“Turkey wants the EU/NATO to sign onto some massive military operation to push out Assad,”
I think you’re correct. Perhaps if this was ten years ago the EU would have Merkeled it’s way out of this by paying huge sums and giving military aid, but no troops. I don’t see them, even then, getting into a land war. At the present time, however, the EU has, quite literally, run out of other people’s money. The stress of Brexit, Covid-19, bad demographics, an ongoing and never ending PIGS financial crisis and a myriad of other problems means they are impotent.
Yesterday, I saw a news bite that the Greeks had towed a raft out to the international limit and left it there. The solution to this crisis will be supplied by the weakness of the countries on the front line. Bullets and barbed wire are cheap. I can, for the first time, imagine “refugees” being rounded up and unceremoniously dumped back in Turkey.
If this crisis continues for very long it may be the straw that break’s the EU’s back.
For the past seven days, German public news has ‘blasted’ away on the refugee crisis (even dominating over the Coronavirus at times). Green Party ‘offer’ over the weekend to take 5,000 from Greek isles just sharpen the political rhetoric by opposition groups in Berlin.
Last night, EU said they’d ship 700 million Euro to Greece for asylum camp costs. Will probably cover a couple months of costs.
This military chatter is going nowhere. Trump won’t sign up to it. Neither will the UK. So it’s mostly a EU thing.
The sad thing here...by 2015, it was obvious that something serious needed to be done over stability in Syria, there should have been massive pressure put on Assad at that point. They’ve wasted five years, and the Russians have played this skillfully. Turkey has no reason to be across the border or manipulating this....nothing to be gained except it’s bold headline hype in Ankara.
If you go and look at the Greek isles...this is a uniting thing for local Greeks....all against more foreigners on their soil.