Posted on 10/14/2019 3:22:41 AM PDT by Helicondelta
Syria’s army deployed near the Turkish border on Monday, hours after Syrian Kurdish forces previously allied with the U.S. said they had reached a deal with Damascus to help them fend off Turkey’s invasion.
The announcement of a deal between Syria’s Kurds and its government is a major shift in alliances that came after President Donald Trump ordered all U.S. troops withdrawn from the northern border area amid the rapidly deepening chaos.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
In other words, this deal could have been made years ago if only the U.S. would let these misfits grow up and face reality on their own.
They’ve been doing this for hundreds of years. It’s a civil war that crosses borders. Neither of the parties are “nice guys”. And Erdogan is playing both sides.
“In other words, this deal could have been made years ago”
Exactly. Let Assad and Erdogan fight it off. I don’t see any upside in getting in the middle of this.
I agree. Get out of the way. Although I can’t remember Turkey and Syria going at each other on this scale or ever.
The Treaty of Sevres..1920...allowed for a Kurd homeland but like all Euro treaties was worthless.
Let the Turks, Syrians, Russians, Iranians kill each other
The only question here....does Russia just stand back and be entertained, or does it provide support for Assad?
I don’t think the Syrian government forces and Turkish forces will engage directly, especially with the Russians backing up the Syrians.
Erdogan will be satisfied with Assad clamping down on the militant Kurds in Syria as long as the United States stops interfering with the process.
One is your perspective which has merit
The other is that the US wished to retain main influence in Northern Syria which it has now lost to Syria, Russia and Iran
Not sure this is a good thing or a bad thing.
Also not sure it’s a good thing to have Syria and Turkey at each other’s throats. Time will tell.
Russia has clout in both Turkey and Syria as well as Iran and PKK is aligned with Iran who is backing Assad so it’s very plausible that this whole exercise was a Putin engineered gambit to force the US military to exit Syria
Then again, Russia has always had Syria as a client state and the world did not end and Islamic Iran has always been aligned with Russia and hostile to the US so it’s just back to the status quo.
The huge losers in this are the Europeans who should have stepped up to the plate and gave support but who instead hid under their desks. They will come to regret this and will pay a huge price at some point in the future
No offense, but do you have any idea how ridiculous this sounds? Syria is a sovereign nation, and the U.S. had no more right to "retain main influence" anywhere in its borders than China has to "retain main influence" anywhere in the U.S.
Just read it differently to see how ludicrous that is:
The Mexican government is opposed to the Trump administration's deportation policy because it wishes to retain main influence in the Southwestern United States which it has now lost to the United States.
WTF?
Russia’s already provided quite a lot of support for Assad, so they may not *need* to do anything but sit back and watch Kornet and Konkurs missiles shred Turkish armored fighting vehicles.
We seemingly have no idea about what has really been going on in Syria, but whatever it is, it is a much bigger deal than we have been led to believe and great pains have been taken to make sure we are met in the dark
There is a reason for this
Assad has played a blinder in this war. He is going to win, and Russia and Iran’s standing and influence in the Middle East is going to rise exponentially.
Once USTroops are out of way russia will bomb
The last time Turkey got stuck into a seemingly endless war, they got disgusted when it was over. They then promptly had a civil war/war of independence, threw out the theocratic arsehats, forcibly modernized their country, forced secularization and democracy and many other admirable things came as a result of that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atatürk’s_Reforms
Erdogan’s been trying to roll back the Ataturk Reforms, but getting stuck into an endless war in Syria is likely to get him shot and the Reforms restored.
I’m not seeing that. Iran is definitely their own side in this; the Syrian/Russian team kills them whenever they find Iranians, the YPG does the same and I believe the Turks do too.
“Russia and Iran’s standing and influence in the Middle East is going to rise exponentially.”
That’s the neocon argument. They believe that standing and influence rise as a result of humanitarian work. So naive.
In that region humanitarian work only makes you look weak. Cutting the Kurds loose when they are no longer needed is the power move here.
Kurds were always Marxists following more or less the Soviet-Assad axis. Did Trump stab them in the back or was this a sham anyways all along?
I do not like Trump’s antigun policies and his potential letting some voters or communities high and dry, but this is not one of them.
“He is going to win, and Russia and Iran’s standing and influence in the Middle East is going to rise exponentially.”
The set of alliances in Syria are among the most bizarre in history. Russia allows Israel to bomb Hezbollah and Iran in Syria. Both are Russia’s allies and arguably, Russia could stop or hinder Israel, but they don’t. Turkey has one of the largest militaries in the world and Russia needs Turkey’s cooperation to maintain its income from oil. So, will Russia come to the aid of Assad’s tiny and tapped-out military against Turkey? Iran is really no-one’s ally and everybody over there knows it. Iran’s goal is to recreate the Ottoman Empire but with them at its head. Incidentally, that is Turkey’s goal as well. And, then, there are all the Shia’s, Turkmen, Alawites and other tribes and sects in the region, all fighting for power over the others. Having “influence” in that area means you have the most guns on the ground. We had about 1 US soldier per every ten miles of the Turkish/Syrian border. In terms of the area we had little influence beyond paying Kurds to support our goals. To maintain “influence” would mean using US air power, which, is based at Incirlik, Turkey. (My, wouldn’t THAT be awkward?)
Assad is known to be the big loser in this. Iran bosses him and uses the Alawites as cannon fodder to fight Israel, while Russia is going to be there permanently to tell him what to do,
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