Posted on 08/24/2016 11:13:48 AM PDT by mvonfr
Early this morning Turkey invaded Syria. A contingent of 1,500 Turkish sponsored "Syrian rebels", aka Islamist from all over the world, were accompanied by some Turkish special forces and twenty tanks to capture the city Jarablus at the Turkish-Syrian border. The move followed a night of artillery warm-ups and bombing raids. Shortly after noon the "Syrian revolution" flag and the Turkish banner(!) were raised over the city.
There was no resistance to the move. The Islamic State, which had been informed of the attack, had evacuated all fighters and their families out of Jarablus. (The families went to Raqqa but the fighters went where?) No shots were fired. As one commentator remarked: They even left mints on the pillows. The toleration of ISIS by Turkey, which includes some not so secret support, will likely continue.
The claimed aim of the Turkish move is to close the Turkish border to ISIS. That claim is obviously nonsense. The border can be closed on the Turkish side. To move the crossing point a few kilometers south does not change anything. The second, more plausible claimed aim, is to prevent the movement of the Kurdish YPG forces, under the U.S. assigned label SDF, towards west-Syria. Such a move would create a Kurdish statelet all along the Turkish border and endanger Turkey itself while it is fighting a Kurdish insurgency on its own ground.
(Excerpt) Read more at moonofalabama.org ...
Kurdish efforts and losses in fighting ISIS thus will not accomplish anything for them.
The government of Syria is not likely to object to Kurds being mistreated either, not after the US/Kurdish attacks on a Christian enclave in Hasakeh.
No objections are seen from either Russia or Iran either, so an agreement between the big three (Russia, Iran, Turkey) is likely in place.
And the part about Turkey annexing N.Syria and N.Iraq... I think MoA is rushing with this idea, but eventually this is possible.
I had my Jarablus stolen a few years ago.
My insurance company argued that it wasn’t covered by my policy, but I stood my ground, threatened to sue them, and they ended up covering the claim.
Perhaps the fighter are the new designated refugees for the US???(sarc)
As far as the US "advisors" embedded with the Kurds, Don't get captured, or try to use Chris Steven's private direct line to the White Hut.
Payback is a bitch..... Kurds really should have thought this through.
However, the US “plan B” was apparently not coordinated with Erdogan, who inconveniently failed to be overthrown and turned to the Russians as his own “Plan B” to stay in power. He has more concern for the Kurds than he does for Assad, who he now finds “acceptable” as a neighbor, at least for now
Meanwhile we have a LTG Townsend as “Commander of US Forces in Syria and Iraq” newly named and who has been tasked to enforce an undeclared no-fly zone by threatening to shoot at Syrian and Russian planes who come too close to our (hundreds? thousands?) of illegally inserted US forces in Syria embedded with the YPG
Doncha just love the Obama doctrine? Order the US military to do anything anywhere, play Candyland with international geopolitical strategy, and let the US GOP Congress eat corn dogs at state fairs and write articles about the lack of conservatism and competence of Donald Trump
Those who think they understand it end up royally screwed.
The Kurds may not win now, but demographics and culture are on their side. The Turks are not reproducing as fast as Turkish women, like Chinese women, are refusing to marry because it instantly relegates them to a lower status. They are preferring to work and gain money for themselves.
Also, Turkey is extremely fragile. The economy is in tatters and is debt ridden. Much spending has been underwritten by other Arab powers and that money has dried up. The recent “coup” or whatever it was, has killed tourism and the subsequent political swing to the left has upset enough of the diverse political and religious groups that Turkey may eventually break into as many as four regions.
Turkey has a huge military, which is good when the country is united. But, like the Soviet nuclear weapons and navy ships, if the country breaks up there will be a scramble to take the equipment. I expect a short, sharp and very bloody civil war. It may happen sooner, rather than later, as any push-back on the use of the military will likely exacerbate Turkey’s other internal problems.
Spengler in Asia Times keeps repeating that the Kurds will *eventually* win, but there are many examples when the trends changed.. for example, Pals in Israel who are no longer winning the demographic battle.
According to polls, Palestinians living as Israeli citizens do not support living under Palestinian rule. People who are doing well financially tend to have fewer children and have higher aspirations for them; like college or professional careers. If you have the traditional twelve to eighteen children you simply can’t afford to send any of them to college. Also, give people a few luxuries and they tend to have fewer children to afford even more; a bigger car, actual vacations, etc. It will be a while before wealth starts reducing the Kurdish birth rate.
But let me add two details -- sorry, no time for links, google and you should find.
1. Pal's fertility is down, Israeli fertility is up, they are very close now. So no Pal majority on the horizon now.
2. Just like with Pals/Israel, majority of Turkish Kurds do not support PKK or a separate Kurdish state.
Of course, all of this may yet change, but for now Turkey is not in immediate thread.
But here is a curveball: if Turkey adds N.Syria, it will get 10% of the Syrian population that are Kurds. None of them will be sympathetic to the Turkish rule. Thus my doubts about the Turkish intentions to really annex this area.
I believe Jarablus is Charchamesh, the ancient Hittite capital.
Karkemish is in Turkey, just a bit to the North.
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