Abandoned by Washington and under bombardment by the Turkish army, the beleaguered Kurdish forces in the northern Syrian town of Afrin asked for, and received, help from Russia. A spokesman for the Kurdish YPG militia announced on February 20 that the Russian-backed government of Bashar al-Assad would send reinforcements to Afrin to assist the Kurds. France24 reported that a convoy of pro-Assad forces entering Afrin came under Turkish artillery fire, and Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan claimed the government forces had to turn back.
The situation on the ground is unclear, but what is painfully clear is that Kurds have been abandoned by the United States less than a month after the Pentagon announced the formation of a 30,000-man ‘Border Security Force’ in northern Syria composed mainly of Kurdish fighters who had pushed ISIS out of the area. Turkey responded to the American initiative by invading northern Syria and bombing the Kurds, reportedly killing several hundred civilians. In deference to Turkey, the United States did nothing, so the Kurds asked for help from Russia.
As Alfred Hackenberger wrote in the German daily Die Welt, on February 19: “Russia would belong to the winners in the case of a Syrian-Kurdish military alliance. It would expand Russia’s military control of the country markedly. And Turkey would have to stop its invasion of Afrin, because a confrontation with Syrian soldiers would bring it directly into conflict with Russia.”
The siege of Afrin, to be sure, seems a minor episode in the long and miserable course of Syria’s civil war, but it may turn out to demarcate the point that American influence in the region collapsed beyond repair. Trained by the US and German armed forces, the Kurds represented the only effective force on the ground independent of the Russian-backed Assad regime following the defeat of Sunni militias backed by the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The Kurdish resurgence in Syria, though, drew a ferocious response from Turkey, which fears that Kurdish self-government spanning Iraq and Syria on its southeastern border would link up with its own rapidly-growing Kurdish population. More than half of Turkey’s population under 30 will be ethnic Kurds by the mid-2040s.
For the US administration, American assets in the region are like hotels on the Monopoly board, to be protected individually and piecemeal. No unified strategy ranks their relative importance or gauges whether they might be sacrificed for a larger goal
After its painful experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US won’t put boots on the ground beyond the few thousand special forces now deployed in Syria. The Kurds fought as a NATO auxiliary against ISIS and wanted nothing more than an American alliance. The Turks, meanwhile, are NATO members in name only and are hostile to key American interests. Among other things, Turkey is helping Russia to bypass Ukraine in delivering gas to southern Europe via the Turkstream pipeline. The Turks are bargaining hard with Russia, but ultimately will play ball.
Nonetheless, Washington is paralyzed by fear that Turkey might leave NATO if it stands behind the Kurds. “Nobody wants to be the guy who lost Turkey,” an administration official said.
The default view at the Pentagon is that Kurdish autonomy would create chaos in Iraq, threatening the country’s territorial autonomy. Iraq’s sectarian Shia government is now an ally of Iran, with Iranian-led Iraqi militias deployed in Syria. A little chaos in Iraq would strengthen America’s hand at the expense of Iran.
For Washington, the path of least resistance was to use the Kurds to fend off ISIS and then hang them out to dry. That left the Kurds with no other choice but to turn to the Assad government and its Russian backers. As a result, Russia is now the key ally both of the Assad government and the Kurdish militias that the US envisioned as its boots on the ground in the region.
Israel, America’s only real ally in the region, realized the consequences immediately. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s deputy minister for public diplomacy, Michael Oren, told Bloomberg News on February 12: “The American part of the equation is to back us up,” but the US “has almost no leverage on the ground. America did not ante up in Syria. It’s not in the game.” Two days earlier, an Israeli F-16 was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile over Syria. Most reports claim that a Syrian anti-aircraft battery firing a Cold War era A-7 Russian missile downed the plane, but there are also unconfirmed reports that a Russian crew fired at it with a Russian S-200 missile. If that is true, Russia presumably wanted to let the Israelis know who was in charge of the Syrian skies.
Israel’s diplomacy with Russia appears to have borne results. On February 20, Russia Today reported the TASS news agency quoting Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as saying (on February 19): “Russia condemns Tehran’s remarks that Israel should be wiped off the map and also believes that solving any regional problems should not be viewed through the prism of a conflict with Iran.” According to the RT report: “He made the statement at the opening of the Valdai International Discussion Club’s conference ‘Russia in the Middle East: Playing on All Fields,’ adding that tensions between Israel and Iran are escalating and there are historical reasons for that.”
Russia does not want an Israeli-Iranian war, but it does want to be the regional power that keeps the two parties from fighting. Israel evidently is beholden to Moscow after the Afrin debacle, which left the United States with no ante in Syria, as Ambassador Oren put it. The projected Kurdish Border Protection Force was the last American piece on the Syrian chessboard, and Washington abandoned it. It is hard to see what sort of leverage the United States can acquire now.
“Americans play Monopoly, Russians chess,” was the title of an essay I published ten years ago in this space. For the US administration, American assets in the region are like hotels on the Monopoly board, to be protected individually and piecemeal. No unified strategy ranks their relative importance or gauges whether they might be sacrificed for a larger goal. Russia views its assets as pieces on a chessboard whose only function is to contribute to the single goal of winning the game. They can be sacrificed ruthlessly when circumstances require it. Washington has no strategy – that is, no envisioned end state – for Turkey, Syria, or Iran. And if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.
