Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Turks Agree to Pause in Syrian Offensive
Turkey's government has paused its military advance into northern Syria. American Vice-President Mike Pence was on a visit to Turkey and allegedly helped broker the pause. Perhaps. The fact is that for five days, the Turkish military won't make any moves against the Kurdish fighters in the area, whom the Americans abandoned not that many days ago. The Turks can afford a hiatus because they are in position to achieve everything they wanted without firing any further shots. It's hard to see this pause as anything but a retreat for the US and a complete victory for Turkey as well as a major gain for Russia.
The key comments came from Mr. Pence who said, "I'm grateful for the president's leadership. I'm grateful for the more than five hours of negotiations with President [Recep] Erdogan," adding that the parties "arrived at a solution that we believe will save lives."
Without American airpower supporting them, the Kurds are no match for the Turks, who possess the second biggest military in NATO. Indeed, their ability to stop the Turks is so small that they were not even participants in the discussions about the pause.
NBC News reported, "The agreement appears to be a significant embrace of Turkey's position in the weeklong conflict, giving the Turks what they had sought to achieve with their military operation. After the Kurdish forces are cleared from the safe zone, Turkey has committed to a permanent cease-fire but is under no obligation to withdraw its troops. In addition, the deal gives Turkey relief from sanctions the administration had imposed and threatened to impose since the invasion began, meaning there will be no penalty for the operation."
The only thing to say in favor of the agreement is that it prevents the wholesale slaughter of the Kurds, who can retreat to Iraq, perhaps. Either way, the Turks were going to take this territory. Their objective is to resettle the thousands upon thousands of Syrian refugees currently in Turkey in that territory. That will make them someone else's problem. At the same time, it destroys an autonomous Kurdish area that might have inspired Turkey's Kurds to resist the dictates of the Ankara regime.
The cease-fire ends after 120 hours, and if the Kurds don't get out of Dodge in time, the killing will start again. Their new allies, the al-Assad regime in Damascus and the Russians, will probably not help them if they stand their ground. It would be foolish when retreat is an option.
However, there are reports that the Turks are still fighting. "SDF [the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces] are committed to the ceasefire, but from last night until this morning we are seeing shelling on Ras al-Ain by the Turkish military and its mercenaries on SDF and civilian Kurdish targets, and in particular on the Ras al-Ain hospital in the city this morning," SDF Press Commander Merivan Qamishlo said.
"The situation inside the Ras al-Ain Hospital is catastrophic. Three ambulance vehicles belonging to the Kurdish Red Crescent were prevented from entering and were shot at. The city is completely surrounded by air and ground from the Turkish military," he added.
President Trump, however, thinks he has accomplished something amazing. "I'm happy to report tremendous success with respect to Turkey," Mr. Trump told reporters after his vice president and secretary of state announced the deal. "This is an amazing outcome. This is an outcome, regardless of how the press would like to damp it down, this was something they were trying to get for 10 years." Indeed, it was something America was preventing for a decade.
One commentator said it was similar to an arsonist starting a housefire and claiming credit for calling the fire department. It's a poor comparison. The Syrian debacle is far worse. America has become more than dispensible in the region.
© Copyright 2019 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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