SPLITTING SYRIA: The Coming Showdown and the New Middle East

With Turkey at a standstill against the Syrian Kurds and the US and Russia in a race to build up their bases within their respective proxy areas, Syria has become defacto split along sectarian lines.  Assad and his battered army control the coast and South, while the Kurds along with their Sunni Arab allies control the North and Northeast.

The stage is set for a Kurdish-Sunni state in the heart of Syria.  This is a further disintegration of the colonial borders drawn after World War One and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.  Of course, Erdogan also wants a collapse of these borders, but his goal is a resurrection of the Ottoman Empire.  With the Kurds armed to the teeth and backed by American special forces and weaponry, he will have a hard to following through with his goal.  Yet, his entry into Syria is an unknown that can upend the quiet stability that has formed after the destruction of ISIS.

Currently the Allawites have been happy just to survive even if the price has been to become a Russian vassal.  Russia, for its part just wants to retain its hold on its Syrian basins and have a strategic ability to push back on the West whenever the Donbass in Ukraine feels Kiev’s heat.  With this in mind, Russia has turned the other way while the Kurds on the otherwise of the Euphrates have successfully built a proto-state.




The real losers in Syria’s disintegration have ironically been Iran and Turkey.  Iran, was hoping to use the chaos to move in next to Israel, but the Kurdish controlled area has cut down on their land bridge, while Israel’s ability to attack Iranian positions in Syria have remained unshackled.

Turkey’s invasion into Syrian Kurdistan has exposed Erdogan as a paranoid autocrat that is fearful of rising Kurdish influence throughout Syria and Iraq.  Yet ironically, his overextension may actually be the cause for the rise of an indpendent Kurdistan, thus dooming Turkey to former shadow of its current self.

Turkey senses it cannot afford to lose so expect it to go all out in Syria, while eventually the Iranians will make a serious push against US assets in the region.  The real question is whether Russia will stay out of the coming conflict.

 

Does Turkey’s Capture of Key Town in Afrin Matter?

Sources from Afrin, Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) claim the Turkish Army and FSA proxy Bulbul, considered to be a strategic town at the center of the Bulbul district, which is just north of Afrin.  The Turkish army claims over 24 Syrian Defense Forces (SDF) were killed and at least one other was captured by Turkish forces during fighting in the town.

The Turkish-backed FSA groups also announced that their fighters had captured the villages of Ali Kar, Za’ra and al-Ham in the Bulbul district.

The SDF stated that its defense forces had killed 20 Turkish soldiers during fighting in the village of Qurna. The SDF also said its fighters destroyed Turkish Army vehicle in the village of Za’ra.

The Turkish Anadolu Agency reported that the Turkish Air Force (TAF) destroyed 18 SDF positions in the general Afrin area in overnight attacks. Kurdish sources are reporting that over 104 civilians have been killed, and 156 other have been injured in the TAF bombardment so far.

Does Erdogan’s Incursions Matter for Turkey?

With Turkey’s invasion into Syrian Kurdish territory taking longer than expected, the Turkish President Erdogan is increasingly hurting his relationship with the West and even Russia.  He may be playing to his base, but without serious gains early on and high civilian casulties, Turkey risks eventual isolation with the very countries it needs.

Still in question is whether Erdogan is willing to go head to head with American troops.  If so, buckle up, the Middle East will get far more bumpy.

 

The U.S. Is Quietly Sidelining a Turkey in Decline

Originally Published in Breitbart.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump had a long talk with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The telephone call came in the wake of Erdogan’s most recent demonstration of the fact that under his leadership, the Turkish-American alliance has become an empty shell.

Over his 15 years in power, Erdogan has gutted what had been a substantive, mutually beneficial and strategic alliance between the two countries since the dawn of the Cold War.

Last Saturday, Erdogan sent his forces over Turkey’s southern border to invade the Afrin region of Syria. The U.S.-allied Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) have controlled the area, northwest of Aleppo, since 2012.

There are no U.S. forces in Afrin. But the area is predominantly populated by non-Arab minorities, including Yazidis, Armenians, and Kurds — all of whom are pro-American.

The Turks say their objective in “Operation Olive Branch” is to seize a 20-mile wide buffer zone on the Syrian side of their border. That includes the town of Manbij, located a few hundred miles east of Afrin, also controlled by the YPG.

Unlike Afrin, there are many U.S. forces in that city. A contingent of U.S. Special Forces charged with training YPG forces are stationed there. On Tuesday, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu threatened those forces. “Terrorists in Manbij are constantly firing provocation shots,” he said, according to Reuters. “If the United States doesn’t stop this, we will stop this.”

Cavusoglu added, “The future of our relations depends on the step the United States will take next.”

