Turkey’s Shift on the Syrian War

[IronFist]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/opinion/turkeys-shift-on-the-syrian-war.html
Why did Turks change their opinion on ISIS? They were supplying them with weapons before and now they declared war to them. The most strange thing is that they don't support the idea of Kurdistan and there are many oppressed Kurds craving for independence in South-Eastern part of Turkey. Yet they declare truce with them. How long is it going to last? I doubt that it's for long.

 

[Teddy Pollins]

Don't even pretend that Turkey is our ally in the Asia Minor. They are Muslims and sometimes they are very fanatic and radical. I won't surprise if some part of Turkish population support ISIS and join their forces. I believe that ISIS' ideology has more influence than American one in the region.

 

[IronFist]

Don't even pretend that Turkey is our ally in the Asia Minor. They are Muslims and sometimes they are very fanatic and radical. I won't surprise if some part of Turkish population support ISIS and join their forces. I believe that ISIS' ideology has more influence than American one in the region.

You are definitely right. But there are many secular Turks living in Anatolia, they are quite western. Though they are still muslims and they may suddenly change their opinion...

 

[Mr. H.]

Why did Turkey suddenly allow U.S. operations out of Incirlic?

 

[Jroc]

Don't even pretend that Turkey is our ally in the Asia Minor. They are Muslims and sometimes they are very fanatic and radical. I won't surprise if some part of Turkish population support ISIS and join their forces. I believe that ISIS' ideology has more influence than American one in the region.

This might have something to do with it the change of heart the islamonazi Erdogan lost

Turkey election: ruling party loses majority as pro-Kurdish HDP gains seats

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has suffered his biggest setback in 13 years of amassing power as voters denied his ruling party a parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002 and gave the country’s large Kurdish minority its biggest voice ever in national politics.

The election result on Sunday, with almost all votes counted, appeared to wreck Erdoğan’s ambition of rewriting the constitution to establish himself as an all-powerful executive president.

Turkey election ruling party loses majority as pro-Kurdish HDP gains seats World news The Guardian

 

[Hossfly]

Why did Turkey suddenly allow U.S. operations out of Incirlic?

It's hard to tell which way the Turks will roll. They wouldn't let us go through Turkey at the beginning of the war, then changed their minds.

 

[Mr. H.]

Why did Turkey suddenly allow U.S. operations out of Incirlic?

It's hard to tell which way the Turks will roll. They wouldn't let us go through Turkey at the beginning of the war, then changed their minds.

My stepson was so stationed at that time. He even wrote my name on an F-16's underwing bomb.

 

[hipeter924]

It is deliberately staged by Erdogan's party, who for years have wanted to wipe out the Kurds in Syria and Iraq. Erdogan hopes that by going to war, he will get enough backers in the chaos to become a tin pot dictator.

This is nothing to do with 'fighting ISIS', and you can be sure that Erdogan will keep ISIS in control and will never let them be defeated, as he needs them as a tool to ethnic cleanse/wipe out the Kurds.

 

[Supreme Allied Condista]

TAKE RAQQA BATTLEPLAN

TAKE RAQQA BATTLEPLAN by Supreme Allied Condista on US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

This is my political and military plan to put the squeeze on the so-called "Islamic State" / ISIS / ISIL / Daesh operational capital at Raqqa, Syria.

1) The Turkish army invades Syria with an armoured column west and south of the Euphrates and attacks Raqqa from the south, also blocking the east and west routes to Raqqa.

2) The Euphrates Volcano - a joint operations room for the Royava Kurds YPG / YPJ and the Free Syrian Army - cut off Raqqa to the north, bottling ISIS fighters up in Raqqa or in other bolt holes to the east and north of the Euphrates.

Euphrates Volcano - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

3) The Turks and / or the Euphrates Volcano YPG / YPJ / FSA take Raqqa, clearing it street to street, mopping up ISIS forces.

I appreciate that the Turks have not yet committed to invading Syria with their army and neither have the Euphrates Volcano, YPG / FSA asked for such Turkish intervention.

