Speaking in the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Irbil on Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dismissed the idea of Turkish threats of military action against the Syrian YPG having any impact on the US withdrawal from Syria. He said that the pullout would not impact a US commitment to protect the YPG.
Pompeo’s position seems to be to overtly ignore the comments made by
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on how no concessions can be made
with respect to the YPG. Instead, Pompeo is insisting that Erdogan
“understands” the US determination to see the YPG protected, and that he
had made some unspecified “commitments” in that regard.
What was actually said isn’t entirely clear, but Pompeo has repeatedly made
reference to Turkish promises to “protect” the Syrian Kurds. Erdogan,
on the other hand, has said as recently as yesterday that Turkey “cannot make any concessions” on the YPG.
In the end, Pompeo seems to be willfully ignoring what Turkey is
actually saying publicly with the respect to the YPG, and insisting that
everything will fall into place, without any suggestion of how this
might happen.
Taking Turkey at their word, the more likely scenario is that they
follow through on years of threatening to invade YPG territory. The US
reaction will likely be minimal, publicly criticizing Turkey, but
ultimately not doing anything too serious to the NATO member.
The chaotic US policy towaards Syria is clearly the result of serious conflict within US — various stakeholders are pulling in different directions. And it appears that whoever they are — all stops are pulled to influence the decisionmakers. The end result is — a very dangerous situation. While our stskeholders see the conflict as reflection of their interests — the primary actors in the region are dead serious. We are trampling all over their red lines, almost as if provoking them. I would not be shocked if the conflict with Turkey would not be aactually hoped for — there have been a number of Mossad rumblings about the “danger” that Turkey represents to the region, and all the stops are pulled in order to convince all Sunni Arab states to “confront” Turkey. It almost sounds like — lets termporarily forget about Iran, and “contain” Turkey.
I do not believe that there is any energy either in Gulf or Egypt, not to mention disfunctional North Africa, to come together against Turkey. To do this — they will have to be prepared for a serious break with borh Russia and China. Turkey is a key node in Belt and Road infrastructure plans, not to mention energy hub.
Since all Gulf and other Arab states depend on China and Russia for many fundamentals. And with Western economies not becoming engine of economic growth any time soon — the risk of alienating Russia and China sounds crazy. It is also not likely that Arab states are willing to provide a cover for some plans to confront Turkey.
Whichever one looks at it — Turkey’s refusal to change its decision on Russian S-400 is the sticking point. But the idea that Turkey will have to back down and accept inferior defense — to please Israel — will not fly well in Turkey.
There is a meeting being set up in Moscow with Iran and Turkey. Turkey has upped the verbal game by suggesting the three of them securing Syria after pull out. This sounds more like taunting than a serious proposal. Which just proves the absurdity of the situation.
But the withdrawal order has been signed by Mattis, and the chaos that ensued is passing for US policy making process.
Let us just hope that there are some adults left in the region to manage the situation.
Erdogan is the Chief-jihadi. The USA should stop please turkey.
So Bolton is saying no pullout (well ever) until the Turks promise to do the Kurds laundry and Pompeo is saying timeline (??) unaffected so 4 months?
Sounds like Bonkers Bolton and Pompous Pompeo are on different pages now .. Bolton saying no withdrawal until the Turks promise to do the Kurds’ laundry (will never happen) .. Pompeo saying timeline (??) unaffected so 4 months?
Turkey is still hosting close to FOUR MILLION refugees and nobody talks about them. They are a key part of this situation. Many of those refugees are Sunni Arabs who want to return to this Kurdish area, where they were forced out of entire villages.
“The Kurds” don’t want them back and accuse them of working with ISIS or Assad or Turkey or whatever they feel like from day to day. Half of the Kurds in Syria still want their Rojava and don’t even know the PKK is something different and wouldn’t go along with them if they knew. Half the PKK has the same goals as the Rojava. Some of the Kurds want this and some want that, but whatever they are we should at least stop talking about them as “The Kurds”. The Kurds were never more than 10% of this region, the rest are treated as second class citizens because they are refugees themselves and now want to replace the Sunni. Regardless, they are not A Single Group let alone united in their support for their PKK leaders.
The reality is that “the Kurds” ended up with PKK leadership taking over politically and this happened in large part because the US armed the PKK fighters, tossed in some Syrian kurds and a few others and called it the YPG or the other various names they call it. But it’s still PKK leadership because the US armed them in the first place, not because the majority of the Kurds support their aims.
Furthermore, don’t the Sunni who where run off their own land get a vote in who runs this area? Why do the people who drove them off their land get to decide what happens next? We all seem to assume they should but why? It’s not their land is it?
Turkey wants the Sunni and other refugees who live in this area to go back and then they can all decide what “they” (Sunni, Shiite, Kurds, etc.) want. Turkey says the PKK has to go for a number of reasons but nobody mentions the refugees at all, ever. Not even here, at least not in combination with the pullout and why Turkey is going to move troops in. It’s not just to push the PKK out it’s so that they can move the refugees back in. They have been pushing refugees back into other parts of Syria but it’s still millions of people living in really bad conditions, which causes no end of problems.
If we took the role of the US out of this entire thing and just looked at Turkey as a NATO ally, we would see this spun as Turkey helping the poor refugees return to their villages, which they had been ethnically cleansed from. Not that I’m saying this is Turkey’s only reason but that is how it would have been spun and it would actually be an easy sell normally. I expect the main stream media to refuse to talk about this because to admit this would be to admit we supported the ethnic cleansing of this region. It’s not entirely accurate of course. Sunni’s who joined the YPG were allowed to stay so it’s not exactly ethnic cleansing either, more of a combination of religious/political cleansing. Either way, when you empty entire villages of people and won’t let them back, it’s too close for me.
Nothing anyone in the Trump Administration says can be taken seriously. There is no captain manning the ship. The Centre cannot hold. The falcon cannot hear the falconer. Erdogan will do what he wants because he knows he can. There is no plan B to stop him. Trump gave him the green light on a wim and then took it back just as spontaneously. His neocons are trying to steer sh*t in their own direction but this is just making the US look weaker….
Good. America has raped this world blind for well over a century. It’s high time this empire got put in it’s place. Trump isn’t an isolationist. He’s a scatter-brained opportunist. A living, breathing, caricature of predator capitalism in all its feral, self-destructive lunacy. He isn’t the problem. He’s a garish symptom of the decline of western civilization. Here’s hoping he stays unimpeached just long enough to crash this zeppelin into a f**king cliff. The anti-statists among us will build a brave new world atop the wreckage. We’ll put Trump’s bloated, orange, carcinogenic, auto-erotic-asphyxiated carcass on display in the commune square. He’s earned it.