Ironically the escalation comes in the so-called de-escalation zone in Syria’s Idlib province bordering Turkey. The de-escalation zone was set up following talks between Turkey and Russia in the Russian city of Sochi in 2018.

The latest escalation started when Syria backed by Russian air support earlier this month launched an offensive to take control of Idlib and declare the final victory. Its earlier attempts to take the province and finish the war were stalled under Turkish protests.  But this time, Syria appears to be determined.  In the Syrian attacks, already more than a dozen Turkish soldiers manning military outposts in Idlib have perished.  Turkey was furious with both Syria and Russia.

As the crisis escalated, the United States sent a special envoy to Ankara in an apparent attempt to drag Turkey away from Russia.  Also visiting Ankara at the same time was a Russian delegation but Turkey stood its ground and insisted on a Syrian withdrawal from Idlib – a demand Russia was not willing to take to its Syrian ally.
As the escalation threatens to spark a confrontation between Russia and Turkey, Erdogan told Parliament on Wednesday that Turkey was determined to push the Syrian troops beyond Turkish observation posts by the end of February. “We will do this by any means necessary, by air or ground,” he warned.

The warning underscores the hyper volatility of the Middle East. No region in the world has seen so many wars for so long a period.

The United Nations has miserably failed to bring about at least a temporary ceasefire to any of the conflicts raging in the Middle East, though in the preamble to its charter the world body proclaims it was set up to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.

Paradoxically, Syria is the antithesis of the United Nations. More than a dozen countries directly and scores of others indirectly are present in this conflict.

Directly involved in the conflict are Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, the United States, Russia, and Israel.

The US claims it came to Syria to fight ISIS, but it seems to be in league with ISIS because they both want the Syrian regime toppled.

There is conflict and there is cooperation, at least, tacitly.
Nowhere does the aphorism ‘one’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter’ make more sense than in Syria. In the fight against ISIS, the US has partnered with Syrian Kurds whom Washington’s Nato ally Turkey condemns as terrorists.

The conflict in Syria was not fully homegrown. It was largely foreign made. It erupted in the backdrop of Arab Spring protests that gave false hope to the region’s people that they would soon be empowered by democracy. But the rich and politically influential Gulf nations made use of the Arab Spring agitations to achieve their own foreign policy goals. In a violent overthrow, they ousted Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.  They wanted to repeat the regime change formula in Syria also but got stumped.

These outside forces wanted to achieve their geopolitical and geo-economic goals even if it led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of displacements and untold human suffering. All they wanted was to check Iran and deny it a contiguous land mobility through Syria all the way to South Lebanon where the powerful Iranian-backed Hizbollah militia hold sway.  They were also interested in a pipeline project across Syria for them to send their oil and gas to the European market, dominated by Russia with a 60 percent market share.

By arming and financing the Syrian rebellion and covertly supporting ISIS and al-Qaeda groups, the Gulf nations and the West almost succeeded in toppling the Assad regime, but Russia’s entry and the intervention of Iran together with Hezbollah changed the war’s course in Assad’s favor.

To this crowded space, also sending troops was the US, ostensibly to fight ISIS, but its adventure almost set off a major confrontation with Russia when in a four-hour battle in May 2018, US forces killed more than 100 Russian paramilitary forces.

Russia was angry but was prudent enough not to let the crisis escalate into an all-out war between the world’s top two nuclear powers. Another major incident where Russia exercised constraint was when Turkey shot down a Russian military plane. Russia’s diplomacy paid off. Turkey, which hosts some 3.5 million Syrian refugees and supports the Syrian rebel group Free Syrian Army (FS), became Russia’s partner in Syria. So much so, Turkey was seen drifting away from the US orbit.

The US-Turkey relations soured when Turkey suspected it had a role in the 2016 botched military coup and later when the US in the fight against the ISIS joined hands with Syrian Kurds, whom Turkey regards as terrorists. Last year Turkey, defying US objections, bought S400 missiles from Russia.

The Turkey-Russia partnership is now falling apart. One is insisting that the other fulfills its part of the Sochi deal, according to which, Turkey is allowed to set up military outposts in the Idlib de-escalation zone but with Syria’s permission, while Turkey will ensure that the rebels are neutralized.

Russia accuses Turkey of not fulfilling its part of the deal and aggravating the crisis by arbitrarily setting up a buffer zone along the border with Syria.

These developments, together with Syria’s latest military gains which have enabled it to take control of a major highway connecting Damascus and Aleppo, have killed the Sochi agreement and the Astana process whereby Russia sought to bring the Syrian conflict’s stakeholders to the peace table.

A new regional conflict is escalating fast, with Turkey sending in more troops to Syria while Russia and Syria are determined to wipe out the rebels from their last stronghold.  Can diplomacy prevent the coming conflict?

Source: http://www.dailymirror.lk/opinion/Can-diplomacy-prevent-Turkey-Russia-clash-in-Syria/172-183059

The post Can diplomacy prevent Turkey-Russia clash in Syria? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

ERBIL – Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer for assisting the Syrian Kurds has been accepted, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely has revealed.

The Israeli official noted that they “are assisting them through a number of channels,” and that advocating for them in discussions with the US, as the Syrian Kurds have been affected by the Turkish incursion into the neighboring country in October.

