NATO slouches toward Syria, Iran draws red line
Tehran has come out openly today warning Turkey against making “any move which will further exacerbate and complicate the conditions in the region and have irreparable consequences.” The foreign ministry spokesperson disclosed that Tehran has made a demarche with Ankara to act with great circumspection. This is the first Iranian reaction to the resolution passed by the Turkish parliament last Thursday authorising the government to despatch troops to Syria.
The Iranian reaction is sharp and amounts to a warning that if Turkish troops cross the border into Turkey, there will be “irreparable consequences.” Hmm. Things are getting to be rather explosive. Why such a sharp Iranian reaction?
Evidently, Tehran has seen through Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan’s game plan, which is playing out on three templates. Erdogan visualizes that the US-led air campaign against the Islamic State won’t suffice to curb the extremist challenge and there is going to be need for “boots on the ground”. He knows Turkey is the only country which is in a position to deploy ground troops to strengthen the US’ strategy against IS.
So, Erdogan has put forward a pre-condition — he will play ball provided the US reworks its anti-IS strategy in Syria to include ‘regime change’. But Washington prevaricated. Thereupon, Erdogan played his second card — reviving the ancient Turkish proposal to create a “buffer zone” inside Syria. And, then, he made the buffer zone a precondition for Ankara’s intervention to defend the northern Syrian town of Kobane on the Turkish border which had come under IS attack.
Again, Washington dithered. Kobane has now fallen to the IS. Meanwhile, Erdogan has anyway scored a goal — Kobane is a Kurdish town and its capture by the IS weakens the effectiveness of the Kurdish separatist organization PKK fighting the Turkish army.
Simply put, Erdogan is allowing the IS (which Turkey supports secretly) to crush the Kurds in northern Syria, while at the same time offering help to President Barack Obama to fight the IS — provided, of course, the US went along with the Turkish territorial ambitions (under the garb of buffer and ‘no-fly-zone’) in Syria, which will be the first shot in a ‘Balkanization’ of that Country.
Clearly, Erdogan’s agenda focuses on the “regime change” in Syria and, secondly, on the weakening and eventual decimation of the Kurdish separatist groups, while his attitude to the IS as such has always remained ambivalent.
How long can President Barack Obama hold out against Erdogan’s blackmail? The US’ resistance to the buffer zone idea is weakening, as hinted strongly by Secretary of State John Kerry today in a remark after meeting his British counterpart — although Pentagon continues to insist that “buffer zone” is not in the consideration zone of the US strategy. The point is, Obama has come under withering criticism in the domestic opinion for having “done little” to stop the fall of Kobane.
It suits Erdogan to despatch the Turkish troops under some sort of NATO intervention in Syria. Which makes the visit to Ankara today by the NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg highly significant. (The US special envoy to Syria Gen. John Allen also arrived in Ankara today.) The French President Francois Hollande has voiced support for the idea of “buffer zone” in Syria. Which, of course, means Saudi Arabia has okayed it too.
To be sure, a momentum is building up for NATO intervention in Syria. It may seem modest in the beginning in terms of NATO offering “protection” to a member country (Turkey).
The powerful chairman of the House foreign relations committee in Washington, Edward Royce said in statement harshly criticizing the Obama administration, “A terrorist army is now on NATO’s doorstep. It is time for Turkey and other Alliance members to do more forcefully get involved in combating ISIL in Syria.”
Erdogan is probably assessing that if the Turkish troops invade Syria under the garb of a NATO operation, Iran (and Russia) would hesitate to make countermoves lest that brought them into a collision course with the Western alliance.
But Tehran seems to have understood what is afoot. The Foreign Ministry spokesperson announced today that Iran is willing to (militarily) intervene to liberate Kobane from the IS, if the Syrian government of President Bashar Al-Assad makes such a request to Tehran. In real terms, Tehran has pre-empted the pretext for a NATO intervention in Syria.
Erdogan may have overreached. Within Turkey, too, opposition is building up against the despatch of Turkish troops to Syria, including even within the Islamist camp.
Indeed, if the Kurds get Kobane liberated with Iranian help, that will expose Erdogan completely. The repercussions can be very serious for Turkey, because Kurds won’t accept Erdogan’s perceived betrayal. Anti-government violence has erupted on a big scale in the Kurdish regions in eastern Turkey.
Posted in Diplomacy, Military, Politics.
Tagged with Arab spring, Iraq, ISIL, Muslim Brotherhood, NATO expansion, Recep Erdogan, Syria's civil war.
By M K Bhadrakumar – October 9, 2014
