Obama's a little trickier than Erdogan

Submitted by Michael S (United States), Nov 5, 2015 at 00:20

Hi, Alexandros

I haven't found any reason yet, to think of Erdogan as anything other than an conceited, megalomaniacal dictator.. His type come a dime a dozen, especially in the Middle East. Our own leader, Obama, is trickier and more interesting -- you never know when he's calculatingly insane, or just plain wigged out.

I also noticed the fact that ISIS is going after the Russians but not Erdogan. I suppose this is in no small part, because E. is protecting ISIS in their vital supply corridor through Jarabulus. That's straightforward. What's a little more sneaky, is Obama sending 50 US special forces to "help" the Rojava Kurds, who have said they plan to take Jarabulus from the Turks. Are the Turks and US working at cross-purposes here? I wondered for a while; but now I realize that all Obama is doing, is trying to reign in the Kurds to keep them east of the Euphrates. He might even give them some "busywork" assignments fighting ISIS; but even ISIS knows he isn't serious about that. After all, have they shot down any US passenger planes? No -- just Russian planes.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".