Turkey may attack US allies in the war with ISIS

Institue for the Study of War:
Key Takeaway: Turkey’s President Erdogan is trying to coerce President Trump into shifting American support from Kurdish forces toward Turkey’s proxies in Syria, which include al Qaeda-linked elements. Erdogan may launch a new ground operation into Syria in order to create ground realities that could force the U.S. to reconsider his demands.

Erdogan may open a new front line in his campaign against America’s primary anti-ISIS partner in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in coming days. Erdogan seeks to coerce President Trump into accepting Turkey and Turkish-backed opposition groups as alternative ground partners to the SDF in the fight against ISIS. The YPG dominates the SDF and is the Syrian branch of the Turkish Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which is waging an active insurgency against the Turkish state. Erdogan views the YPG’s ascendancy in northern Syria as his primary national security threat. Erdogan has signaled that he will launch a cross-border operation to seize the Syrian border town of Tel Abyad, north of Raqqa City. Turkish forces are shelling the town and local sources indicate that Turkish warplanes are flying sorties above it, although without dropping munitions thus far. Unconfirmed reports also indicate Turkish-backed opposition groups may be amassing for an offensive. Erdogan may launch the operation before his upcoming meeting with President Trump in Washington on May 16-17.

Erdogan’s plan is to siphon Syrian Arab support away from the SDF, which would block America’s planned Raqqa operation. Tel Abyad is an Arab-majority town currently under military control by the Syrian Kurdish (YPG). An operation against Tel Abyad, if it occurs, would open a fissure between Arabs and the YPG in northern Syria that could be sufficient to neutralize the SDF as a reliable American partner force for the Raqqa operation. Turkey likely also intends to undermine Arab support for the SDF’s larger governance project in northeastern Syria by providing an option for independent Arab governance outside YPG control.
...
If Turkey had acted more responsibly in the fight against ISIS there would have been no need for a Kurdish alliance with the US against the Islamic State.  Erdogan continues to live down to his reputation as the worst ally within NATO.  Based on the fighting to date, Turkey would not improve the chances of defeating ISIS.  Erdogan's purge of his military has made his army a much weaker force.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t...
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more