Turkey’s strategic objectives: are they being met even as rebels face defeat?
Posted Feb 19, 2020, 11:27 AM UTC
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P.s. I wonder if there is still anyone in SCW who thinks is just all bluff or that Turkey just wants a deal for m5. Or that Turkey is actually planning to attack HTS hahaha...
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That's a strange question. Turkeys strategic objective is to secure Idlib
Which Turkey intends to do by force if it has to..
The rebels aren't losing as much as their are retreating.
Just woke up to another failed talk and Erdogan openly saying that an operation is imminent while Russia talks about de-escalating and worst case scenarios.
Like I said before, russia again offered everything behind the M5 (so not that fantasy map that Assadists had drawn). But Turkey refused. Turkey is not interested in compromise. Assad needs to pull back or Turkey will make him pull back.
Apparently towns inside Tuekey have been turned into military areas. Turkish troops and pulling out of certain places and burning their bases (allegedly). If true, an operation is truly imminent.
I guess what I am saying is that you are confounding rhetorical framing with long term strategy. “Securing Idlib” is the framing, not the strategy. The strategy is exterior force projection and increasing Turkey’s footprint as a regional power. And, as u/pplswar indicates, crushing the PKK and other exponents of Kurdish nationalism is the most important objective in Syria.
We are talking about Idlib. There is no PKK in Idlib. Having Idlib under Turkish control doesn't remove the PKK from northern Syria.
Turkey's main objective in Idlib is to secure a safe space for the civilians in Idlib. Which it will do with force if it needs to. Turkey is in Idlib to force the SAA to pull back, peacefully or not. This has nothing to do with the PKK. But yes of course the PKK, as long as it exists will be a target for Turkey.
I don’t think you are telling anybody on this sub something they don’t know by pointing out that there are no PKK in Idlib. The discussion I wanted to have wasn’t so much about Idlib as Turkey’s overall strategy in Syria, and what the long term objective is likely be.
I would like to add. That I wouldn't be surprised if Turkey starts another operation in northern Syria after this..
In fact, if the Americans leave and Assad turns the PKK into a proxy that might lead to Turkey turning all of northern syria into a buffer zone.
P.s. you might find this interesting
https://www.justsecurity.org/67836/the-inevitable-day-of-reckoning-in-syria/
This guy (Marc Polymeropoulos) was the head of CIA operations (Europe/Eurasia) until 2019.. he was literally one of the US's top spy masters..
"First and foremost, our Syrian Kurdish partners—the Syrian Democratic Front (SDF)—largely consisted of members of the People’s Protection Units, or the YPG. As the Turkish government claimed, and many in the U.S. national security community fully grasped as well, the YPG was simply a rebrand of the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a longtime terrorist group that has killed thousands of innocent Turks, and indeed Americans"
"In fact, colleagues of mine who have served at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara over the years remember all too well the danger they faced from the PKK. So let’s call it like it is — the YPG and the PKK for all essential purposes were one and the same."
"War makes strange bedfellows, and as such a conscious and deliberate decision was reached by the U.S. government to partner with the YPG (i.e., the PKK) in the counter-ISIS fight. Make no mistake, the United States knowingly and deliberately threw in our lot with one arm of a terrorist group, albeit a more palatable one, to fight another who was far more deadly and a direct threat to the United States, including U.S. territory."
honestly I'm still surprised a former CIA spy master is allowed to write about a sensitive subject like this so openly. But if the US is finally ready stop pretending that YPG is some different group, that's fine with me. Esp since they are trying to improve ties with Turkey. Doesnt change that the country who invoked article 5 after 9/11 then turned around and supported, armed, trained and most devastatingly propagated a brutal terror org an greatest enemy of a NATO member
If by "secure Idlib," you mean destroy PKK, then yes.
Turkey sent the army to Idlib.. to destroy PKK?
PKK is another objective, yes. What has that got to do with what I'm writing about?
Their main objective in Syria is to destroy the PKK, which is why there is a de facto no-fly zone over Jarablus and not over Idlib. Turkey can live without Idlib.
Of course Turkey doesn't want a PKK terror statelet on its border. As for the no fly zone, russians getting control over the air was the result of sochi not to mention the lack of Turkish anti air capabilities (why do you think Turkey bought the s400?)
Turkeys goal in Idlib is to secure a safe space for the civilians. There is no PKK in Idlib. We can live without any part of Syria. It's not like we plan to annex any of it.