{"id":17935,"date":"2015-12-15T16:00:50","date_gmt":"2015-12-15T23:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/?p=17935"},"modified":"2015-12-15T16:08:34","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T23:08:34","slug":"irrational-u-s-policy-beguiled-by-middle-eastern-sycophants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/irrational-u-s-policy-beguiled-by-middle-eastern-sycophants\/","title":{"rendered":"Irrational U.S. Policy Beguiled by Middle-Eastern Sycophants"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why the Russian Turkey shoot in Syria?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Vladimir Putin pulled Turkey’s covers when he accused it of shooting down a slow Russian Bomber near its border due to the wholesale funneling of money to ISIS in return for the oil ‘smuggled’ across its border. While the Russian plane may not have been a military threat to Turkey, it certainly posed \u00a0a diplomatic one. It may have been riddled with cameras. ISIS has made many enemies internationally. A nation caught doing business with them would not be applauded. It would be condemned and reviled. Yet, when news of the Parisian fatalities resulting from a well coordinated terrorist attack reached their Muslim sympathizers in Turkey, there were crowds in the Turkish streets celebrating the slaughter.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the U.S. policy in the region is totally irrational, failing, as it does, to acknowledge the U.S. has (with the possible exception of Israel) NO ‘friends’ in the region. Oh sure, our purported ‘allies’ (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, etc.) fawn submissively for U.S. leaders, but ‘friends’?…’allies’? The truth is, NOBODY in the middle east has any ‘friends’ when it comes to the chaotic warfare and special interests pursued by each stakeholder.<\/p>\n

An example of the chaotic nature of the conflict and associated intrigue is reflected in the following article:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0by Hallinan<\/em><\/p>\n

Why did Turkey shoot down that Russian warplane?<\/p>\n

It was certainly not because the SU-24 posed any threat. The plane is old and slow, and the Russians were careful not to arm it with anti-aircraft missiles. And it wasn\u2019t because the Turks are quick on the trigger, either. Three years ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip\u00a0Erdogan emphatically declared<\/a>\u00a0that a \u201cshort-term violation of airspace can never be a pretext for an attack.\u201d\u00a0There are even\u00a0some doubts<\/a>\u00a0about whether the Russian plane ever crossed into Turkey\u2019s airspace at all.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the whole November 24 incident looks increasingly suspicious, and one doesn\u2019t have to be a paranoid Russian to think the takedown might have been an ambush. As retired Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, former U.S. Air Force chief of staff,\u00a0told Fox News<\/a>, \u201cThis airplane was not making any maneuvers to attack the [Turkish] territory.\u201d He called the Turkish action \u201coverly aggressive\u201d and concluded that the incident \u201chad to be preplanned.\u201d<\/p>\n

It certainly puzzled the\u00a0Israeli military<\/a>, not known for taking a casual approach to military intrusions. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told the press on November 29 that a Russian warplane had violated the Israeli border over the Golan Heights. \u201cRussian planes do not intend to attack us, which is why we must not automatically react and shoot them down when an error occurs.\u201d<\/p>\n

So why was the plane downed?<\/p>\n

Perhaps because, for the first time in four years, some major players are tentatively inching toward a settlement of the catastrophic Syrian civil war, and powerful forces are maneuvering to torpedo that process. If the Russians hadn\u2019t kept their\u00a0cool<\/a>, several nuclear-armed powers could well have found themselves in a scary faceoff, and any thoughts of ending the war would have gone a-glimmering.<\/p>\n

A Short Score Card<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are multiple actors on the Syrian stage \u2014 and a bewildering number of crosscurrents and competing agendas that, paradoxically, make it both easier and harder to find common ground. Easier, because there is no unified position among the antagonists; harder, because trying to herd heavily armed cats is a tricky business.<\/p>\n