The Turks’ pretext for the Afrin operation is as anti-American as it is anti-Kurdish.

On January 14, Col. Ryan Dillon, spokesman for the U.S.-led military coalition in Baghdad said that the U.S. is training a Kurdish border patrol force in Syria that will eventually number some 30,000 troops. On January 17, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. has no timetable for removing its forces from Syria.

In response, Erdogan vowed to “drown” the border protection force “before it is even born.”

Erdogan then threatened the U.S.

“This is what we have to say to all our allies: Don’t get in between us and terrorist organizations, or we will not be responsible for the unwanted consequences.”

The Trump administration’s immediate response to Turkey’s aggression against its Kurdish allies was deferential, to say the least.

Tillerson disavowed Dillon’s statement, saying the plan to train a border fence was never approved. “That entire situation has been misportrayed, misdescribed. Some people misspoke. We are not creating a border security force at all.”

A senior White House official told the New York Times that senior White House and National Security Council officials had never seriously considered the 30,000-man border force.

These statements are consistent with the U.S.’s general practice for the past 15 years, as Erdogan has gradually transformed Turkey from a Westernized democracy and a core member of NATO into an Islamist tyranny whose values and goals have brought it into alliance with U.S. foes Iran and Russia and into cahoots with Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and ISIS. The U.S. has met ever more extreme behavior from Ankara with a combination of denial and obsequiousness.

For example, the U.S. never sanctioned Turkey for its support for HezbollahHamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

The U.S. didn’t penalize Turkey for its effective sponsorship of ISIS. For years, the Turks permitted ISIS to use their territory as its logistical base. ISIS’s foreign recruits entered Syria through Turkey. Its terrorists received medical care in Turkey. Turkey was the main purchaser of oil from ISI- controlled territory and there were repeated allegations that ISIS was receiving arms from Turkey.

And the U.S. turned a blind eye.

While many have expressed alarm over Turkey’s decision to purchase an S-400 surface to air missile system from Moscow, particularly given that Turkey has ordered 100 F-35s, all of which are endangered by the S-400, no U.S. official has taken any steps to expel Turkey from NATO.

The report of Trump’s conversation with Erdogan can be read in several ways. On the one hand, Trump urged Erdogan to “de-escalate” the operation in Afrin. Trump argued that the Turkish operation is harming the broader coalition campaign against ISIS in Syria.

Trump reportedly urged “Turkey to de-escalate, limit its military actions and avoid civilian casualties and increases to displaced persons and refugees,” as well as to “exercise caution and to avoid any actions that might risk conflict between Turkish and American forces.”

On the other hand, Trump was respectful of Turkey’s claim that the U.S.-supported YPG is linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey, which Turkey says is a terror group, and which the State Department has listed as a terror group.

The YPG has been the US’s most loyal and effective partner in the battle against ISIS in Syria. The US rejects Turkey’s allegation that the militia is a terror group. Still, Trump reportedly agreed that the PKK is a terror group and the White House’s statement regarding the two men’s conversation said the US seeks “regional stability and combating terrorism in all its forms,” including ISIS, al Qaeda, Iranian-sponsored terrorism and the PKK.

So what was Trump’s message?

Trump’s conversation with Erdogan appeared to be an attempt to bridge the yawning gap between the US’s policy of supporting and working with the Kurds in Syria and its deference for Erdogan and his regime.

The read-out of their conversation also reflected the distinct possibility that the Trump administration is implementing a sophisticated strategy for contending with Erdogan’s Turkey and its open and growing hostility to the US and its allies.

To understand that strategy it is first imperative to understand the present state of Turkey’s military.

While it is true that Turkey’s military is second only to the U.S. in size among NATO allies, the state of the Turkish military is atrocious. As former Pentagon official Michael Rubin from the American Enterprise Institute wrote this week in the Washington Examiner, Erdogan has gutted his armed forces in the wake of the failed military coup against his regime in July 2016.

Forty percent of Turkey’s senior officer corps has been purged. A quarter of Turkish pilots are in prison. Turkey has twice as many F-16s as trained pilots.

Turkey’s performance in combat in Syria has been abysmal, from the very earliest stages of the war. Rubin noted that in 2012 Syrian forces downed a Turkish F-4, and Kurds have downed Turkish helicopters.

Syria has been a prime killing ground for Turkish tanks. Kurds, ISIS and Syrian regime forces have all destroyed Turkish tanks. The Kurds have nabbed Turkish intelligence officers. Turkey’s power projection capabilities are weak.

None of this has escaped the Pentagon’s notice.

Last summer, as the U.S. launched its campaign to oust ISIS from its self-declared capital in Raqqa, Erdogan told the Americans that he would deploy his forces to fight alongside U.S. forces in Raqqa if the U.S. agreed to ditch the Kurdish YPG. The U.S. refused. Washington opted to side with the Kurds.

