It would be a lot more effective, and cheaper in the long run, to provide the Kurdish Peshmerga with a full range of modern weapons, and tell them, anything you take away from the ISIS is yours.
Including all the territory the ISIS now holds.
Turkey would be able to build a dozen cities, with all the bricks they would crap out. And right now, Turkey is an enemy. Regardless of whether they are a part of NATO or not.
Turkey is the gateway through which ISIS is selling oil on the black market, and the entry point for newly recruited ISIS fighters.
We may even yet end up being allies to Bashar al-Assad. He might be an SOB, but he would then be OUR SOB, and not Iran’s.
In “1984” the switch from support of one side in the eternal war that was going on, it was a frequent change of one side to the other. Winston Smith’s full-time occupation then was to remove all references to the side that was the enemy the previous day, and re-insert documentation that provided “proof” that the one-time enemy had been on the side of Oceania all the time. Eurasia and Eastasia were the other two superpowers, which were constantly shifting alliances, but never with all three on the same side at any given time.
Now, more than ever, “1984” was almost eerily prescient.
Excuse me. It is time for the daily Two-Minute Hate.
But off by 30 years. Now take IDIOCRACY. That's eerily prescient, but happening ahead of schedule.