A short score card on the players:<\/p>\n

The Russians and the Iranians are supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and fighting a host of extremist organizations ranging from al-Qaeda to the Islamic State, or ISIS. But each country has a different view of what a post-civil war Syria might look like. The Russians want a centralized and secular state with a big army. The Iranians don\u2019t think much of \u201csecular,\u201d and they favor\u00a0militias<\/a>, not armies.<\/p>\n

Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and most the other Gulf monarchies are trying to overthrow the Assad regime, and are the major supporters of the groups Russia, Iran, and Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah are fighting. But while Turkey and Qatar want to replace Assad with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi Arabia might just hate the Brotherhood more than it does Assad. And while the monarchies are not overly concerned with the Kurds, Turkey is\u00a0bombing<\/a>\u00a0them, and they\u2019re a major reason why Ankara is so deeply enmeshed in Syria.<\/p>\n

The U.S., France, and the United Kingdom are also trying to overthrow Assad, but are currently focused on fighting ISIS using the Kurds as their major allies \u2014 specifically the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Party, an offshoot of the Turkish Kurdish Workers Party that the U.S. officially designates as \u201cterrorist.\u201d These are the same Kurds that the Turks are bombing and who have a friendly alliance with the Russians.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Turkey may discover that one of the price tags for shooting down that SU-24 is the sudden appearance of new Russian weapons for the Kurds, some of which will be aimed at the Turks.<\/p>\n

A Suspension of Rational Thought<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Syrian war requires a certain suspension of rational thought.<\/p>\n

For instance, the Americans are unhappy with the Russians for bombing the anti-Assad Army of Conquest, a rebel alliance dominated by the Nusra Front, al-Qaeda\u2019s franchise in Syria. That would be the same al-Qaeda that brought down the World Trade Center towers and that the U.S. is currently bombing in Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Suspension of rational thought is not limited to Syria.<\/p>\n

A number of Arab countries initially joined the U.S. air war against the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, because both organizations are pledged to overthrow the Gulf monarchies. But Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar have now\u00a0dropped out<\/a>\u00a0to concentrate their air power on bombing the Houthis in Yemen.<\/p>\n

The Houthis, however, are by far the most effective force fighting ISIS and al-Qaeda in Yemen. Both extremist organizations have made major gains in the last few weeks because the Houthis are too busy defending themselves to take them on.<\/p>\n

Moves Toward a Settlement<\/strong><\/p>\n

In spite of all this political derangement, however, there are several developments that are pushing the sides toward some kind of peaceful settlement that doesn\u2019t involve regime change in Syria. That is exactly what the Turks and the Gulf monarchs are worried about, and a major reason why Ankara shot down that Russian plane.<\/p>\n

The first of these developments has been building throughout the summer: a growing flood of Syrians fleeing the war. There are already almost 2 million in Turkey, over a million each in Jordan and Lebanon, and as many as 900,000 in Europe. Out of 23 million Syrians, some 11 million have been displaced by the war, and the Europeans are worried that many of those 11 million people will end up camping out on the banks of the Seine and the Ruhr. If the war continues into next year, that\u2019s an entirely plausible prediction.<\/p>\n

Hence, the Europeans have quietly\u00a0shelved<\/a>\u00a0their demand that Assad resign as a prerequisite for a ceasefire and are leaning on the\u00a0Americans<\/a>\u00a0to follow suit. The issue is hardly resolved, but there seems to be general agreement that Assad will at least be part of a transition government. At this point, the Russians and Iranians are insisting on an\u00a0election<\/a>\u00a0in which Assad would be a candidate because both are wary of anything that looks like \u201cregime change.\u201d The role Assad might play will be a sticking point, but probably not an insurmountable one.<\/p>\n

Turkey and Saudi Arabia are adamant that Assad must go, but neither of them is in the\u00a0driver\u2019s seat<\/a>\u00a0these days. While NATO supported Turkey in the Russian plane incident, according to some of the Turkish press, many of its leading officials consider Erdogan a\u00a0loose cannon<\/a>. And Saudi Arabia \u2014 whose economy has been hard hit by the worldwide fall in oil prices \u2014 is preoccupied by its Yemen war, which is turning into a very expensive quagmire.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Role<\/strong><\/p>\n