According to a report in the Washington Examiner, the Pentagon has a low opinion of Turkish capabilities. Turkish troops lack “the training, logistics and weaponry to successfully launch the siege of a fortified and well-defended city.”

On the other hand, the Pentagon assessed that the YPG were up to the task of assaulting and destroying ISIS forces in Raqqa. And as the battle of Raqqa demonstrated, they were right.

Rubin wrote that the Kurds in Afrin may well defeat the Turks.

So far, the Turks initial push has been unsuccessful.

While the U.S. has consistently treated Erdogan with respect, it has also sought to diminish U.S. dependence on Turkey.

Consider the issue of the NATO airbase at Incirlik, Turkey.

The Turks view Incirlik as their insurance policy. NATO air operations in Syria are coordinated from Incirlik. Most of the anti-ISIS coalition warplanes are based there. So long as NATO is dependent on Incirlik, so the thinking goes, Turkey can behave as abominably as it wishes.

So it was that following the failed coup in July 2016, Erdogan shut down Incirlik and paralyzed the coalition campaign against ISIS.

Erdogan failed to realize that his actions forced NATO allies to reconsider Turkey’s role in the alliance.

The U.S. responded to Erdogan’s move against Incirlik by expanding its air operations in Romania. And last summer, Germany’s Die Welt reported that the German military had identified eight alternatives to Incirlik, including three sites each in Kuwait and Jordan and two in Cyprus.

So while the stated policy of the U.S. towards Turkey is to continue to treat Turkey as an ally, the unstated U.S. policy is to bypass Turkey and render it irrelevant militarily while diminishing its capacity to harm either the U.S. or its allies.

This unstated policy is evidenced by the way the Pentagon responded to Turkey’s invasion of Afrin. Rather than disavow the plan to build a Kurdish border protection force, the Pentagon doubled down, and simply relabled it a “local security force.”

Pentagon and Central Command spokesmen and commanders also praised the Kurds for their key role in the campaign against ISIS.

“Our [Kurdish] partners are still making daily progress and sacrifices, and together we are still finding, targeting and killing ISIS errorists intent on keeping their extremist hold on the region,” Major General James Jarrard, the commander of Special Operations forces in Iraq and Syria, said in a statement.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis, for his part, has been the most outspoken in his criticism of the Turkish operation. Mattis told reporters Tuesday that the Turkish operation helps ISIS and al Qaeda.

It “distracts from the international efforts to ensure the defeat of ISIS. This could be exploited by ISIS and Al-Qaeda obviously, that we’re not staying focused on them right now,” Mattis said.

The U.S. has no interest in an open breach with Turkey. Any such breach will only strengthen Erdogan’s position at home and in the wider region. And given Turkey’s military weakness and the Kurds’ military power, America’s best bet is to keep its head down as Turkey insults it, while supporting the Kurds on the ground as they supplant the Turks as America’s partners in the field.

Rather than express dismay as Turkey moves further and further into the Russian-Iranian camp and away from the U.S., the administration can simply shrug its shoulders and let the chips fall. In this context, it makes sense that the administration did not try to prevent Turkey from purchasing the S-400 anti-aircraft system, which endangers the F-35 program.

Rather than trying to convince Erdogan not to walk out of NATO by rendering his weapons systems incompatible with NATO systems, last November, Assistant Undersecretary of Defense for International Affairs Heidi Grant simply let it be known that Turkey’s decision would have consequences for its planned purchase of 100 F-35s.

Speaking to Defense News, Grant said that the Turks “are a sovereign nation. They can choose to go with other partners. But I have made it very clear that it makes it a little more difficult for our partnership as a coalition because we will not be interoperable. As of right now, our current policies are, we would not be interoperable with Russian equipment.”

Turkey’s invasion of Afrin, like so many of its other actions in recent months and years, make it clear that it can no longer be considered a U.S. ally.

And a close examination of the Trump administration’s actions and statements indicate that not only is the U.S. no longer treating Turkey like an ally. It is also taking steps to neutralize the threat Turkey poses to American interests while cultivating a new alliance with the Kurds that will survive Turkey’s current slide into irrelevance and grow stronger in the coming years.

 

WORLD WAR 3: Turkish Ground Forces Cross Into Syria, Now in Direct Combat with Kurds

It has begun.  With one single directive to the Turkish forces, the Turkish ground  forces stationed near Afrin have crossed into Syria and pushed the self destruct button on NATO as we know it.  Reports out of Afrin are clear, Turkish armored divisions and troops have moved into Afrin and are now engaged in direct clashes with heavily armed American backed Syrian Kurds.

