Turkish Syrian operation forces US to make hard choice
a setback for the Islamic State group — but it forces
the United States to make a difficult choice between
two unpredictable allies.
Washington has been relying on the Kurdish YPG
militia to provide on-the-ground muscle for its
campaign against the jihadists, much to the outrage
of its NATO partner Ankara.
Turkey regards the YPG — the armed wing of
Syria’s PYD Kurdish party — as little more than an
arm of the PKK, and the PKK as a “terrorist”
movement waging a separatist war inside Turkey.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has
made it clear that Turkey’s seizure of the border
town of Jarabulus was as much to halt a YPG
advance as it was to deny ground to the IS
“caliphate.”
Bloody clashes have already broken out between
US-backed Kurdish fighters and Turkish-backed
forces on the ground in northern Syria, and
Washington has been left scrambling for a clear
response.
Earlier this month, US officials had praised the YPG-
dominated “Syrian Democratic Forces” for their
liberation of the IS-held town of Manbij on the
western side of the Euphrates.
Then last week, on a visit to Turkey, Vice President
Joe Biden said the YPG would “under no
circumstances” get US support unless they honored
what he said was a pledge to retreat east of the
river.
The Pentagon has now suggested that Kurdish
fighters have largely obeyed the request to
withdraw, but fighting has nevertheless erupted
west of the river, drawing anger from Washington.
President Barack Obama’s envoy to the coalition
against the Islamic State group, Brett McGurk,
tweeted a Pentagon statement dubbing the Turkish-
Kurdish clashes “unacceptable and a source of deep
concern.”
For some observers, the confused message from
Washington has put at risk a golden opportunity to
capitalize on a new willingness by Turkey to finally
take the fight to the IS extremists.
– Defeat from jaws of victory –
“The US is risking grabbing defeat from the jaws of
victory,” said Matt Bryza, a former member of
president George W. Bush’s National Security
Council and now a fellow at the Atlantic Council.
Obama is due to meet Erdogan on Sunday in China
on the sidelines of the G20 summit, his adviser Ben
Rhodes said, to discuss “the counter-ISIL campaign
and the fact that we need to stay united.”
Bryza and others argue that the United States has
been urging Turkey to take a stronger stance
against the IS for two years and would be foolish to
offend Erdogan now by sticking by the Kurds.
“The president should come out and say what the
policy is, because you’ve got that McGurk versus
Biden dissonance,” he told AFP.
“What that policy ought to be, I think, is that the
United States will work with Turkey to make sure
that the YPG goes back east of the Euphrates,” he
continued.
But not everyone in Washington lays the blames the
US side for the new tension — some point to the
Erdogan government’s ambivalence in the fight
against Islamist extremism and anti-American tone.
“The YPG was not America’s first choice as a
partner and ally in combating ISIS on the ground, it
was really all we were left with,” said John Hannah,
who advised former vice president Dick Cheney.
Hannah, now at the Federation for Defense of
Democracies think tank, is co-author of a report
released Monday warning the US may have to
relocate military bases outside Turkey if ties
worsen.
He argued that if major NATO power Turkey had
supported the US-led coalition against the IS group
more strongly from the outset, Washington would
not have been forced to turn to its Kurdish foes.
“If this turns now into a massive fight between the
Turkish army or Turkish-backed forces and the YPG
without any understanding that Turkey is going to
step in and assume a much larger role against ISIS,
it’s obviously going to be cause of real new tensions
between the United States and Turkey,” he warned.
But, whatever Washington and Ankara’s
disagreements in the past, the latter’s new
determination to play a more forceful role could be
a sign of hope for a broader political settlement in
Syria.
Kemal Kirisci, director of the Turkey Project at the
Brookings Institution, said Turkey appears to have
abandoned its dream of a total Sunni Arab Islamist
victory in Syria’s civil war.
– Ongoing bloodshed –
That, along with Erdogan’s partial rapprochement
with Russia and Iran, could provide an opportunity
for a settlement that could end the bloodshed and
should not be hostage to Turkish-Kurdish enmity.
“What’s happening here, whether we like it or not,
is that Turkey is standing up for what it sees as its
national interests, which awkwardly overlap and
conflict with the ones the US has,” Kirisci said.
“Every player there is trying to muddle through, but
there is another level of game that I think is trying
to unfold and possibly lead the way to a possible
resolution of the conflict.”
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