Forget an independent Kurdistan: They may have to do a deal with Damascus on sharing their area with Sunni Arab refugees
By Pepe Escobar
October 14, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - In the annals of bombastic Trump tweets, this one is simply astonishing:
here we have a President of the United States, on the record, unmasking the whole $8-trillion intervention in the Middle East as an endless war based on a “false premise.” No wonder the Pentagon is not amused.....IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY! We went to war under a false & now disproven premise, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. There were NONE! Now we are slowly & carefully bringing our great soldiers & military home. Our focus is on the BIG PICTURE! THE USA IS GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 9, 2019
Trump’s tweet bisects the surreal geopolitical spectacle of Turkey attacking a 120-kilometer-long stretch of Syrian territory east of the Euphrates to essentially expel Syrian Kurds. Even after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cleared with Trump the terms of the Orwellian-named “Operation Peace Spring,” Ankara may now face the risk of US economic sanctions.
The predominant Western narrative credits the Syrian Democratic Forces, mostly Kurdish, for fighting and defeating Islamic State, also known as Daesh. The SDF is essentially a collection of mercenaries working for the Pentagon against Damascus. But many Syrian citizens argue that ISIS was in fact defeated by the Syrian Arab Army, Russian aerial and technical expertise plus advisers and special forces from Iran and Hezbollah.
Facts on the ground will reveal whether ethnic cleansing is inbuilt in the Turkish offensive. A century ago few Kurds lived in these parts, which were populated mostly by Arabs, Armenians and Assyrians. So this won’t qualify as ethnic cleansing on ancestral lands. But if the town of Afrin is anything to go by the consequences could be severe.
Into this
heady mix, enter
a possible,
uneasy pacifier:
Russia. Moscow
previously
encouraged the
Syrian Kurds to
talk to Damascus
to prevent a
Turkish campaign
– to no avail.
But Foreign
Minister Sergey
Lavrov never
gives up. He
has now
said:
“Moscow will ask
for the start of
talks between
Damascus and
Ankara.”
Diplomatic ties
between Syria
and Turkey have
been severed for
seven years now.
With Peace
Spring rolling
virtually
unopposed,
Kurdish Gen.
Mazloum Kobani
Abdi did raise
the stakes,
telling the
Americans he
will have to
make a deal with
Moscow for a
no-fly zone to
protect Kurdish
towns and
villages against
the Turkish
Armed Forces.
Russian
diplomats, off
the record, say
this is not
going to happen.
For Moscow,
Peace Spring is
regarded as
“Turkey’s right
to ensure its
security,” in
the words of
Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry
Peskov. As long
as it does not
turn into a
humanitarian
disaster.
No independent Kurdistan
From Washington’s perspective, everything happening in the volatile Iran-Iraq-Syria-Turkey spectrum is subject to two imperatives: 1) geopolitically, breaking what is regionally regarded as the axis of resistance: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah; and 2) geostrategically, breaking the Chinese-led Belt and Road Initiative from being incorporated in both Iraq and Syria, not to mention Turkey.
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