Turkey-

Submitted by Michael S, Mar 8, 2017 at 01:57

Hi, Tovey. You said,

"...a greater danger exists from a failing of western societies from their own internal contentious behaviors..."

You are completely correct here. You went onn,

"Now we see another form of Russian interventionism that appears to make Russia a friend of Islamic extremism, mostly with the Shiites"

Ironically, the Russians are also on the side of the Syrian Christians, along with other minorities; and they are actually fighting against the worst of the extremists, ISIS (which the Turks, Saudis and even the Peshmerga, to a large extent, are not). You went on,

"Look closely at the Ezekiel division of animosity,,, as the invasion of Israel gets underway: one can almost hear the distinction of the Sunni influences chiming in with the inquiry of Gog's intentions... America will be asking that question as well."

Yes, Ezekiel reads that way, substituting Saudi Arabia and allies for "Dedan and Sheba"; and the US and allies for "the merchants of Tarshish".

Concerning Turkey's progress in Syria, here is the latest map:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6QLV8LXQAAsXgw.jpg

It shows the areas (orange) that the Kurds (yellow) have handed over to the Syrian government forces (red) to keep the Turks & allies (green) focused on fighting ISIS instead of attacking the Kurds. The Turks, right now, seem bottled up in the green "safe zone" they have been demanding, so Syrian refugees can stan in Syria instead of invading Turkey. This is certainly not Erdogan's final ambition in the area; but while he is currently distracted by domestic politics, it will do for a while.

The US is backing up the Kurds now with an armored force of Stryker vehicles. This is a significant escalation of American involvement there; but it is a smart move, to help us meet our objective of defeating ISIS. At the moment, Russia is our de facto ally (along with Iran and Hizbullah) in this endeavor. It looks as though it will be quite some time, before Turkey allies with Iran to attack Israel.

We'll see.

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