"A spokesman for the Kurdish YPG militia announced on February 20 that the Russian-backed government of Bashar al-Assad would send reinforcements to Afrin to assist the Kurds. France24 reported that a convoy of pro-Assad forces entering Afrin came under Turkish artillery fire, and Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan claimed the government forces had to turn back."
Will Russia allow the ‘few militias loyal to Assad’ to be attacked by Turkey?
Yuval Brandstetter
Appreciated but it has nothing to do with Luck. Nations are already dumping the dollar.
Ajit Nair True. Except their air-force is especially good against defenseless populations who are not equipped for anti-aircraft warfare. When the Maericans start handing out shoulder-fired AA rockets the balance may change.
Good luck with that.
Daniel Berg Yes. however most of the Masters are Jewish.
Russia is so careful about not stepping on the Israeli proverbial tail it is curbing Iranian and Syrian and Hizzballah ambitions to tussle with Israel. We have had those massive Soviet tanks and aircraft and air-defense looming in the past, 1956, then 67, then 73, then 82 and they all turned to scrap metal. It is not Bibi who is worried about the Russians. It is the Russians who are worried Israel may show again that their vaunted air defense and armor is a piece of shit.
“Nobody wants to be the guy who lost Turkey,”
Well, Turkey is lost. Its time to acknowledge the fact that the Ataturk revolution is over, and the Ottoman empire is back, with all of the the old aspirations and weaknesses. Its time to pull out of Turkey and help the Kurds who are the true opressed people of the Middle East.
William J Rood Power.
And even those -Libya- who are willing to play nice, but are expendable if a president feels he needs a war -sorry, "kinetic intervention"- to gin up some macho street-cred in time for the next election.
Ajit Nair Yes, plausible: proxies, not tanks.
What a bunch of BS. Unlike the Russians, the United States has never had a military presence in the Afrin canton. The fact is, the US has warned the YPG and the SDF from the beginning that they would not support them in any defense of the Afrin canton because it is within the Russian area of influence and air space control in Syria. The Russians had troops stationed in Afrin to deter attack by Turkey. The Russians sold out the Kurds and pulled out their troops when Putin cut a deal Erdogan and traded Afrin for green light in Ghouta and parts of the Ilib canton. The SDF and YPG leadership knows this and has not once accused the US of abandoning them. Furthermore, although the US has helped the Kurds (and many others) in their fight against ISIS (starting with coming to their rescue in Kobane) the US has made it clear from the beginning it is only interested in destroying ISIS and will only help the Kurds if it helps that war against ISIS. Show me where the US has agreed to protect the YPG or SDF against all foes. No such agreement exists. The fact that the US has protected the SDF from attacks by the SAA and elements loyal to the Syrian government or Iran does not mean that there is an obligation to do so. The fact that the US has deployed troops to deter attack by Turkey does not mean there is an obligation to do so. The US has made it clear to the Kurds that Turkey is a long time NATO partner, and there is a limit to what we will do to protect them from Turkey. The fact is the US believes that Turkey has the right to protect its borders from the PKK. The fact is the YPG refuses to abandon all ties with the PKK. The only strategy the US has had in Syria is the defeat of ISIS. That strategy has worked very well and ISIS is almost exterminated without the use of American combat troops to do the fighting. Obama made the decision to partner with the YPG in this endeavor because Turkey was sitting on it’s hands while ISIS attacked the kurds. This is a typical anti American rant by the drive by press. It has no basis in fact.
Michael Walsh, Russia has leant from Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and subsequent Amrican invasion and occupation of iraq, Afghanistan that has serious economic consequences. They will not invade any one but use its very capable airforce to inflict heavy damage to its targets. The boots on ground for them will be proxies with special operations specialists embedded carrying out target identification and mopup after bombing.
The Kurds should remember what happened to Gaddafi and Saddam. Remind me the last war that America won,was it Grenada.?
History?? Do you know Sultan Salahuddin Ayyubi who conquered the Jerusalem from the mighty crusaders was a Kurd.but then he had been identified as a Muslim king not as a kurd general. So main problem is that Muslims have divided into three main group. Sunni, shia and kurds.and christians and Jews are united.so what ever be the result , beneficial will be Israel, USA or Russia.
There is nothing like an American foreign policy or American strategy, there is only the khazar zionist plan for the middle east in which America is just a pawn of the zionist jews who control America.
You’re catching on. The institutional imperatives of the MIC are the 4 Ps: profits, promotions and political pork.
DAVID..NUMBER1..i wrote before it is not the americans,it is the kurds..get this straight,read your history..the kurds are a two faced persian race,they are linguistically,and geneticaaly linked to the persians,they cannot be western allies,they may be secular,but so were the egyptians and so was assad,and so was saddam,but in the mideast it is race and tribalism..not secularism..the US TO SUCCEED WOULD NEED TO ALLY WITH THE TURKS,and the sunni arabs,the kurds are an evil prostitution and barber and kebab shop..operators other than that they offer nothing in return,how sly was the move by the kurds when the iraq referendum was organised,they would have stabbed the west and the iraqis by joining with the iranians and the russians..now they have allied with the assad regime..wow..was i not right..now here is what needs to be done.
end their homeland dream,join with the turks,then smash the PKK..then a comprehensive agreemen between the sunni world and israel to create the position to isolate iran..there is no other solution..other wise assad and iran and the kurds will join russia in the new geopolitical cause..
There are still US forces inside Syrian territory. Who is going to make them cave in?