fahrenheit451:338

As the major Western powers continue their slide into irrelevance and become increasingly mired in the imbroglios of their own metropolitan ruling elites'making; bigger problems and more pressing issues of international import continue to spiral out of control even as the main western actors distance themselves from the realms of global, diplomatic Realpolitik.

The Trump administration's largely contrived trade contretemps with the PRC and the UK's almost sublimely surreal implementation / revocation of the EURef2016 decision to Leave the EU still hold centre-stage.

And meanwhile Syria and its peoples burn. This update on the atavistic urges of Turkish President Erdogan's drive to re-invent an ottoman empire,gleaned from SMM Syria  :

"  As Turkey and the United States achieved an agreement on the fate of Northern Syria, the legal government of Syrian Arab Republic has strongly condemned it claiming that this achievement constitutes a flagrant aggression against Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

While the sides of talks call the results of negotiations as “good start”, international community continues to keep silence and prefer not to comment why two independent states shape the destiny of the third one. Neither UN representatives nor Arab League countries pay its attention on the talks and are still unmoved by Northern Syria.

Nowadays Turkey is the state which tries to play a double game in Syria but falls between two stools. On the one hand the United States of America – Turkey’s NATO ally –  consider Syrian Kurds as the closest partner in Syrian conflict. That’s the main reason why Turkey presidents’ threats are still on the “threat” level.

We’ve asked political commentator and Middle East researcher Marwa Osman her opinion on this issue. According to Marwa Osman the main goal which stands behind the talks between Turkey and the United States is the annexation of Northern Syria.

“What Turkey and the US are trying to do is to fight over who shall annex northern Syria first. They will both fail. The US is not capable of doing so militarily and Turkey will doom itself out of any future resolution if it continues to illegally occupy Syrian land. Turkey needs to remember that occupation creates resistance. Turkey won’t be able to handle the resistance…or at least for now since Erdogan is not doing so good politically in Turkey to begin with”, – Osman said.

“Northern Syria is Syrian. Kurds in Syria are Syrians even if they still support the American occupation of eastern Syria. This war will not end until all illegal foreign presence is removed. If you are a state not invited by the sovereign Syrian government then you will have to leave or face the consequences”, – Osman added.

On the other hand Hayat Tahrir al Sham militant group, which is partly funded by Turkish officials, looses its positions in Idlib province. Despite the agreement which was reached by the states of Astana format, Turkey continues to ignore its obligations regarding the de-escalation zone. It results in sufferings of civilians who lives in HTS-held areas. "


There you have it,two foreign powers both having violated Syria's territorial integrity and engaged in military action contrary to International Law.

In Erdogan's case,he instigated a reckless foreign military adventure designed to shore up his rapidly depleting domestic political stranglehold on the levers of power.The Turkish Lira is perpetually under siege on foreign currency markets,his country's credit rating is shot to hell and gone and domestic inflation and increasing unemployment are all heaping up social & economic powder kegs waiting for a match.

In Trump's case,he is utterly under the direction and influence of born again Washington neocon hawks who having gorged themselves on the spoils of militarism during the Bush and Clinton years are back for second helpings on a drastically curtailed foreign policy menu offering only charred remnants and slim pickings from what they had originally planned as a universal Arab Spring and a swathe of " colour " revolutions across the former USSR's landscape.

And so it goes...

fahrenheit451:276

Erdogan,that erstwhile ravening Turkish warmonger looks as though he's about to hit the existential jackpot in Syria.

From funding,harbouring and arming ISIS/Daesh as well as Al Qaeda affiliates, and his subsequent de-facto annexation of sovereign Syrian territory through to building walls,watchtowers and entire military supply bases and depots inside Syria and deploying a commensurate invading Army,Erdogan has doubled down like the chronic high risk gambler and demagogic chancer that he is.

And its all begun dropping apart in spectacular fashion.All his so-called NATO friends are deserting him and his allies have set a trap underneath him. The Turkish military haven't somehow heroically liberated their ethnic kinfolk from the clutches,as they see it,of Assad,but have been sucked ever deeper into a bottomless quagmire with no prospect of withdrawal.

Credit in fair measure,for helping to bring out these dramatic changes in the circumstances on the ground in Syria must go to President Trump's administration for its forthright dealings in matters of trade and commerce with the perceived abuses perpetrated by a number of its major trading competitors. Amongst the many nations targeted by these harsher tariffs is the export to the US of Turkish steel and aluminum.

