Did Turkey just convince the US that there’s no one left to fight in Syria?

After the Trump administration turned away from arming Takfiri jihadists in favour of virtually exclusively arming Kurdish militants in Syria, Turkey’s stance on US actions in Syria quickly turned from one of support, to pessimism to vocal opposition.

Recently, Turkey has been ever more vocal in challenging the US position not just in Syria but in the wider Middle East. When cooperating with Iraq and Iran against Kurdish ethno-nationalists in northern Iraq, President Erdogan famously told the Iraqi Kurds, “Israel cannot help you”. More recently Turkish officials, up to and including the President have called the US the greatest impediment peace in Syria, while Erdogan accused the US of funding and aiding ISIS in a recent speech.

Today, the US would appear to have effectively capitulated to Turkey’s long standing demand that the US should stop arming Kurdish militants in Syria, primarily the YPG who comprise the majority of the US led proxy force SDF in Syria.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the following at a press conference which occurred shortly after a phone call he listened in on between Presidents Trump and Erdogan.

Cavusogul said,

“According to his (Trump’s) words, it would have been better to put an end to this foolishness. We welcome this decision and will monitor its implementation”.

RT further reports that during the phone call Trump made a commitment to fighting “all” terrorist organisations in the region including what remains of ISIS,  the Turkish based Kurdish terrorist group PKK and the Fetullah Terrorist Organisation of US based, Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey officially blames for the failed coup against Erdogan which transpired last year. As Gulen’s group is not active in Syria, this statement made for somewhat of an odd read, but one which hints at the wider phenomenon which may be coming to fruition.

While an official post-phone call statement from Washington did not single out any Kurdish terrorist groups by name, it did say the following:

“President Trump also informed President Erdogan of pending adjustments to the military support provided to our partners on the ground in Syria, now that the battle of Raqqa is complete and we are progressing into a stabilisation phase to ensure that ISIS cannot return. The leaders also discussed the purchase of military equipment from the United States”.

If the United States means what it apparently said, this essentially means that the Astana group, of which Turkey is a member along with Russia and Iran, has essentially checkmated the US in Syria once and for all.

With ISIS defeated except for a few small rural pockets that Russian aerospace forces and the Syrian Arab Army are on the verge of fully obliterating and pockets of al-Qaeda/al-Nusra in the the Golan Heights, Hama and Idlib, the Takfiri terrorists are already all but defeated in Syria and everyone from Syria itself to Hezbollah, Russian and Iran have admitted this in public to much fanfare.

In respect of Kurdish militants/terrorists, since the United States is the only power arming and abetting them, if the US actually does withdraw arms from Kurdish groups, they will  not fare well against Turkish troops in Syria who stand ready to fight them and almost certainly beat them in short order. Put succinctly, if the US withdraws aims to the Kurds and there is no one else left to fight in Syria, the US will have no mission goal and therefore no no justification for remaining in Syria. Of course the US could always make up a new, even flimsier excuse for remaining, but with all major regional powers (except for Israel) dead-set against a long-time US occupation, such a position would be highly untenable in the medium and long term.

A recent Washington Post article, allegedly based on inside sources in the US government, stated that the US plans to remain in Syria for “years” in order to effectively help Syrian Kurds in carving out a statelet along the Turkish border.

US media claims American troops will stay in Syria to aid Kurdish insurgents

Based on the statements following on from the phone call between Erdogan and Trump, either the Washington Post piece was inaccurate or the US has suddenly had a change of heart–perhaps as a last ditch effort to prevent Turkey from leaving NATO as Ankara threatened to do, days ago.

Earlier, Donald Trump Tweeted the following, indicating that he is not prepared for an indefinite occupation of Syria.

Donald J. Trump on Twitter: “Will be speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this morning about bringing peace to the mess that I inherited in the Middle East. I will get it all done, but what a mistake, in lives and dollars (6 trillion), to be there in the first place! / Twitter”

Will be speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this morning about bringing peace to the mess that I inherited in the Middle East. I will get it all done, but what a mistake, in lives and dollars (6 trillion), to be there in the first place!

It may be that either be design or mistake, Donald Trump just killed off the last excuse the US could possibly have for a perpetual occupation of Syria. Because of the notorious unreliability of statements from US officials and the US media, it is anyone’s guess as to whether the Washington Post lied to the world or if Trump deceived the Turkish President.

However, the world may soon find out who is telling the truth as Kurdish militants in Syria just announced that they are ready to attack Turkish Army positions in Syria’s Aleppo Governorate.

In a straight battle between Kurdish militants and the Turkish Army, the Turkish Army will win. There is little doubt about that. The only power that might have been willing and militarily able to prevent such a move is of course, the American armed forces.

Erdogan hints at normalisation with Syria – says Ankara and Damascus have common enemy

If Turkey goes on to do to Syrian Kurds, what the Iraqi armed forces did to Iraqi Kurds, the Kurdish question in Syria may be solved in short order.

After such an impasse, arguments between Russia and Turkey over whether Kurdish factions belonging to the YPG-PYD should be at the Syrian National Dialogue Congress or not, will be effectively moot. If Syrian Kurds are shown that Turkey has effectively been unleashed on them, in so far as no other power will stop Turkey from going after the Kurds, it will effectively be ‘game over’ for any longer term ethno-nationalists ambitions for the Kurds. All that will be left is to either wage the kind of long-term terrorist war against Syria that the PKK has waged against Turkey, or otherwise engage in the eventual internal political process for Syria which the Astana group organises.

Of course, if the US continues to covertly aid the Kurds, or attempt to draw an artificial distinction between the YPG and SDF, Turkey will only be further alienated by an obvious US false promise. If the US does go through with its plans, while some friction between Turkey and the US will be curtailed, Turkey’s overall economic reliance/enthusiasm on its Eurasian partners will not be dented. Only in a foolish zero-sum mentality does a minor US rapprochement with Turkey negate that progress Turkey has made and intends to further with its Eurasian partners, including Russia and Iran.

The US may not be an exponent of the “win-win” mentality which defines modern Eursasian multi-lateral relations, but if someone in the US, even perhaps a Trump who today sounded as reasonable as he did while a candidate, realises that in provoking Turkey, the US will totally lose a former ally while accomplishing little in terms of retarding Syria’s progress in the long-term, someone in Washington may have realised that by going in knee-deep for Kurdish ethno-nationalists, the US would be facing a “lose-lose” situation that a member of the Turkish Parliament Metin Kulunk said would be a “another Vietnam” for the United States.

Turkish MP from Erdogan’s party praises Russian, Iranian and Turkish unity on Syria – calls US the major problem

As Donald Trump successfully ‘dodged’ time in America’s first Vietnam, perhaps he has just dodged the second. Time will shortly tell, just who is being honest and who is being duplicitous.

Either way, if Trump has told the truth in respect of US policy, the war is over as the US will have no one left to support nor to fight. If he is lying to President Erdogan, then NATO may be over.