RE: Turkey Denies Reports of Deal for Use of Its Bases in Fight Against Islamic State
The Turks are a real problem. Their hatred of the Kurds far exceeds their concern about ISIS. Not only is the Turkish government not cooperating with efforts by the U.S. to save the Kurds in Kobani, which I consider virtually essential to proving that U.S. air power can make a difference, especially when there are the most determined possible boots on the ground committed to saving their homes and turf to provide a place for their families in the person of the resident Kurds; but the Turks are obstructing resupply of the Kurds in Kobani, imprisoning Kurdish males in a stadium near the border to prevent them from joining or rejoining the fight for Kobani, continuing to deny use of their air bases for any U.S. activity other than reconnaissance, and using their air force to bomb, yes bomb, Kurds in Southeastern Turkey. Meanwhile Assad is taking advantage of U.S. attacks on ISIS to step up its bombing campaign against so-called Free Syrian troops in Syria.
The Turks want above all to see Kobani fall to ISIS so there will no longer be a Kurdish presence on their Syrian border. They no doubt believe that ISIS will not be a problem for them because they have the power to crush ISIS, and if necessary extend the Turkish border south into northern Syria, if ISIS is stupid enough to challenge them. In the meantime they are giving the U.S. lip service and total malarkey in their suggestion of establishing a buffer zone on the Turkish/Syrian border, which is nothing but an excuse for not assisting the U.S. in its moment of great need to save Kobani and thereby prove the merits of the Obama strategy. The battle for Kobani will be and remain a textbook case in the history of warfare no matter how it turns out, but with the obstruction of the Turks it could turn a possible victory of air power with determined troops on the ground into an apparent defeat of such a strategy with massive negative consequences in terms of how both friends and enemies perceive the power of U.S. air intervention.
I am also opposed to the attempt to recruit and train an army of Syrian non-militants to fight ISIS in Syria. It reminds me too much of the fiasco of the Bay of Pigs intervention in Cuba. Even assuming that such a puppet army could be introduced into the Syrian battleground what would the U.S. do when they were under threat of annihilation by ISIS? The choices would be to irrevocably commit U.S. ground forces into the cauldron of a Syrian ethnic/religious fratricidal war or have the world witness the defeat of the U.S. recruited and trained Syrian force by ISIS. Since the latter choice would result in a disastrous defeat for the U.S. it would be compelled to enter the battle in support of our Syrian troops and be required to fight against both ISIS and the Assad regime with no successful end game in sight. How the Congress could have gone along with that plan, which effectively was a declaration of war against Syria, can only be explained in the most gross political terms.
