Appeasing Erdogan

The US, Russia, and Iran All Look Set to Appease Another Turkish Landgrab in Syria

The 3-way Mexican standoff that has characterized the frozen conflict in Syria for years now continues.
1. The first side in the West controlling the majority of the country’s territory and population is the Syrian government in Damascus - backed by Russian forces, Iranian-led Shiite Popular Mobilization Units, and Hezbollah.
2. The second side is Turkish military forces occupying much of Northern Syria with its proxy Sunni Islamist bashi bazouk rebranded as the “New Syrian Army” and allied Hayat Tahrir al-Sham aka Al-Qaeda in Idlib
3. And the third side is the US military occupation force in east Syria with their proxy “Syrian Democratic Forces” which is comprised of half Kurdish YPG and half Sunni Arab tribal forces formerly fighting for ISIS, sitting on and exploiting the majority of Syria’s oil and wheat-fields.

An apparent terrorist bombing in Istanbul several weeks ago, which the Erdogan regime of course claims was perpetrated by the Syrian Kurdish YPG, but all evidence points to being the work of ISIS or other disgruntled jihadists formerly on the Turkish payroll, much as the 2015 bombings in Turkey were, is being used as a pretext for more Turkish attacks on Kurds in Syria and northern Iraq.

The NeoOttoman Sultan Erdogan is once again threatening another major military incursion into northern Syria to seize the remaining portions along the border which are still under the control of the US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces.
Erdogan has essentially ethnically cleansed of Kurds all of the areas of northern Syria that he and his proxies control to a depth of 30km and wants to do the same to the rest of it, effectively creating a Sunni-Islamist proxy state in all of northern Syria under Turkish control, devoid of any Kurdish population.

Erdogan has bluffed such further incursions into northern Syria several times before for concessions, but this time appears more serious. A successful military operation against the Kurds in Syria might help distract from his domestic economic woes, as he faces a tough re-election bid next year.

He has already launched an extensive series of some 89 air and drone strikes at Kurdish military targets and infrastructure in northern Syria and Iraq, including of territories that respectively had a US and Russian military presence in the areas. However no US or Russian troops were actually hilled in the strikes and both replied with only the most feeble of protestations, fearing Erdogan flipping “to the other’s side” permanently.

 Erdogan has insisted that these airstrikes and increased artillery “softening” are merely the prelude to a larger ground offensive into northern Syria against what Turkey considers Syrian Kurdish “terrorists”.

Russia has tried to negotiate with the Syrian Kurds, getting them to withdraw their militia forces 30km from the border and turn authority and security there over to the Syrian government in the hopes that this would assuage Erdogan’s supposed security concerns, but the Kurdish political elites still playing proxy forces to the US occupation, and delusional off US insinuations of “independence” or at least a proxy Kurdish quasi-state, Rojava, in east Syria under US protection, refuse to budge.

The US, Russia, and Iran have all half-heartedly tried to talk Erdogan out of it, but all appeared certain to in the end appease him and give him a de facto greenlight because of Erdogan’s continual leveraging of Turkey’s pivotal geopolitical importance, constantly playing the US and Russia off of each other.
Neither Biden nor Putin are willing to push Erdogan too much, especially now that they are at war with each other just on the other side of the Black Sea in Ukraine.
Erdogan is a cunning beast and senses the weakness and opportunity.

The tragic end result will likely be that if Erdogan goes through with the further ground incursion, the US will once again throw its Kurdish proxies to the Turkish wolves and all of northern Syria will then be ethnically cleansed of Kurds as a result.

Russia will ruefully shake its head in exasperation but do nothing and convince Damascus to tolerate this further “temporary Turkish occupation” of sovereign Syrian territory until some distant theoretical future day when both the US and Turkey will tire of the expensive of their respective military occupations of Syrian territory and leave.