Understanding the Turks
Mike Walker, Col USMC (retired)
All,
There has been another foreign policy brouhaha with Susan Rice again at the center no less. This one deals with the use of Turkish military airfields for US aircraft to attack ISIL in Syria, a part of Operation Quodestnomeneius.
Turkey has balked at this and there are three reasons.
One secondary reason is the long-standing reluctance of Turkey to come to the aid of the Kurds.
Over the last two years, Erdogan has invested significant political capital in reaching an understanding with the Kurdish population in Turkey. He does not want to squander that effort by being seen as another Turkish “Kurd-hater.”
Another secondary reason for the "no" is Erdogan’s fundamentalist Islamic beliefs. He is staking out a “rational” policy for modern Islamic state and Turkey’s return as the leading Muslim country in the region. He will not blindly attack ISIL if that alienates the region's fundamentalist Sunnis he is trying to reach out to as a leader.
Both of those factors pale before the overarching problem: The Turks believe that the United States has no coherent Syrian strategy.
Strike one came when Washington declared that the ouster of Assad was the goal and then did nothing concrete to achieve that end.
Strike two was the failure to act when Assad crossed the President’s “red line” and employed chemical weapons.
Strike three is the United State’s mistake of trying to compartmentalize the problems. Washington seems to follow one distinct policy for Iraq, another for ISIL and a third for Assad.
To the Turks (and many other astute observers) that is NO STRATEGY AT ALL.
Turkey will NOT enter a shooting war in Syria unless (1) the United States accepts the removal of Assad as a principal objective of the war and (2) the United States is in it for the duration.
Mike
