it's confusing from our prospective, as well as predictable.
The Syrians, whom we don't like, are moving in on the last unoccupied portion of their country. That is, the government is advancing on the last rebel held portions.
The Turks are aiding the rebels and are now set to fully intervene. Indeed, the Syrians and the Turks are fighting each other to some extent.
Up the Turks and down the Syrians, right?
Well, the rebels in that area are an Al Queda aligned group. Turkey's leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an Islamist, albeit an elected one, who has been very heavy handed in his own country. Syria's leader Bashar al-Assad is a Baathist, which makes him a member of a fascist party. So a democratically elected Islamist, whose general direction we don't like, is fighting in support of one of our enemies while a dictatorial fascist leaders is seeking to crush them. As we pointed out long ago, in Syria its the government that's western. . . but not the brand of westerism we approve of, and the enemies of the government tend to be dominated by forces that also despise us.
Of course, to make matters even more complicated, our recent withdraw impacted the only forces in the region, those being the Kurds, who are actually a force and even remotely see things the way we do. But part of the way they see the world includes an independent region in northern Syria and Iraq, as well as in western Turkey and a slice of Iran, all of which they deserve. They're native to the region, which doesn't factor into the aims of any Arab, Turkish or Persian government of any kind. We were their only real advocates.
The Syrians have the Russians as their advocate and, ironically, the Iranians as well, ironically, although recently the Turks have been making a bid for Russian support.
Now they're making a bid for European support out of a sense of European desperation as they're sending large numbers of Syrian refugees Europe's way.
And this mess isn't close to being over.
No comments:
Post a Comment