By David Gauthier-Villars, WSJ Dec. 12, 2018
ISTANBUL—Turkey is set to launch a military intervention in northeastern Syria to combat U.S.-backed Kurdish rebels it regards as terrorists, heralding a possible confrontation between Washington and Ankara, two members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.“We will start our operation in a few days to liberate areas east of the Euphrates River from terrorist organizations,”
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday in a speech at the presidential palace in Ankara.Mr. Erdogan didn’t give details on the nature or scope of the new military plan.
Ankara has used a mix of airstrikes and ground troops in previous Syrian interventions.
A Turkish intervention in eastern Syria without coordination with Washington would mark a dramatic escalation of tension between the U.S. and Turkey.
Turkish officials have long complained that the alliance Washington formed with Kurdish rebels in Syria four years ago to combat Islamic State risked empowering groups they view as an existential threat to Turkey.Syrian Kurds deny Turkish accusations that they have connection with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
The group, more widely known as PKK, has waged a four-decade insurgency against the Turkish state and is designated a terrorist organization by both Turkey and the U.S.To allay Ankara’s concerns, the U.S., which has roughly 2,000 troops spread inside a triangle-shaped area between the Euphrates River and the Turkish and Iraqi borders, has established observation posts it says are intended to prevent any Kurdish attack on Turkey.
However, Turkish officials say the posts are actually intended to prevent Ankara from combating terrorist groups.“U.S. soldiers are being scattered to prevent Turkey’s right to self-defense and intervention,” Mr. Erdo?an said Wednesday. “Radars and observation posts are not placed to protect Turkey from terrorists, but terrorists from Turkey.”
A spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Ankara declined to comment. The U.S. Department of Defense said Tuesday that Washington was focused on its goal to defeat Islamic State in Syria and was in close contact with Turkey.“We take Turkish security concerns seriously and we are committed to coordinating our efforts with Turkey to bring stability to northeastern Syria,”
Department of Defense spokesman Col. Rob Manning said in a statement.In November, Turkey and the U.S. appeared to have allied the former’s security concerns with the latter’s military goals by launching joint patrols in Manbij, a Syrian town west of the Euphrates River.
However, Turkish officials continued to urge the U.S. administration to go further by severing all relations with Kurdish rebel groups.U.S. officials have said the alliance with Syrian Kurdish rebels is temporary and will end as soon as the last pockets of Islamic State resistance had been beaten.
However, they have also said that their military presence in Syria helps serve another goal—ensuring that Washington has a say in future peace talks—and might therefore not end with a victory against Islamic State.Turkish forces have intervened twice in western parts of northern Syria, helping Turkish-backed Syrian rebel forces secure control of Jarablus in 2016, and of Afrin last winter.
Some Turkish officials have said Turkey should extend military interventions along its entire 500-mile border with Syria to protect itself with a 20-mile buffer zone.
“A Turkish intervention in eastern Syria without coordination with Washington would mark a dramatic escalation of tension between the U.S. and Turkey.”
I agree. This will be a good day for chiropractors, pharmaceutical companies, psychiatrists, lawyers and others who profit from escalations of tension.
Turkey’s invasion of Israel (and on the way, its continued aggrandizement in Syria) is prophesied in Ezekiel 38-39. Turkey is the “Land of Magog”; and its leader, “Gog”, seems more and more every day to be Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
More tension — a good case for federal legalization of marijuana.