Turkey’s capture of the ISIS city of al-Bab last week set in motion a race for the city of Manbij, which Kurdish forces captured from ISIS last year, and which Turkish officials had long insisted would be their next target after al-Bab.
Several nations have interests in not seeing Turkey attack the Kurds, but on Monday, US troops were the first to the scene, with a deployment inside the city of Manbij, where they will embed with Kurdish forces as a “sign of deterrence.”
By the end of Monday, Syrian and Russian troops were also in the vicinity, with the Kurds having brokered a deal to give Syrian forces all the villages ringing Manbij, which would mean Turkey can’t advance with attacking Syrian government villages. Russia sent some forces into the area too to back Syria’s new claims.
Turkish officials are expressing annoyance about everyone deciding to ally with the Kurds against ISIS, but as a practical matter they are probably not going to be able to secure an attempt at capturing Manbij any time soon with so many other nations’ forces in the area. This does, however, put the US in an uncomfortable position of having its troops backing a local militia force against a would-be invasion by a NATO member nation.
I hate diplomats, they’re all war
The US shockingly seems to be on the right side of this one which, quite frankly, confuses the sh*t out of me. There’s gotta be some kind of ketch. Maybe the Pentagon has realized the writing is on the wall as far as Assad is concerned, so there throwing their lot in with the last neutral party left. Regardless, US troops don’t need to be there. The Russians, Syrians and Kurds are more than capable as long as NATO is kept on a leash. Viva Rojava!
“The US shockingly seems to be on the right side of this one which, quite frankly, confuses the sh*t out of me.”
“as long as NATO is kept on a leash.”
isnt deploying troops the opposite of leashing, also known as unleashing.
No argument here. I’m saying that the US finally seems to have landed on the side of the right coalition but, regardless, they shouldn’t be there. They SHOULD try to restrain Turkey non-militarily. They SHOULD remove US troops from the region and let the Russians and the Kurds take care of business. Unfortunately the US doesn’t do what it SHOULD do. I was trying to say that simply being on the right side for a change isn’t enough. America has no business in that hemisphere. I feel the same way about WW2. Just because I preferred a communist victory doesn’t mean that I think the US had any right to get involved. By all means, root for Yugoslavia, root for Rojava. But stay the f**k out of it.
the war is just getting started, this is just positioning.