The Mideast is such a mess it’s hard to tell friends from enemies, especially under the idiotic policy under which we operate: “The enemy of our enemy is our friend“.
Here is one certainty though: It’s better to have friendly enemies than unfriendly friends. Turkey is a prime case in point.
Two US Allies Fight Each Other in Syria
The Kurds have been the only effective force in battling ISIS, but Turkey our alleged friend has been bombing the hell out of them.
Today, the US Called on Turkey to Stop Shelling Kurds in Syria.
Turkey on Sunday shelled US-backed Kurdish rebels in northern Syria as they attempted to take over an abandoned air base near its borders, ignoring US requests to stop targeting the fighters.
The shelling — just days after a tentative ceasefire was announced in Munich — complicates the US-led coalition’s efforts to support Kurdish militias, especially the Popular Defence Forces (YPG), without provoking Turkey, a Nato-ally that considers the YPG an extension of terrorist groups that have waged a 30-year secession battle with the Turkish state. It also means two US allies are actively fighting one another on the ground in Syria.
“We have seen reports of artillery fire from the Turkish side of the border and urged Turkey to cease such fires,” said John Kirby, a State Department spokesman. He added that Washington had also “urged Syrian Kurdish and other forces affiliated with the YPG not to take advantage of a confused situation by seizing new territory”.
Ankara has warned the American government for more than a year that it was frustrated with US support for the Kurdish militias, which now control large swaths of territory just south of the Turkish border.
The YPG is trying to take Azaz in a bid to link the pockets of territory it controls in northern Syria. Turkey fears this could be the beginnings of an autonomous Kurdish region in an area bordering its own Kurdish population.
In a statement Jaish al-Thuwwar condemned the Turkish strikes, saying “no one can hide that Turkey supports terrorists groups and nourishes them to serve its own interests”.
Turkey’s shelling took place amid an uptick in Russian air strikes on non-Kurdish rebel forces in the Azaz region, with Moscow in effect supporting the YPG, which insists it does not co-ordinate with Russia.
At the same time that warring Syrian sides rush for Azaz, Mr Assad’s forces are advancing toward the Isis-controlled Tabqa air base in Raqqa province. Advances in that region could bring Mr Assad’s Russian-backed forces into an area whose skies have been dominated by the US-led coalition strikes against Isis. This could create yet another flashpoint between foreign powers in the increasingly convoluted civil war.
Increasingly Convoluted Civil War
- Russia is openly supporting the Kurds while the US pays lip service.
- The Syria ceasefire never got off the ground in the first place because our alleged friend Turkey would not sit at the same table with our true friends, the Kurds.
- Iran, our enemy wants to fight ISIS but the US does not want help from Iran because Iran is our enemy.
- The US also does not want help from Russia even though Russia and the Kurds have been the only positive force against ISIS.
- The US backs alleged moderate Al Qaeda rebels even though those rebels are highly likely to Join ISIS.
- Turkey has not lived up to its end of the bargain in preventing refugees to flow into Greece.
Adding to the sheer stupidity of conflicting US goals, former US Ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford says ‘Moderate’ Rebels Are Actually Backed By ISIS.
Robert Ford served as the U.S. ambassador to Syria from 2010 to 2014. While he once championed the cause of arming Syrian rebels as a way to topple the presidency of Bashar Assad, he began speaking out against this policy last year. An active Twitter user, Ford admitted last year that the groups being armed by the rebels are actually tied to Al-Qaida and Daesh (an Arabic acronym for the group commonly known in the West as ISIS or ISIL).
There will not be peace in the region until …
- Turkey sits down at a peace table with the Kurds
- The US stops its foolish attempts at nation building
- The US takes a more even stance with our alleged enemy Iran and our alleged friend Saudi Arabia
- The US takes a more even stance on Israeli/Palestinian issues
Former ambassador Ford accurately sums up the convoluted mess as follows: “It becomes impossible to field an effective opposition when no one even agrees who or what is the enemy”.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
AlQ, ISIS, ISIL et al are creations of various intelligence agencies as a means to have a never ending war and to provide a boogy man as an excuse to destroy whatever liberties the global population has left. But the normalcy bias, especially of those in Western countries refuse to accept this truth, and it will be at their own peril.
The roots of this present conflict go back hundreds of years to the advent of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey has “delusions of grandeur” of past glories and has always played the east/west card to it’s advantage.
It has already “lost” territory in the reformation of Armenia, that it occupied illegally in the first place, after committing genocide against the Armenian people at the turn of past century.
It now has fear of “losing” more territory to the re-establishment of a sovereign Kurdistan, which it fears more than the fundamentalist Islamist’s of ISIS.
Turkey is the “wild” card in the Syrian quagmire that the US and Russia now inexorably find themselves mired in. Turkish policy of course is to play the west against east/east against west card again, playing off the major participants against each other. As Turkey carries out it’s pre-planned course of once again becoming the main actor in the Mid-East.