The second development is the Russian intervention, which appears to have\u00a0changed things<\/a>\u00a0on the ground, at least in the north, where Assad\u2019s forces were being hard pressed by the Army of Conquest. New weapons and airpower have dented a rebel offensive and resulted in some gains in the government\u2019s battle for Syria\u2019s largest city, Aleppo.<\/p>\n

Russian bombing also took a heavy toll on the\u00a0Turkmen<\/a>\u00a0insurgents in the Bayir-Bucak region, the border area that Turkey has used to\u00a0infiltrate arms<\/a>, supplies, and insurgents into Syria.<\/p>\n

The appearance of the Russians essentially killed Turkey\u2019s efforts to create a \u201cno fly zone\u201d on its border with Syria, a proposal that the U.S. has never been\u00a0enthusiastic<\/a>\u00a0about. Washington\u2019s major allies, the Kurds, are strongly opposed to a no fly zone because they see it as part of Ankara\u2019s efforts to keep the Kurds from forming an autonomous region in Syria.<\/p>\n

The Bayir-Bucak area and the city of Jarabulus are also the exit point for Turkey\u2019s lucrative oil smuggling operation, apparently overseen by one of Erdogan\u2019s sons, Bilal. The Russians have embarrassed the Turks by publishing\u00a0satellite photos<\/a>\u00a0showing miles of tanker trucks picking up oil from ISIS-controlled wells and shipping it through Turkey\u2019s southern border with Syria.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe oil controlled by the Islamic State militants enters Turkish territory on an industrial scale,\u201d Russian President Vladimir Putin\u00a0said November 30<\/a>. \u201cWe have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure the security of this oil\u2019s delivery routes to ports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erdogan and NATO<\/strong><\/p>\n

Erdogan didn\u2019t get quite the response he wanted from NATO following the shooting down of the SU-24. While the military alliance backed Turkey\u2019s defense of its \u201csovereignty,\u201d NATO then called for a peaceful resolution and de-escalation of the whole matter.<\/p>\n

At a time when Europe needs a solution to the refugee crisis \u2014 and wants to focus its firepower on the organization that killed 130 people in Paris \u2014 NATO cannot be happy that the Turks are dragging them into a confrontation with the Russians, making the whole situation a lot more dangerous than it was before the November 24 incident.<\/p>\n

The Russians have now deployed their more modern SU-34 bombers and armed them with\u00a0air-to-air missiles<\/a>. The bombers will now also be escorted by SU-35 fighters. The Russians have also fielded S-300 and S-400\u00a0anti-aircraft systems<\/a>, the latter with a range of 250 miles. The Russians say they\u2019re not looking for trouble, but they\u2019re loaded for bear should it happen.<\/p>\n

Would a dustup between Turkish and Russian planes bring NATO \u2014 and four nuclear armed nations \u2014 into a confrontation? That possibility ought to keep people up at night.<\/p>\n

Coming to the Table<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometime around the New Year, the countries involved in the Syrian civil war will come together in Geneva. A number of those will do their level best to derail the talks, but one hopes there are enough sane \u2014 and desperate \u2014 parties on hand to map out a political solution.<\/p>\n

It won\u2019t be easy, and who gets to sit at the table has yet to be decided. The Turks will object to the Kurds; the Russians, Iranians, and Kurds will object to the Army of Conquest; and the Saudis will object to Assad. In the end it could all come apart. It\u2019s not hard to torpedo a peace plan in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

But if the problems are great, failure will be catastrophic. That may be the glue that keeps the parties together long enough to hammer out a ceasefire, an arms embargo, a new constitution, and internationally supervised elections.<\/p>\n

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Why the Russian Turkey shoot in Syria? Vladimir Putin pulled Turkey’s covers when he accused it of shooting down a slow Russian Bomber near its border due to the wholesale funneling of money to ISIS in return for the oil … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17935"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17941,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17935\/revisions\/17941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}