Why do we have “interests” in Syria at all?
This is a GOOD thing...
+++++
As I warned last December, Russia’s endgame has always been the annihilation of the rebels in Idlib. But now that Erdogan has rendered himself Putin’s supplicant puppet, and the U.S. has withdrawn support for most rebel groups, all the ingredients are set for a final purge of Idlib by Russia, Assad, and Iran.
If you asked me why we are in Syria, I couldn’t tell you.
War should be clear cut if you expect to win.
>>> U.S. interests in Syria. <<<
Syria is a treaty ally of Russia. The US has exactly NO legitimate interests in a country that poses no threat to the US or our allies.
Turkey should be kicked out of NATO. This Erdogan character is bad news, especially after staging the coup to consolidate power.
It is common in the shifting multi-polar hostilities of the Middle East, for enemies to temporarily agree to a cease fire or some tradeoffs, to focus on beating up some common enemy.
Erdogan (and the Turkish military elites) are dead set against the establishment of an Independent Kurdish nation, or a semi-autonomous Kurdish enclave in Syria. They are willing to trade their other chips on the table to squash that.
Everyone recognizes that the US is the 800lb gorilla in the room, so they have to adjust their strategies around the US, to shape the best end state for themselves.
The gist of the article is correct, that Turkey has sold out/called off its surrogate “rebels” in Idlib , so that the Assad Regime and Russia can throw everything at the Kurds, to limit or roll back what they (and therefor the US) have gained.
But I believe that it is wrong to think that Erdogan and Putin are now loyal to each other. Should this push fail, they will likely be knifing each other’s interests right away.
Turkey is apparently trying to stand up/shift some rebels that it supports to fight the Kurdish-led SDF around Deir ez Zour as part of this deal - but they have not been very effective at this so far, and they will be cut off from the Turkish border this time. So it will likely fall to the Syrian Regime and the Russians to face conflict with the US, to try to halt Kurdish advances.
That might be Erdogan’s real play - try to tempt his other competitors to get into a fight with the US, so Turkey can pick up more of the pieces in the meantime. The big Omar oil fields are are rich prize to help tempt them.
My guess is that this deal will temporarily free up some assets for the Regime/Russians/Iranians to make a race with the Kurds/SDF for the remaining assets controlled by ISIS, but it would be unlikely to escalate into a full operation against Kurds/SDF - as long as the US doesn’t cower when probed.
The race is on for the ISIS territories, as ISIS collapses, and there is going to be some shoving and head-butting, but no one can really afford a major shoot-out with the US.
It’s an opinion that does not have the whole picture...so I disagree.