This is all a prelude to a full war in the Middle East. I believe war is inevitable between the USA and Russia. It will be an odd war though kept strictly in the Middle East with economic sanctions and other such nonsense. Turkey is a pivotal player. Do not assume they will side with NATO. Their hatred of the Kurds run generations and deep. Just think how much Russian oil and gas will be worth once the oil fields in the Middle East are bombed into non production.
(1) Turkey and Saudi Arabia are the enemies of the USA in the MiddleEast
(2) Mexico and the Pope are enemies of the USA in North America.
Read the Revelation in the Bible. It reveals the third act in this mess.
“The YPG is trying to take Azaz in a bid to link the pockets of territory it controls in northern Syria. Turkey fears this could be the beginnings of an autonomous Kurdish region in an area bordering its own Kurdish population.”
Maybe if Erdogan hadn’t decided to help US destabilize Syria, Turkey wouldn’t be in this ‘mess’.
Reports yesterday on ZeroHedge said that Turkey was also firing at Syrian regulars. However, there have been no deaths and no response so Turkey may be trying to provoke Russia/Syria in actions to justify NATO intervention – if they haven’t already blown that.
It’s possible that Western PTB have decided to let Turkey and the Saudis go. With oil bankruptcies underway, we certainly don’t need the Saudis to keep supplies up and prices low anymore. And the EU nations must surely be fed up with Erdogan’s blackmailing them over refugees. In any case, neither are worth (nuclear) war with Russia.
“The US backs alleged moderate Al Qaeda rebels even though those rebels are highly likely to Join ISIS.”
Some 3,000 died in the 9/11 attacks. How did terrorists become supported by our government?
An “even stance” on the Israel/Palestine issue would be for the US to reject in any form a new Arab terror state in the lands claimed by the PLO. No peace could possibly come from Israel’s withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines. Instead, the opposite would happen.
The US sustained the PLO for many years. Reagan’s State Department made sure Arafat had a place to go (Tunis) when his terror organization faced destruction in Beirut. It’s been US policy for a very long time to be “evenhanded”, and it has led to the opposite result of that which the world desires.
The Middle East would benefit from having a clear-cut winner and a clear-cut loser in that conflict, and having the so-called “Palestinian refugees” resettled in Arab lands. Any other outcome would bring about a more severe conflict and more bloodshed.
A even stance would be to reverse the vomiting of Israel on the people of Palestine and ship the perpetrators back to their native oblasts.
There will not be peace in the region until …
Peace? what peace? I can only hope what’s posted here with frequent updates are pure speculation instead of the real stuff:
https://www.superstation95.com/index.php/world/890
“The Kurds have been the only effective force in battling ISIS, but Turkey our alleged friend has been bombing the hell out of them.”
Nonsense.
Russia has done far more damage to the US’s foreign legion, ISIS than the Kurds have.
Hence all the political knicker wetting in DC.
This is exactly why we need Trump in there. Trump would threaten the Turks with nuclear annihilation and they would back down because he is crazy enough to nuke them. Obama is a pussy. Obama should be impeached and removed from office, something that should have happened a long time ago.
Someone explain to me why Saudi Arabia is hellbent to remove Bashar Assad from power?
WHY?!?
Why risk war with Russia?
I mean why is the US partnered with Saudi Arabia, when their policy is to harm US energy and interests by putting out of business all the U.S. oil shale producers (its stated policy).
What did Assad do to make Saudi Arabia determined to remove him from power, and doing so in such a public manner (it used to be done covertly through their proxies). Why are they emboldened, what has the US been telling them?
Saudi Arabia is a Wahabbist/Jihadist Sunni empire, collapsing after US hammered down Saddam’s “Sunni regime” and inserted “Al Malaki’s” “Shia tribes in office. “The Shias are getting power!” “What the H… shal we do?”, said Saudies.
Israel: “We are afraid of Shias too”! “Isn’t Syria Shia”?'(It is actually a secular state with several religions, including Christians.)’ US politicians:” Why don’t we remove the secular government in Syria and replace it with Sunnis? After all, Sunnis are the majority in Syria. I know what we will do! Our ambassador in Damascus should express concerns that Shias in Syria is about to do bad things to the Sunnis! And so he did!! And then the “Uprising began”!
US: “So now we will support Sunnis, after all Saudi Arabia are our bosom boddies” Sunnis-Ha-ha!;-)
Israel:” Thank You true Judeo Christians. You know what it is all about”!;-) “We already feel safer now.”
But then they started to feel the quagmire under their feet. In agony they began to shout:” It is Russia’s fault”!
And have done so ever since…;-)))
Just saw your comment, made me laugh 🙂 thanks.
This is another false flag black ops to prop up the petro dollar and extend control of the IMF in the remaining resisting countries in the middle East while trying to cripple Russia economy and counter it’s influence.
You know what happens when you try and corner a bear or a tiger, the same thing when you try and corner a dog. They will come out fighting. There will be a big mauling. Obama’s foreign policy has been a pathetic joke!