Turkey Gives Up on Obama, Will Wait for His Successor

Weak U.S. Causes Turkey to Balk

Although a recent partial cease-fire agreement was reached by Russia and the U.S., Turkey fears that Russia will continue their bombing campaign in favor of Assad’s regime.  Russia has completed 8,000 sorties since October in Syria, nine-tenths of them directed against the moderate opposition in Syria along with many civilian targets, and only a tenth against ISIS.

Above all, the skepticism about the cease-fire deal reflects the Turkish ruling establishment’s loss of confidence in Moscow’s negotiating partner in Syria — Washington. Officials in Ankara say they doubt the U.S. has the political will to see that this or any other agreement is upheld.

Since the beginning of Russia’s air campaign on September 30, Syria’s low-intensity conflict has morphed into a high-stakes geopolitical contest. From the Turkish perspective, Washington silently stood by as rebel groups, backed by the U.S., Turkey and other allies were ousted from vital locations by Assad’s Russian-backed forces. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were sent fleeing from their homes.

In Syria itself, the array of foreign and Syrian fighters now under Russian and Iranian direction — Lebanese Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, Afghan Hazaras and a Syrian Kurdish militia — are in a position to close all exits to Turkey and block Aleppo, where 250,000 people reside in rebel-held territory, leading possibly to siege, starvation or even genocide.

And with so many actors on the battlefield cloaking their true intentions while issuing misleading or contradictory statements, many observers see a parallel to 1914, with any number of opportunities for a minor mistake triggering a war between Russia and Turkey.

That moment seemed close in mid-February. A Kurdish militia that the U.S. had supported in battles against Islamic extremists switched patrons, and backed by Russian warplanes captured an airbase, a strategic town and several villages and was heading towards the border town of Azaz.

In a brazen advance, the People’s Protection Units or YPG not only dealt a major blow to Western- and Turkey-backed rebels that were safeguarding a supply route from Aleppo to Turkey, but pressed their own stated goal in the war: To unite separated Kurdish enclaves in northern Syria into a single unit, the nucleus of what its parent organization in Turkey, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, views as a future Kurdish state to be carved out of Syria and Turkey.

Ankara swiftly demanded the YPG abandon the territory it had claimed and began shelling the militia across the international border.

The U.S. State Department’s evenhanded response — admonishing both Turkey and the YPG and calling on both to back off — infuriated Ankara. “The only thing we expect from our U.S. ally is to support Turkey, with no ‘ifs’ or ‘buts,’” snapped Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu on February 20.

The YPG halted its advance on Azaz, but it’s unclear for how long.

The increasingly bitter tone of the dispute with Washington — President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said at one point, “Am I your ally, or are the ‘terrorists’ in Kobani?” in a reference to the YPG’s stronghold — shows how out of synch the two NATO allies have become.

President Obama’s proclivity to disengage from the Arab world, his tilt towards Iran (the main regional rival for U.S. allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia) and his announced “pivot” towards Asia are no doubt factors in the falling out with Ankara.

Also a factor is Obama’s broader goal to avoid entanglement in another Middle East conflict, a reflection of the popular revulsion to his predecessor’s war in Iraq.
Whatever the reason, U.S. policy has been marked by frequent shifts in tackling Syria.

America’s alliance with a Kurdish militia that Turkey views as a threat to its territorial integrity and Washington’s daily praise of the fighters’ prowess on the ground may have encouraged the YPG to use the war in Syria to carve out a Kurdish state. The biggest strategic error in Turkey’s view was the U.S. refusal to step up support for Arab opponents of the Assad regime after the Russian intervention on the side of government forces.

As far as Turks are concerned, the aim of U.S. diplomacy should be to counter Russian expansionism, not to offer Moscow a permanent grip on the region. Turks view the U.S. drive for a cease-fire and the opening of peace talks as misguided. The gambit may play with U.S. public opinion, but it cannot end the war after Russia upended the battlefield unless the U.S. has the will to re-balance it, officials say.

While the entire debacle is a stew of warlords, Islamic fanatics and ambitious Middle Eastern countries (plus a newly aggressive Russia), the tangle offered the United States an opportunity to structure an agreement that would have helped settle the region for years to come. Instead, the Obama administration backed off and let the entire mess bubble up so that Russia and Iran had an opening to step in and make matters much worse.

No doubt Obama was frightened of the spectre of the Bush administration’s entanglement in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that is the job of a president… to exercise power and lead the world in a direction that will end with greater peace and cooperation. Obama liked to say that he used to be a community organizer, but a better word for that is a community insurrectionist.

It appears that Obama’s inaction in the Middle East has also led to widespread insurrection, resulting in the death of tens of thousands and the displacement of hundreds of thousands or even millions. It is hard to know how things might have turned out with a better leader, but Obama’s legacy in the Middle East will be one of widespread death and destruction.

Source: politico.eu