Posted on 02/12/2020 1:52:34 AM PST by BlackVeil
The US has come with strong words in support of Turkey’s policies in northern Syria, hoping to push Turkey to greater action against the Syrian regime and Russia in Syria’s northern Idlib province. US envoy James Jeffrey landed in Turkey on Tuesday where he commemorated Turkey’s “martyrs” who had been killed by the Syrian regime and pledged support for Ankara.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Jeffrey have been seeking to pivot the US back to a Turkey-first foreign policy in regards to Syria, to slowly jettison parts of what they see as the problematic Kurdish region ...
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
it is bizzare at least
they Turks are cooperating with Russia
its such an cluster swear words
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It is very strange indeed, and we are not being told even half the truth about what is going on in Syria.
the Kurds of Turkey need somewhere to go. Erdogan's revived Ottoman Empire would exterminate all Kurds, just like the Armenians, given the chance. If we help Erdogan on ths, God will judge, IMHO.
Assad surrounded the neck cutters in the other provinces and cities. Russia a deal with them. They could be killed, or they could get a bus ride to Idlib.
They chose Idlib, on the Turk border. Now Turkey and Assad are cleansing Idlib in steps. The suffering of the neck cutters doesn’t make the news, in light of the horrors they inflicted for seven years.
The only good guys in this are the northeastern Kurds. Everyone else is varying degrees of savagely depraved.
It has been 14 months since the President announced we are pulling our troops out of Syria. Apparently, the Pentagon needs a little shake up.the I think we have more troops in Syria noe than when he announced our withdrawal.
Worse, without statehood, Syria's Kurds lack a de jure basis for continuing to hold Syrian territory. A peace settlement will require that Syria be reconstituted and rebuilt as a state. The Syrian Kurds cannot expect the US to instead support regional chaos for the sake of a Syrian Kurd statelet for the indefinite future.
The alternative is a regional peace settlement that recognizes and accepts the continuation of a defanged Assad regime while protecting the Syrian Kurds through express legal guarantees and a canton style political structure. Getting the US and Turkey to agree on the details of such a plan would be a major accomplishment and would be supported by most Kurds.
If true, a big mistake. The strongly Islamic Turks are not our friends; and Assad and the Russians are not our enemies. And why is it the Assad “regime” and not the Turkish “regime”? Or the Saudi “regime”? Or the EU “regime”?
Thank you for your detailed analysis. However, I am not in favor of the way the Turkish government has been dealing with the Kurds even in their own country, let alone another. Or the reconstitution of the Ottoman Empire either. I appreciate your better advantage point, and the knowledgeable authority from which you speak (and from which I, of course, do not).
Also, I am wondering what will happen to the 600,000 or so Kurds bottled up in Idlib. The SDF for some time has no longer claimed responsibility for them.
While Erdogan's Ottoman restoration project is troublesome, it is implausible and doomed. Turkey is burdened by catastrophic levels of public and private debt with crippling interest rates. The worst of it though is that Turks are in demographic decline within Turkey and the more prolific Kurds may well be a majority in Turkey within several decades.
In the meanwhile, Erdogan and Turkey can cause trouble. Our best approach to manage them is to maintain our ties and make clear in private that our help on security issues and on Turkey's economic and financial needs is conditional on our evaluation of Turkey's conduct. In practice, even though Erdogan may spout neo-Ottoman nonsense and bully his internal opponents, Turkey must submit to US and EU positions on the issues that matter.
If not, if Turkey misbehaves, we can threaten economic sanctions that would swiftly collapse the Turkish economy and endanger Erdogan and the survival of the regime. For that reason, I am confident that the Kurdish civilian populace is safe from Turkey, notwithstanding skirmishes with Kurdish militias in Syria.
Meanwhile, we should keep Iran enfeebled and contained and foster the emerging peace between Israel and the major states of Sunni Islam. As Israel's offshore oil and gas projects and fundamental economic strength expand, she will likely be able to make favorable deals with her neighbors. Once Erdogan is gone, Turkey should revert to her previous friendship with Israel -- and perhaps do so with a government that includes Kurdish participation and restores Istanbul's prior cosmopolitanism.
Not only are Trump and Pompeo popular in Israel, but when the history of our era is written, they will be recognized for effective diplomatic and security policies and strategies. And keeping Turkey in check through adroit pressure will be a prime example of Trump-Pompeo teamwork.
Thank you again. I will ponder on this carefully. What you say makes sense to me.
The problem with this scenario is that Turkey is beginning to look like Sadaam Huseein’s Iraq in the 1980s. It was thought to be a good thing to wink at their military aggressions, because it would keep Iran in check. Then wars spread, and the US was drawn in.
Unlike Hussein’s Iraq, Erdogan’s Turkey is vulnerable to economic sanctions by the US and the EU.
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