis-a-vis the US is strengthening.

Now, with the atrocities which have occurred in France, we have a major European country wishing to do something decisive toward the destruction of the Islamic State. On the face of it, one would have to think that this new impetus toward action in Syria can only improve the Russian position further.

It will be interesting to see in what ways (or even if) the new French resolve (as stated by their president) can alter events on the ground in Syria.

Some might wonder at Turkey's reluctance to engage in Syria even when being given the green light by the world's superpower the mighty USA. Turkey is of a size to easily dominate this smaller and poorer neighbour, so with the world superpower backing them why aren't they taking their opportunities?
The answer is that Turkey knows it is sitting on a powder keg and it cannot afford to antagonise anyone who could light a match.
As Turkey has not managed to successfully integrate its Kurdish regions it knows that a strong push for an independent Kurdish nation is a threat to its territorial integrity. As there are already around thirty million Kurds living in a relatively cohesive area the stage is set, as it has been for a long time. Two big  factors have worked against the creation of a Kurdish state historically: Kurdish disunity and the the lack of a significant external backer. Continuing this state of affairs and preventing the Kurds from gaining a powerful international backer must be a priority of Turkish foreign policy, afterall guarding the home territories must always take precedence over exerting influence abroad. Why Turkey has been so reluctant to engage with the USA in Syria is because it fears that if it allies itself fully with the US then Russia will see it as an enemy and will be tempted to start supporting the Kurds. Russia may not be anywhere near as powerful as the USA, but it is certainly powerful enough to make an independent Kurdistan a realistic possibility if it lends its support to the venture. Turkey consequently has been reluctant to antogonise the Russians either by acting against their ally Al Assad or by joining in with US operations against Islamic State. Until recently that meant that Turkey was not even allowing the US to use its airbases.

So what changed Turkey's mind? Why has it now agreed to work with the US?
The answer it would appear is the looming threat that if Turkey did not stop stonewalling the US then the US would turn for help to the Kurds themselves. As the Kurds have proven themselves in both Iraq and Syria as the only effective fighting force that has broad appeal to western populations (hence the numbers of western volunteers beginning to travel to the Middle East to fight alongside the Kurds) the Turks realise that there is a danger of them becoming a cause celebre in the west.  Western nations have already begun directly arming the Kurds of Iraq. The Turks would also have been aware of how well the Kurds were doing in Syria. Where previously the Kurds had controlled three separate pockets of territory along the Turkish border, during the civil war so far they have managed to take control of the land between two of these pockets so that they now control the vast majority of Syrian territory adjacent to the Turkish border. It is notable that the area that the Turks have supposedly agreed to occupy within Syria is the area which separates the two Kurdish regions, effectively blocking them from joining up and becoming an even stronger territorial entity.

What can we expect of Turkey now?
At this point, Despite having agreed to American demands it appears that the Turks are still trying to avoid Russian ire by telling them that they were forced into co-operation. This is a narrative which tallies with the slow and reluctant actions the Turks have taken on the ground so far (except for their enthusiastic bombing of PKK camps, the Kurdish separatist movement that operates within Turkey). The Turks are making a show of being reluctant to enter Syria for the benefit of the Russians, but they would also hope to be sending a similar message to their Arab neighbours who have resentful memories of Turkish colonialism during the Ottoman period. By their circumspect movements into Syria so far the Turks are trying to say 'We are only in this because we have to be!'

The Islamic State (IS) is not a nationalist entity; it wants a Caliphate that will incorporate all the world.  The Islamic State recognises no national boundaries and intends to unite humanity under Islam.  In professing and promoting a religious identity they are in many ways antithetical to any nationalist identity.  This being said, it still appears to me that IS’s success in Syria and Iraq has been another one of history’s many examples of what happens when you put national borders in the wrong places.

The territory that IS has managed to conquer in Syria and Iraq corresponds in broad outline to what would make a sensible nation state.  The area that they now control (with the addition of Tikrit and the regions that they have only recently been pushed out of) fairly accurately corresponds with the areas of Iraq and Syria that are inhabited by Sunni Muslim Arabs.  The areas of Iraq and Syria that IS has been unable to make significant gains in are the areas inhabited by Kurds, Alawites, Druze, and Shia Arabs.  Consequently the border of IS territory has essentially stabilised along a line which would make a sensible border between a Sunni Arab nation and the neighbouring national groups which surround them.

The leaders and evangelists of the Islamic State believe in a religious identity which subsumes all nationalist identity but the shape of their territory suggests that the general population of that area of the Middle East are still strongly attracted to an ethnic/nationalist identity.  The Sunni Arabs of both Iraq and Syria have been existing in states where they have been ruled over by other ethnic groups.  It is not extraordinary therefore to surmise that part of the appeal of the IS for the people within its territory is that it has finally united all of the area’s Sunni Arabs in one cohesive, self-governing and powerful state.

Perhaps the easiest way to defeat the Islamic State ideologues would be for the international community, led by America, to simply abandon the formal borders of Iraq and Syria as they were drawn by the French and British during their colonial occupation and promise the Sunni Arabs their own nation state with borders that correspond to the demographic reality.  Perhaps then many of the Sunni Arabs of Iraq and Syria would stop supporting the aggressive and extremist IS and the region could look forward to a greater degree of peace and stability.