So I think it is really going to take NATO to suggest such a collaboration, because neither side would wish to admit needing the other to defeat ISIS, I expect.

Diplomacy is not my strong suit but if these forces can be persuaded diplomatically to work together then liberating Raqqa from ISIS should be straight-forward enough, militarily speaking.

Now a word or two about the politics.

A solution for SYRIA too

We should support the rights of Sunni-majority areas to establish a Sunni-majority state, partitioned from Iraq and / or Syria but modelled not after Saudi Arabia's oppressive religious police Sunni state but rather as a secular, democratic state (approximated imperfectly by Turkey with its majority Sunni population), which could be part of a stable solution, acceptable to world powers.

However, to get there, we must first defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda and put irresistible pressure on Arab states to support a peace solution for Iraq and Syria, perhaps with Arab state regular armies invading Syria and Iraq to enforce a peace settlement along partition lines agreed at the United Nations with NATO acting as a military police force, directing Arab armies here and there.

Such a peace would be workable and stable, rather than as now with the Arab states' proxy terrorists failing to enforce a non-agreed imposed terrorist state.

NATO

The NATO military alliance met recently at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, to consider a plea from Turkey for support.

TURKS

Well if I was leading NATO, Turkey would be getting some very forceful advice behind the scenes to quit treating the PKK the same as ISIS and encouragement to seek a cease-fire with the PKK and I'd be making that distinction clear publicly as I have already done.

Since NATO statements are only agreed unanimously then it is not surprising that Turkey would not agree to the following quoted statement for publication as "the view of NATO" but there is nothing to stop the NATO Secretary General making this statement in a personal leadership capacity, except for the fact that the Secretary General is not me, but someone else.

"Turkey has been quite wrong to try to paint ISIS and the PKK with the same brush, equally as "terrorists", when the PKK have legitimate concerns about protecting Kurds from ISIS, although the PKK's attack on Turkish police officers which broke the cease-fire was ill-advised and it is unsurprising that Turkey would label such attacks as "terrorists" and a unilateral ending of the cease-fire by the PKK. Ending the cease-fire was a bad move by the PKK because cease-fires are much easier to end than they are to resume.

So Turkey had a cease-fire with the PKK and rightly so but Turkey should never have had a cease-fire with ISIS, if indeed that's what it had, it was quite wrong to have such a cease fire with ISIS.

Also, Turkey should be open minded about resuming a cease-fire with the PKK. Admittedly it takes two sides to make a cease-fire stick but at least a cease-fire should be possible with the PKK in the way it should not be possible with ISIS.

Otherwise, the suspicion will be that the Turkish state is being manipulated by those fascists who are not sincere about fighting ISIS but instead are using ISIS attacks as a pretext, conflating ISIS with anyone Kurdish or Turkish leftist, as a smokescreen for a far wider and undemocratic crackdown."​

KURDS

We are not doing the Kurds any favours by turning a blind eye to the PKK blunder providing Erdogan and the Turkish secret security fascists with the pretext for a crackdown they were likely trying to provoke - the July 22 killing by the PKK of 2 Turkish police officers.

Whatever the Kurds' or PKK's suspicions or personal convictions about Erdogan etc secretly sponsoring ISIS, it is not astute for the PKK to lash out at Turkish officers indiscriminately, because the case "Erdogan-backs-ISIS" has not been proven to NATO, to the US and allies or to the people of Turkey.

Least of all is that case made when Turkey provides the US with the use of airbases with which to attack ISIS.

Erdogan has played much too clever a game and has outwitted the PKK. They have fallen into his trap.

In future, Kurds should impress on the PKK the international political need to act with more political wisdom as prosecutors, proving their case of nefarious machinations of the secret security state of Turkey and its sponsorship of ISIS, while treating with respect those Turks, Americans, Europeans and others whom Erdogan's secret plots have deceived.


Supreme Allied Condista by Supreme Allied Condista on US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum