On the Kurdish question Turkey and ISIS are on the same page
[Black Star News Editorial]
Turkey is trying to blackmail the United States into a full-scale war against the government of Bashar Assad in Syria.
The U.S. wants Turkey’s military to intervene in the current focal point of the war with ISIS, the battle for the Kurdish-populated Syrian city of Kobani right across the border with Turkey.
Parts of Kobani have already fallen to ISIS according to an article in The Wall Street Journal. Even though Turkish tanks and troops are lined on the border, Ankara has refused the United States’ request to intervene in the fighting.
The U.S. sees ISIS, which is now universally regarded as being more brutal than how al-Qaeda was once viewed, as the primary threat in the region. ISIS has seized vast territory in both Syria and Iraq. ISIS has summarily executed opposing fighters captured and has introduced a new form of warfare — beheadings of Western captives that are then disseminated via YouTube and other social media platforms to sow fear and dissent.
There are other brutal groups fighting in Syria, including al-Nusra, which is the al-Qaeda affiliate in the country. But based on the mass executions of hundreds of captives by ISIS, and its use of social media to terrify, “brutality” has become a relative term in Syria.
But does Turkey actually regard ISIS in the same way that the U.S. and other Western countries do?
After all, as Vice President Joe Biden correctly pointed out, some of the United States’ key allies were the countries that armed and financed these brutal anti-Assad fighting forces over the past three years. These “allies” include Turkey, the UAE and the mother of all incubators of extremism Saudi Arabia.
Turkey has unique relations with ISIS. How else was Turkey able to secure the release of the 49 diplomats captured in Mosul, Iraq, when other captives have been beheaded by ISIS?
How ironic is it that the same countries that created ISIS, a Frankenstein that rose from the ranks of the various fighting forces, now sit on the sideline and expect the United States to come up with the solution?
Turkey has two priorities in Syria.
Its primary objective is the removal of Bashar Assad. Turkey wants the United States to lead a all-out NATO attack against Assad similar to the one against Muammar al-Quathafi even if it results in the kind of chaos and anarchy now witnessed in Libya.
Additionally, Turkey doesn’t want a unified and powerful Kurdish people, extending from Syria into Iraq since Ankara has it’s huge Kurdish population that has always tried to exert autonomy.
So it won’t come as much of a surprise that Turkey doesn’t mind watching as ISIS decimates Kurdish fighters in Kobani.
Is it merely coincidence that when it comes to dealing with Kurds both Turkey and ISIS are on the same page?
Does Turkey see ISIS as a threat at all? Is Turkey playing the United States?