Turkey began an offensive against the Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria on October 9, while the US started to withdraw its forces from the region and let the NATO ally move into the area.

“Israel has received many requests for assistance, mainly in the diplomatic and humanitarian realm,” she said, according to Reuters. “We identify with the deep distress of the Kurds, and we are assisting them through a range of channels.”

She, however, did not clarify how the Jewish state would help the Kurdish nation in Syria, but pointed out that in their “dialogue with the Americans…, we state our truth regarding the Kurds…and we are proud of our taking a stand alongside the Kurdish people,” as cited by Harretz.

Source: http://www.basnews.com/index.php/en/news/middle-east/559164

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We’re going to start the program today with a look at a number of important international stories. In a few minutes, we’ll find out why more peacekeepers are being killed as they try to carry out their missions. But we’re going to start in Syria, where two of the United States’ biggest allies are on the opposite sides of an increasingly dangerous standoff. The United States has long relied on Turkey as a key ally in the Middle East and in Europe – it borders both. The U.S. has also relied on the help of ethnic Kurdish fighters in campaigns in Iraq and Syria. But now, Turkey is launching an assault against Syrian Kurds along their border and are demanding the U.S. stay out of the way. Just today, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that 484 Kurds had been, quote, “neutralized” as part of Turkey’s, quote, “Operation Olive Branch.”

To find out more about what all this means from an American perspective, we’re joined now by Ali Soufan. He’s a former FBI supervisory special agent who focused on issues surrounding international conflict. He’s now the CEO of The Soufan Group. Welcome. Thank you so much for speaking with us.

ALI SOUFAN: Thank you, Michel.

MARTIN: So first of all, why is Turkey going after the Syrian Kurds along the Turkish southern border?

SOUFAN: Well, their support of the Kurdish militias on the border of Turkey has been problematic from the very beginning. And now after the so-called Islamic State has been defeated and the physical caliphate is no more, there is nothing – basically, there’s no common denominator between Turkey’s strategy in Syria and in the region and the United States’ strategy in Syria and the region. And now, what we have is a Turkish policy that focuses on protecting what they fear – a threat that’s going to come from the Kurdish militias on their borders versus the United States, where we were focusing specifically on the defeat of ISIS.

What we see today, Michel, is the theater, the conflict, the war in Syria is getting smaller and smaller. And with that, there are so many different goals and aims of all the members of the coalition. And this is just a manifestation – what’s happening – the conflict between the United States and Turkey.

MARTIN: Remembering that the U.S. was allied closely with both groups in fighting ISIS, do I take it to be that that fight is largely finished and as a consequence of that – or is fighting ISIS still a concern in Syria?

SOUFAN: Well, I think fighting ISIS should still be a concern in Syria. You know, defeating the physical caliphate is only half of the battle. You know, we have to be sure that we have a strategy that prevent ISIS from coming back.

MARTIN: So Turkey is claiming that the U.S. is cutting off support for the Syrian Kurds, which in English, we – are known as the YPG. We have not been able to confirm that with the Pentagon or the White House or the State Department. No one has to our knowledge. And I’d like to ask you what you make of that claim.

SOUFAN: First of all, that airspace is controlled by the Russians, frankly. So Russia is allowing Turkey to bomb the Kurds. And then at the same time, they are promoting this idea that the United States, as an ally, cannot be trusted, and they are promoting the narrative that the United States – that we’re giving up on the Kurds. I think Russia is playing a game where it’s a win-win situation for them. You know, the Turkish supporting the Turkish campaign against the Kurds create a tension between two NATO allies, and that’s good for Russia. Bombing the Kurds also create that narrative that Russia has been pushing for a while that the United States is not a trusted ally. And you know, if you wanted to bet diplomatically in the Middle East region on a force to help you, bet on the Russians, not on the Americans.

MARTIN: So President Trump has been in office for a year now. Needless to say, the facts on the ground are different. They have shifted over the course of the year. But broadly speaking, do you see a different strategy in Syria now than we saw under the Obama administration?

SOUFAN: No, I think – and this is part of the problem – I think what we witnessed under President Trump is just the evolution of the strategy that put in place under President Obama. But now with the defeat of the physical caliphate, with the destruction of ISIS and the liberation of Syrian territory to the most part from the group, I think that strategy does not make any sense anymore. And now, we start seeing a diplomatic conflict and other – a military even conflict between the different allies because, you know, we need leadership.

Where are we going with Syria? Are we pushing diplomatically for a political solution? What’s going to happen to the Kurds? What’s going to happen to Assad? And unfortunately, I think we’re a little bit behind the eight ball when it comes to this because our strategy has been and continued to be defeating ISIS and preventing ISIS from coming back. And that’s fine and dandy. We need to do that. But also, we need to look at the bigger picture. We need to look at the geopolitical map. We need to look at, what’s Iran doing? What’s Turkey doing? What’s Russia doing in the region? But I think, diplomatically, we’re not there yet.

MARTIN: That’s Ali Soufan. He’s CEO of The Soufan Group. He’s a former counterterrorism agent at the FBI, and we reached him in Washington, D.C. Ali Soufan, thank you so much for speaking with us today.

SOUFAN: Thank you, Michel.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2018/01/28/581460832/u-s-military-options-in-syria

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