Following the news coming out of Syria in the Western media (and I say Western because I also listen to the BBC, the Australians and the Kiwis) can be numbing in its sameness. We are told over and over how corrupt, evil, etc., the current Assad regime in Syria is, but, really, what do we know about the different groups fighting against the sitting government?
Well, it's very complicated, a lot more complicated than you get in five minutes at the top of the hour. Assad's regime is brutal, but a lot of our allies in the Mideast are at least as brutal. Saudi Arabia, for example. It's just that Syria is in the middle of a civil war. There are reports of torture camps run by the regime, but less than a decade back the CIA was depositing Iraqi and Afghani prisoners in torture prisons to include reports of putting people in Syrian prisons. So Syrians were helping us torture people ten years ago and now they're bad because they're torturing people who are trying to overthrow the government.
And who are those people? Well, al Qaeda, for one group. Remember them?
But the most interesting thing is who is actually winning in Syria: the Kurds. Turkey has been a strong ally for the U.S. in supporting insurgents (either freedom-fighters or terrorists, depending on where you sit) that are destabilizing Syria. But Syria has decided to give its Kurdish region some autonomy. With the Kurdish area of Iraq adjoining them, suddenly Turkey's own restive Kurdish population is again in play.
Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani told al-Jazeera [2] that yes - they are training Syrian Kurds who defected from the Syrian Army to defend their de facto enclave. It was Barzani who supervised the key deal sealed in Irbil on July 11 that led to Assad forces retreating from Syrian Kurdistan.
What is being described as "liberated cities" [3] is now being "jointly ruled" by the PYD and the KNC. They have formed what is known as a Supreme Kurdish Body.
One can never underestimate the Kurdish capacity to shoot themselves in the foot (and elsewhere). Yet one can also imagine all this cross-country Kurdish frenzy terrifying quite a few souls in Istanbul and Ankara. This [4] columnist for the daily newspaper Hurriyet got it right; "Arabs are fighting, Kurds are winning." The Kurdish Spring is at hand. And it is already hitting Turkey's borders.
Davutoglu must have seen it coming; when a formerly "zero problem" foreign policy evolves into housing the weaponized opposition to a neighboring government, you're bound to be in trouble.
Especially when you start itching to kill "terrorists" living in your neighbor's territory - even though your Western allies may view them as "freedom fighters". Meanwhile you actively support Salafi-jihadis - "insurgents" formerly known as terrorists - back and forth across your borders.
An increasingly erratic Erdogan has invoked a "natural right" [5] to fight "terrorists". But first they must produce an ID; if they are Sunni Arab, they get away with it. If they are Kurdish, they eat lead.
Read it all, but get yourself a scorecard first.
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