US-Turkish-ISIS Alliance

Submitted by Michael S (United States), Nov 4, 2015 at 15:56

Hi, Alexandros

I assume you're being facetious about there being any "logic" in Erdogan's statements. Here's how I see it.

1. Years before the "Arab Spring", Erdogan had designs on Israel. He showed this by provoking the Mavi Marmara affair. His overriding ambition was to restore Ottoman glory with him as the Sultan, and only Israel could effectively challenge this ambition
2. Enter the "Arab Spring". Erdogan backed an overthrow of his neighbor Bashar al-Assad by the Muslim Brotherhood; but Assad resisted, and Erdogan's plans were thwarted. Now his path to regional domination was blocked not just by Israel, but by Assad as well; so Erdogan backed Islamist rebels to overthrow Assad
3. Those Islamist rebels turned out to be too radical for the American and European public, in their attempt to resurrect the 8th Century Arab Caliphate. After several beheadings and much gore, US President Obama felt pressured to fight against this "Caliphate". He even got the Turks to go along with him, doing lip service to fighting the Islamists (who, remember, were put there in the first place by the US and Turkey) with a limp hand while mainly fighting against the Kurds.
4. Enter the Russians, who actually ARE fighting the Islamists, and are wooing the Kurds as well. Obama saw his whole game about to fall apart, and has sent 50 US special forces troops to "help" the Kurds. In reality, those troops are there to keep the Kurds from fighting the Islamists in a way that offends the Turks.

Israel, meanwhile, needs to be able to operate freely against Assad's allies, Hizbullah, without needlessly picking a quarrel with the Russians. Meanwhile, our men and women in Syrian Kurdistan are entirely surrounded by the Turks and their ISIS allies. I imagine he wants to set up a puppet regional government there, similar to Barzani's Kurdish Kleptocracy in Iraq. Notice that ISIS isn't really working very hard to stop this: Their most dangerous enemy is Russia; and they are going after them tooth and nail.

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