Syria: Turkey's Plans And Other Confused Thinking
...''The real aim of the Turkish president Erdogan is to install a puppet Islamist regime in Damascus. That is the price he is asking for:...''
..."The likely false pretense for a Turkish invasion in Syria will be a tomb under Turkish protection which has been for some time surrounded, but never attacked, by IS fighters:..."
...."Another reason to occupy a border zone within Syria are the Kurdish held areas within Syria under control of the YPG, a sister organization of the Kurdish PKK which is fighting for Kurd rights within Turkey. The area around Kobane is currently under attack by the Islamic State and neither Turkey nor the U.S. is doing anything to prevent a takeover there:.."...''Russia has given warnings to Turkey to not proceed with its plans. Moscow surely has contingency plans for further support of Syria should the U.S. or Turkey attack the Syrian government...''
...''The U.S. acting against the Islamic State seems to be without any strategic framework. It has none to little intelligence about the targets it attacks and the lack of care of civilian casualties is quite astonishing. If this continues the U.S. will again end up as the one party hated by all other parties of the conflict...''
Under U.S. pressure the Turkish parliament will vote tomorrow on joining the coalition against the Islamic State. But that will only be a disguise. The real aim of the Turkish president Erdogan is to install a puppet Islamist regime in Damascus. That is the price he is asking for:
Turkey will not allow coalition members to use its military bases or its territory in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) if the objective does not also include ousting the Bashar al-Assad regime, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hinted on Oct. 1.Erdogan's Turkey is cooperating with the Islamic State, partly for ideological reasons, partly out of fear the Islamic State fighters in Turkey would attack within the country.
Erdogan is now planning for some Turkish controlled border zone in Syria where he could train anti-Syrian forces and continue to deal we the Islamic State out of the eyes of interested observers. The likely false pretense for a Turkish invasion in Syria will be a tomb under Turkish protection which has been for some time surrounded, but never attacked, by IS fighters:
Yeni Safak, a pro-government daily, said that as many as 1,100 fighters of the Islamic State, which now controls more one-third of Iraq and one-third of Syria, had deployed around the shrine of Suleyman Shah, the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire. [...] Turkey maintains an honor guard and protective detachment of 36 troops at the tomb, which lies about about 15 miles inside Syria.Another reason to occupy a border zone within Syria are the Kurdish held areas within Syria under control of the YPG, a sister organization of the Kurdish PKK which is fighting for Kurd rights within Turkey. The area around Kobane is currently under attack by the Islamic State and neither Turkey nor the U.S. is doing anything to prevent a takeover there:
[I]n recent days, the Islamic State has been advancing, and the U.S. coalition, no doubt spurred on by Turkey’s fears that the YPG is allied with its own Kurdish separatist insurgents, hasn’t come to the rescue. When Turkish Kurds tried to send in fighters, the Turkish government stopped them, using tear gas.On Tuesday there was no sign of more volunteers, and none of the two dozen or so returning Kobane residents said they intended to join the militia, and a sense of hopelessness swept those who’d fled.Russia has given warnings to Turkey to not proceed with its plans. Moscow surely has contingency plans for further support of Syria should the U.S. or Turkey attack the Syrian government.
During the last week the Islamic State has pulled back some of its fighters around Damascus. This has allowed the Syrian army to widen its protection zone around the city. But the last time the Islamic State pulled back, then in north-west Syria, the planned retreat was followed by the big attack on Mosul. The current retreat around Damascus is therefore likely in preparation for yet another big push against an unknown bigger target.
The U.S. acting against the Islamic State seems to be without any strategic framework. It has none to little intelligence about the targets it attacks and the lack of care of civilian casualties is quite astonishing. If this continues the U.S. will again end up as the one party hated by all other parties of the conflict.
The confused thinking is not limited to the White House. For the last three years the Washington Post's David Ignatius has propagandized for a united "moderate opposition" in Syria. That pink pony has yet to arrive. But he today has a new great idea of how to finally reach that aim: "Bomb Christians and more civilians":
[I]f U.S. airstrikes and other support are seen to be hitting Muslim fighters only, and strengthening the despised Assad, this strategy for creating a “moderate opposition” will likely fail.