Rubber Banding Mapping Boundaries

Submitted by M. Tovey (United States), Oct 13, 2014 at 15:44

While an analogy, and certainly arguable one, can be made in likening the Kobani 'crISIS' to the World War Two scenario of the Soviet conquest of Eastern Europe at the Polish doorstep, there are just as many circumstances that make the distinctions just as remarkable, not the least of which is that Turkey appears to be 'waiting in the wings,' wanting a fresh perspective as whose side they want to be on when Syria finally implodes. Iraq is just as marginal as well.

To be sure, there is no love lost between the Turkish government and ANY associations with the Kurdish ambitions of a reestablishing a homeland (Kurdistan ambitions being discussed elsewhere) that must inevitably involve Turkish territory. Yet ISIS/ISIL/IS is making no such distinctions of frontiers either; that al-Baghdadi's ambitions are every bit as challenging as Turkish PM Erdoǧan's for a new caliphate.

Somewhere in the shadows are the whisperings of strengthening Turkish ties with the Russians; which if true, is an interesting development that literally pits many contravening ideologies and disparate intentions into a play for power that cannot help but to put the Middle East into such a disarray that apparently no one is currently able to fathom. There has got to be a Tom Clancy novel in here somewhere.

So, in a mapping challenge, where does the ISIS/ISIL/IS expect its 'fertile crescent' boundary to be established if they can repudiate and repulse all other claims to being the reigning caliphate? And just as importantly, how does the Iranian component fit into all of this. They have thoughts of the Kurdish influences they thought were under their control and now it is not so clear. The location of the 'fertile crescent' buffers the Iranians from their proxy fights they started and now wonder how to finish them.

After all, isn't of all this about fighting proxy wars in the Middle East and apparently ISIS/ISIL/IS is not playing well with others? And as noted in elsewhere in this topic chain whether the Turks fear Russians and Chinese, was it not in this forum that we read that Turkey wanted a part of the Russian-Chinese alliance pact? It is that alliance that may be the trigger that puts ISIS/ISIL/IS in their place; or maybe that is a future alliance no one can see yet; a caliphate that take in all the regions in question.

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