If the above tweet is accurate, the Turkish forces are already experiencing serious casulties. The SDF, whch the YPG is a majority force in, is well trained and armed with the best weapons.  This won’t be a replay of the Iranian backed occupation of Kirkuk, which seemed to catch the US off guard.

Courtesy of Syria War Map

According to Rudaw, the SDF has repelled the initial Turkish attack.  While it’s true some border villages have been captured by the Turkish army, the heavy and successful resistance is not helpful for Erdogan’s projection of success.

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Meanwhile,France has called for an urgent Security Council meeting over Turkey’s invasion.

“Ghouta, Idlib, Afrin – France asks for an urgent meeting of the Security Council,” Le Drian said on his Twitter feed. He added that he had spoken with his Turkish counterpart on Jan. 21 morning.

“France is very preoccupied by the situation in Syria and by the brutal degradation of the situation,” Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

“This is why we have called for a Security Council meeting to evaluate all the humanitarian risks, which are very serious,” he said speaking in Algiers on the sidelines of a meeting for western Mediterranean countries.

Despite Turkey’s claim that it notified Syria of the operation, the Syrian regime came out against Ankara’s actions.

“The Syrian Arab Republic decisively condemns Turkish aggression against the town of Afrin, which is an inseparable part of Syria,” a statement released by the Syrian regime said, as quoted by the SANA news agency.

NATO also chimed in and asked Turkey to act “rationally.”

So far the US has stayed quiet, but expect that to change is Erdogan keeps trying to push forward.  With Russia staying out of the fray for now, all sides in Syria are on edge for the next big development.  Given the fact that Erdogan cannot afford to retreat until he has accomplished his mission for fear of looking weak in the face of the 20 million Kurds in Turkey, this has the very real potential of shattering post World War 2 alliances as well as pulling the US and Russia directly into the quagmire.

END OF NATO: Turkey Bombs US Backed Kurds in Afrin

The Turkish army announced the beginning of “Operation Olive Branch” earlier today (Jan. 20th) and immediately started bombing the Kurdish dominated enclave of Afrin in an attempt to wipe out what they call “terrorists.”  However, the Syrian Kurds make up the majority of the US trained SDF and are heavily armed with American weaponry.  Afrin may be an isolated enclave, but it is backed up by America.

Turkey’s Erdogan insists that once he is done in Afrin he will move to the main part of what the Kurds call Rojava. Rojava and the area the SDF controls is nearly 1/3 of Syria.  The SDF has been the most effective fighting force against ISIS and with both Secretary of State Tillerson and Gen. Mattis announcing the need to keep American forces in Syria after ISIS, the SDF is critical for American influence in a post ISIS Syria.

To this point, Erdogan senses that the SDF and the expanded territory of an autonomous Syrian Kurdistan are a permanent fixture. His invasion of Afrin and Rojava  is serious.

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Will the US Fight Back?

Yes.  The Kurds in Syria are not the KRG in Iraq.  The US government sees the SDF as a critical component of stabalizing Syria in a way that is beneficial to US interests. The US has already provided ManPads to the SDF to knock Turkish planes from the sky.

Turkey may be able to push the Kurds out of Afrin in the early phases, but it will run into heavy resistance as it continues.

Is this the End of NATO?

If there is a direct clash between the US and Turkey, then yes.  The fact is, Turkey has been on its way out of NATO for a while, but this accelerates the pace of Turkey leaving the Cold War relic. Yet, this does not mean Turkey leaving under these auspices is a good thing. However hated Turkey is within the ranks of NATO, a direct clash between Turkey and a fellow member state’s proxy has the potential to shake foundations of NATO.  Of course this is Erdogan’s goal.

Where is Russia?

Putin has already moved his troops and most of his airforce from Afrin as a way to steer clear of the conflict.  Putin’s goal is to allow Turkey and the US backed Kurds to take each other down while Russia cleans up after the mess.  Russia’s secondary goal is splinter NATO as he pushes forward with his expansion.

The Russian Ministry of Defense issued the following statement:

“The command of the Russian group of troops in Syria has taken measures to ensure the security of Russian servicemen located in the district of Afrin, where the Turkish Armed Forces launched a special operation against the Kurdish armed groups,” the statement reads.

The Russians also said that the US supplies of advance weapons to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria triggered Turkey’s military operation against the Kurdish militias in Afrin.

Uncontrolled deliveries of modern weapons, including reportedly the deliveries of the man-portable air defense systems, by the Pentagon to the pro-US forces in northern Syria, have contributed to the rapid escalation of tensions in the region and resulted in the launch of a special operation by the Turkish troops,” the ministry said.

In the coming days it will become apparant that NATO, Turkey, and the US backed Kurds are moving the region into an expanded conflict that no one will find a clean way out of.

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