The US has also gotten itself into an intra-NATO row over the sale of aircraft and missile systems to Turkey or rather the withholding of such deals at this present moment in time.

Neither of which has improved Erdogan's innately obstreperous demeanour.

And to cap it all the value of the Turkish Lira has depreciated catastrophically vis a vis the US Dollar on international markets.At the start of 2018,it was trrading at 3.76 Lira to the US Dollar by the start of August the rate had increased to 5.49 to the dollar.National economies cannot withstand 50% depreciations of their currencies against the Dollar.

Technically currency depreciations would be great for exports,but in Turkey's case domestic inflation,massive economic displacement and increased unemployment all begin to add up to Erdogan cutting nobody else's throat but his own in Syria.

Afrin, Idlib, Manbij: the entire paranoid scenario vis a vis the Kurds and their militia groups costs Turkey more in fuel and munitions and all the other logistics that have to be paid for in US Dollars.Which in turn have to be borrowed on International money markets against the sale of Turkish government bonds that in turn become increasingly junk as the screws tighten.

Ain't Capitalism wonderful ?  Schadenfreude is trading well these days.

fahrenheit451:264

On Sunday June 24,Turkey goes to the polls. It is very likely that the incumbent President Erdogan will be returned to office.In the event that he is,the Turkish state will undergo a radical transformation and the office of president will assume vastly enhanced powers to the detriment of both the Turkish parliament and judiciary as presently constituted.

The Turkish armed forces are currently illegally inside Syrian territory and are conducting military operations against indigenous mainly Kurdish militias as well as occupying Syrian villages,towns and cities; most notably Afrin, Idlib and Manbij.

The US also has its armed forces illegally inside Syria and is conducting military operations and occupying Syrian territory.They have gone so far as to divide up mutually conquered Syrian territory with their Turkish co-aggressors.

Which in purely International Law terms is utterly outrageous and without precedent.Not that the two NATO partner states have even bothered with the flimsiest of excuses,plausible or remotely otherwise in any attempt to legitimise their wanton warmongering conduct.

Israel supports all of this and why wouldn't they? they are the warmongering pariah state nonpareil when it comes to flouting International Law.

But the bigger problem for the foreseeable future,barring a near miraculous reversal at the ballot box on Sunday, is and will remain Erdogan.

Oh and by the way Erdogan still aspires that Turkey become a member of the European Union.And that is no longer a UK problem.

Or is it?

fahrenheit451:253

Not being content with attacking Syrian military facilities a few days previously, Israel went and repeated its aggression this time against several Iranian bases that are on Syrian territory.Their excuse was that Iranian forces had fired at Israeli territory first.
if anyone had any lingering doubts as to whether or not any State really gave a genuine damn about International Law and the prevailing norms of diplomacy,then this latest Israeli outrage ought to put such jejeune notions finally to bed.
Whatever vestiges of pretend-authority any notional Internationally accepted and binding rule of law is meant to have has been firmly consigned to the naive daydreams and unattainable aspirations of those who pine after some kind of brotherhood of man. Otiose cant and vacuous platitudes based on their respective DNA to western liberal democratic values,which themselves are of course the surviving chimera of such truly awful events of human history as the American and French revolutions.
Bismarckian Realpolitik is back in vogue. All well and good.Assuming of course that the dimwits, especially those in Washington's State Department and their institutional rivals at The Pentagon actually are able to discern and implement such a cunning strategy.
The Israeli MSM platform Haaretz reports on the construction by the US with French collaboration of a military base near Manbij in Syria and the threats made to the US for doing so by Erdogan's Turkey.I don't recall this potboiler of what is a growing classic Mexican standoff ever being referred to or taken notice of at the UN,either at Security Council or General Assembly level.
So,having planned,nurtured,financed,trained,armed & logistically supported the hydra-headed Arab Spring popular uprisings and having watched as they went  "south" one by inexorable one, the US administration rears up on its hindlegs and accuses Iran of being the source of instability in the region! This Punch & Judy show suits Israel's atavistic urges that underpin and motivate Netanyahu's faux-demagougery and pathetic bellicose antics.
Erdogan's Turkey - and let us hope that he might be defeated in the forthcoming Turkish general election- is a Treaty bound member of NATO and aspires to become a member of the European Union.Clearly reality is on the blink,on both counts.
And the legitimate Syrian government fights on with the invaluable assistance of its allies- Russia,Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah and elements of the Palestinian diaspora in Syria.The Kurds though,right in the middle of all this are,no surprise getting royally shafted by all and sundry.That was inevitable.
As is Schadenfreude.

