The fact Turkey was an early enabler of the Islamic State has been made starkly clear from its behaviour towards the Kurdish defenders of Kobani.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had said his country would not agree to any US arms transfers to Syrian Kurdish fighters.
So the US has started air dropping supplies to them. This means that the supply situation within Kobani must have reached a truly critical state.
Moreover for extra added political significance, the supplies being dropped are in fact ones provided by the Kurdish Regional Government in Erbil, in Iraq (i.e. US supplies that were promised to the Peshmerga but which the KRG agreed to instead see sent to the Syrian Kurds). This will give the wily Masoud Barzani in Erbil a nice political boost, cementing his position as the godfather of Kurdish nationalism.
I really did not think the current leadership in Washington had it in them, but by the actions of the USAF within sight of the Turkish border, Tayyip Erdogan cannot be in the slightest doubt he has just been invited to go rotate. Clearly there as been a significant rethink in US regional political strategy.
The Turkish government has now said that it will allow Iraqi Kurds (who have the advantage of not being allied to the PKK) to go and fight in the town – possibly Erdogan has decided to pretend that he was on the Kurdish side all along (which he definitely was NOT).
As for Mr Obama – I hope he has learned a valuable lesson from all this. Marxism can not take over the modern world (as he desires) if there is no modern world – if the modern world has been replaced by a vast version of 7th century Arabia.
As the PKK and others would tell Comrade Barack, the alliance in the West between the left and radical Islam, makes no sense. The enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend.
The alliance between various Muslim Brotherhood front organisations in the West, and the Frankfurt School Marxists – must end.
The PKK and YPG have been given an sobering lesson as Masoud Barzani and his coalition government in Erbil has gone from strength to strength politically whereas they had the downside of aiming for a Marxist one party state rubbed in their faces: if you actually want other groups to help you when the shit well and truly hits the fan, you are going to have to get used to the idea of a more pluralistic view of politics. They seem to have belatedly got the message.
And whilst detracting nothing from the truly epic feat of arms we have seen by the men and women defending Kobani, the irony of them getting decisive assistance from the USA in their hour of need has not been lost on them apparently, judging from what the Kurdish websites are saying.
There is significant political realignment going on that has been happening for years now. The Marxist undercurrent of Kurdish nationalism has been wasting away, and this is why pragmatists like Barzani and KDP are in the ascendancy and people even vote for anti-corruption free economy supporting Change Movement. People like Barzani has only one ideology: Kurdish nationalism. And maybe wish to make money. Some more of old guard in the PKK still need to die out to really get past the legacy of Marxism, but even on the crazier Kurdish speaking forums people see the writing on the wall. No one seriously thinks you have to be a communist to be a nationalist any more, so bang goes their unique selling proposition. Exactly what purpose do Marxists serve? No one seems to know. When the USSR was the only game in town if you wanted weapons for Kurdish nationalism, sure, but post communist Russia has as much influence now in the Middle East as Brazil or Nigeria. Many see Kurdish Marxists like hippies, embarrassing and smelly remainder from older times.
Will it not be a strange twist of history if the rise and eventual fall of the daesh Islamic State was what rationalised and enabled successful Kurdish nationalism?
But Erdogan? As my Jewish friends would say: Oi vey! I think he tries to be too clever, to juggle too many balls and how he is dropping them. Americans are now invested politically in Kobani not falling. YPG Media Centre shows the many good looking and brave Kurdish girls fighting the daesh Islamic State while the US bombs near them and the western media picks up the reports. So Obama now has his own interests in not looking ineffectual. Seeing all the fierce pretty Kurdish soldiers dead while the daesh dance in joy on CNN would not look good at all. Erdogan did not realise this is now a US prestige issue that trumps his interests hands down, but maybe now he does as we watches the parachutes of weapons land in Kobani. I laughed hard at the image in my head!
Turkey is a member of NATO. Does Erdogan realise this?
The elegance of the solution suggests that this was initiated by the field command rather than direction by the Commander in Chief.
Same ole shit, different day.
I too didn’t believe that Obama had it in him. Perhaps a few wiser heads (surely there must be some, at least in the Pentagon?) have finally prevailed (and perhaps his political handlers have also figured out that leaving the Kurds twisting in the wind is bad politics). I suspect that Richard Quigley is correct in his assessment.
“Many see Kurdish Marxists like hippies, embarrassing and smelly remainder from older times.” That gave me a good chuckle. I hope it’s true.
Johnathan, I’m quite sure that Erdogan realizes that Turkey is a member of NATO; he has made a career of thumbing his nose at it. A better question is whether Obama and the rest of NATO also realizes it, and if they are beginning to grow tired of being mocked by a lightweight such as him. And the best question of all is why that country, which has never been an ally of the west, is still permitted to remain a member. It should have been expelled from NATO long ago.
Now, if we can only get the State Department and the UN to stop sending “humanitarian” aid and cash to ISIS . . . .
Ergodan should have realised- American Thanksgiving is coming up! Never safe to be a turkey at that time…
The mid-term elections are in a few weeks. Everything is politics with the current regime. They don’t want any big, ugly headlines about Kobani or Baghdad falling until after the elections.
The US should start dropping arms to the Kurds inside Turkey.
Well, we can all now start breathing again, as the world has returned to normal. It seems that the US has been “accidentally” (?) dropping some of those arms to ISIS rather than to the Kurds. I feel so much better now.
Indeed, Laird – I, for one, can now stop pinching myself.
I hate to do a ‘me to’ but the post by ‘Very retired’ is spot on and I’m surprised other commentators here can’t see it. Obama will do anything he can to ensure that there are no disastrous headlines between now and the elections. The time to judge if there has been a real change in US policy will be after that. Regrettably, I suspect the answer will be not much.
I’m with AWM on that. VR has definitely nailed it.