What Do Kurds Face in Turkish Offensive?

3 Comments / 3 Comments

1. While Visser is an excellent reporter and his facts are probably accurate, I am not sure I agree with his conclusions.

   Trmp’s visit may have aimed in part at putting pressure on al-Mahdi to scale back his alliance with Iran. Visser omitted to mention that Muqtada al-Sadr, despite his anti-American noises, also claims he opposes Iranian influence and wants Iranian forces out of Iraq. Although his party got the most votes in the last election, al-Mahdi has managed to remain Prime Minister with Iranian support. It is possible that Trump wants al-Mahdi to let al-Sadr form a new government, and hopes that if he does, he will keep his promise to kick the Iranians out. The snub to al-Mahdi, who is a close ally of Iran, may have been deliberate.

2. This is Yochanan Visser’s take on the situation in today’s Arutz Sheva:

   ANALYSIS: Trump’s actions in Iraq and Syria recipe for disaster
   The president’s actions show he is out of touch with Middle East reality.

   US Defense Secretary James Mattis looks at US President Donald Trump
   A week after he stunned not only the world but also his national security team by announcing he would reverse his new Syria policy and pull out all US troops from there, US President Donald Trump made another move which could destabilize the Middle East even further.

   The President suddenly canceled his vacation at his private resort in Florida and flew to Iraq to pay a visit to the al-Asad airbase in Western Iraq which is home to a regiment US Special Forces.

   Before and during his visit to the base, Trump again demonstrated that he’s out of touch with reality in the Middle East and doesn’t get the overall picture.

   Talking about his bombshell decision to pull US soldiers out of Syria, the President said “we want to fight where it is meaningful” and then explained that he had given his military brass in Syria an additional six months several times in order to finish off the Islamic State group.

   “Eight years ago, we went there for three months and we never left, now we’re doing it right and we’re going to finish it off,”Trump said. He claimed Israel could defend itself from the growing threat to its security from Syria posed by Iran and Russia because it receives $4,5 billion in US military aid each year.

   He then said Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan had promised him to finish off “the last remnants” of ISIS and that the US military would be able to control the situation in Syria from Iraq.

   There are a few problems with Trump’s thoughts about the American strategy in both Iraq and Syria.

   First of all, although the Turkish dictator this week affirmed he would go after these last remnants, his main goal is to finish off the Kurdish autonomy drive in Syria.

   The Turkish army is currently amassing troops along the border with Syria in the area of Manbij, which is controlled by the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

   In fact, Turkish tanks have already crossed the border while Turkey is also mobilizing its Islamist proxies in Syria to go after the Kurds.

   The US Special Forces and the SDF are in control of roughly one-third of Syrian territory and form a buffer against the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the Shiite militias which are trying to expand their control over the Iraqi border.

   This is done to complete the land bridge which Iran needs to transfer troops and weapons to the Israeli border without the use of the civilian airplanes. These planes deliver weapons to the Quds Force, Hezbollah and the Shiite militias via the international airports of Damascus and Beirut.

   Until now the Israeli air force (IAF) has been able to destroy most of these weapon transports, as was proven on Tuesday when the IAF again bombed Iranian weapon storehouses in the vicinity of Damascus. This was done despite the delivery of the Russian S-300 anti-aircraft missile shield to the Syrian army.

   Israel attacked the storehouses from Lebanese airspace using six F-16 warplanes which launched air-to-surface missiles at their targets in Syria.

   Then there is Iraq, where Trump drew the ire of the Iraqi government and the Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi umbrella organization of Shiite militias by visiting the Al-Assad base.

   The President was not willing to pay a visit to Iraq’s new Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi in his residence in Baghdad and instead invited him to the al-Assad base, an offer Mahdi declined.

   The Iraqi PM later released a statement that said there had been a “disagreement over how to conduct the meeting.”

   Other Iraqi politicians were less diplomatic and said Trump’s visit constituted a “blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.”

   Sabah al Saadi, the leader of the Islah parliamentary bloc, angrily called for an emergency meeting of the Iraqi parliament “to discuss this blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and to stop these aggressive actions by Trump who should know his limits: the US occupation of Iraq is over.”

   The Islah bloc won the Iraqi elections and is led by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who is strongly opposed to the American presence in Iraq.

   The Iranian-backed Bina party also issued a statement which said Trump’s visit was “a flagrant and clear violation of diplomatic norms and shows his disdain and hostility in his dealings with the Iraqi government.”

   A majority of Iraqi MP’s now demand the government expel the US army from Iraq/ As a spokesman for the Hashd al-Shaabi militia Hezbollah al-Nujaba said Trump’s move would not remain “unpunished”.

   A short while later the American embassy in Baghdad’s so-called Green Zone was targeted by artillery shells.

   The heavy fortification of the compound of the embassy prevented damage and casualties, but the message was clear: Get out of Iraq!

   Hashd al-Shaabi has been calling for the expulsion of the US army from Iraq for months and has threatened to use its Iranian-supplied missiles to attack the American Special Forces.

   By going to Iraq in this fashion, Trump not only risked upsetting the delicate balance of power in Iraq where Iran is constantly meddling in internal Iraqi affairs and where the political climate is becoming increasingly anti-American, he also endangered his own forces.

   The President breached security protocol of the US army by posting a video clip showing his photo session with members of the Navy Seal Team Five Special Forces unit without the obligatory blurred faces.

   Pentagon officials were reportedly outraged about the publication of the clip which revealed details about which Seal team is stationed in Iraq.

3. A Kimmel’s read on this matter is well informed and worth listening to. Still, I have a few caveats. He points out that the Kurds are experienced fighters, and won’t necessarily be a pushover for the Turks if they mount an offensive against them. I can’t imagine that the Turks could have purged several thousand officers without reducing somwhat the combat effectiveness and morale of their forces. They appear tobe planning to use a pro-Turkish Syrian militia to assist the Turkish forces in taking over the area. This suggests to me that they are reluctant to commit too many of their troops to Syria. And how effective will these pro-Turkish Arab militiamen be against the Kurdish forces? I haven’t heard much about their playing a role in the fighting up until now. How well would they do in combat against the Kurds? Several sources say that the Kurds were given a fairly substantial amount of military supplies (150 truckloads) by the Americans before they withdrew, which may enable them to hold out for a time against a Turkish assault. The Russian guy says that the British and French have not withdrawn their special forces along with the Americans. Turkey will need to be cautious about killing British and French soldiers embedded with the Kurdish soldiers. And given the rising opposition to his rule, Erdogan will need to keep his most loyal troops close to Ankara and Istanbul, not send them into Syria. All this creates some hope that Erdogan may seek to negotiate a compromise deal with the Kurds rather than make a full-scale military attack on them. One possible deal would be for the Kurds to withdraw oldiers from the vicinity of the Turkish border, while retaining their forces in other areas of Eastern Syria. Right now they are said to control 30 per cent of Syrian territory. That means they could withdraw from some territory while still remaining a fighting force. Time will tell what happens. Many a horrific, terrifying moment, but never a dull one, if you have the misfortune to live in Syria.