fahrenheit451:244

There is no recognised,valid international agreement that has magically granted authorisation nor any shred of legal legitimacy to the activities of the US.UK,Turkey or France whose forces are currently ensconced on the territory of the sovereign state of Syria. The only foreign forces who are incontestably legally,legitimately assisting the Syrian government are those of Russia,Iran and the forces of Hezbollah.
That the corporate MSM in the UK choose to announce the death of a British forces soldier in Syria whilst serving with US Special forces does nothing to alter or mitigate the brazen violation of all manner of International Law and norms governing the relationship between sovereign states who are at peace with one another.
Mad dog Erdogan's instigated  blitzkrieg against predominantly indigenous Kurdish dominated provinces bordering Turkey are a major case in point.Turkey's NATO membership further deepens an already insoluble imbroglio. The Kurds under attack were until a few weeks ago a strategic ally of the US ( and France and Germany ) in the hydra-headed Syrian civil war scenario.
Now it seems that France has declared its renewed support of the Kurds much to the consternation of Erdogan whose vainglorious territorial ambitions remain unabated by this latest complication.
And given the diplomatic spat initiated by the UK's beleaguered,ailing,minority Tory regime against Russia over an as yet unresolved attempted assassination of a former Russia traitor on British soil,the  climate of international relations has entered a period of deep depression.
The Washington Deep State continues to remorselessly tighten its grip on what remains of Trump's avowed non-interventionist stance that helped him get into the Oval Office.
The various jihadist factions are engaged in a variety of interconnected blood feuds that have come back to life after their collective failure to achieve anything more lasting than their own infamy.And two ISIS butchers- bizarrely nicknamed  "The Beatles"- because of their british accents, whose UK citizenship was revoked are in the hands of the mainly Kurdish SDF anti-Assad forces who don't seem capable of simply giving these two the coup-de-grace.
And so it goes.Turkey is appointing its own governors to administer the territory it has annexed in its avowedly racist,anti-Kurdish blitzkrieg,which if nothing else has spooked the US and UK into an embarrassing omerta,all their supposed international diplomatic muscle rendered useless,except of course in their lunatic,hybrid warfare out-of-theatre assault on Russia.
As someone else has already opined, we could indeed be heading into a Nuclear 1914 scenario.
Duck and cover ain't going to help.

fahrenheit451:236

On February 15,the US secretary of State,Tillerson met with Turkey's Foreign Minister to discuss the current burgeoning imbroglio following Erdogan's launching of a blitzkrieg against the Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin.

This what the pair of venal,posturing petomaines of international diplomacy and apprentices of Realpolitik came up with as a statement at the conclusion of their hastily arranged rendezvous:-
“Turkey and the United States reaffirm their commitment to the preservation of the territorial integrity and national unity of Syria. To this end, we will decisively stand against all attempts to create faits accomplis and demographic changes within Syria, and are dedicated to coordination on transition and stabilization of Syria.

“Recognizing the fact that there can only be a political solution to the Syrian crisis, and that it requires a viable political transition, Turkey and the United States agree to intensify their cooperation to bring about this result within the framework of established parameters, namely the UNSC Resolution 2254, and through the Geneva process.”

The US and its errant or otherwise compliant satrapies are present inside the territory of the sovereign state of Syria without the permission of the legitimate government of Syria.

It's what used to be called an " invasion " ; such an action was customarily undertaken as an integral part of what used to be called   declaring  " War ". Not that any country has actually declared war or anything else against the sovereign nation State of Syria.

No,not at all,the US and its NATO/EU lackey running dogs are simply there inside Syria on their own cognisance.They are ,minus all the carnage,war crimes and needless mayhem, trespassing.

Russia and Iran and elements of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement,au contraire are assisting the legitimate government of Syria at its request
.
Clearly Tillerson and his Turkish glove-puppet have adopted the Humpty Dumpty Weltanschauhung that words mean precisely what they want them to mean,no more and no less.

So; accusations of putative war crimes,genocide,ethnic cleansing,unprovoked aggression against a non-belligerent country that hasn't expressed any hostility towards the USNATOEU aside,we are left where we began; lost in a labyrinth.

The Syria Kurds ,part of the anti-government SDF have apparently concluded an agreement with the goverment to send its forces into the Afrin enclave in order to counter the Turkish menace who are in turn supported on the ground by the FSA etc and so forth,ad nauseam,ad infinitum.