Voice of America: US, Turkey Differ Over How to Fight IS From Incirlik Air Base
Differences have emerged between Washington and Ankara over how to use a Turkish air base near the Syrian border in the fight against Islamic State militants.
Ankara’s decision in recent days to open the Incirlik airbase to U.S. jets was reportedly described as a “game changer” by one U.S. official in the battle against IS. Incirlik is located 110 kilometers from the Syrian border, meaning U.S. jets could reach their targets much faster than from the locations they've been using. Anti-IS forces mainly operate from Bahrain, Jordan and aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.
For months, Ankara resisted Washington’s calls to open Incirlik because of differences over fighting the Jihadists and the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.
WNU Editor: The U.S. focus is to stop the Islamic State .... Turkey's focus is to stop Kurdish forces. These differences should have been taken care of before their joint announcement .... but in the rush to make this announcement no one bothered to hash out the details. As a result .... the U.S. is now in limbo and as far as the Turkish government is concerned .... they have a green light from Washington to go after the Kurds. This is a textbook example on how NOT to do diplomacy.
The Turks do not need a "green light" from Washington for anything. If they want to go after the Kurds, there's nothing America can do to prevent that. As far as influencing things in a big way in the Middle East, the US lacks the power or influence to be able to do that. The best we can do is to influence things around the margin.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this is not the way to do diplomacy. Unfortunately the people conducting Us diplomacy seem to have neither competence nor ethics.
On the one hand, we have the Kurds. The Kurds have generally been friendly towards us and have not acted in ways to harm us. While it is unlikely the Kurds could ever actually defeat ISIS and it is questionable whether or not they can survive against an ISIS onslaught in the long run, they can win a few battles against ISIS and slow the advance of ISIS for a time. Even with the full support of America, this would be unlikely to change the balance of power. Furthermore the ability of the Kurds to project power is limited to the Middle East. In other words, they are unable to harm American interests or Americans outside of the immediate area of influence.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, we have Turkey. Turkey has often dealt treacherously with us and has not acted in decent manner towards America. In fact it may even be accurate to call Turkey an enemy. At a minimum, they are not to be trusted. Also, Turkey has the ability to harm Americans and American interests outside of the Middle East including on the American mainland. In a conflict with Turkey, millions of Americans would likely die. IF Turkey's cooperation could be achieved in the fight against ISIS, this actually might present us a chance to defeat ISIS.
ISIS poses an existential threat to American. As such, it is understandable why such cooperation would be sought. In order to cooperate with us, Turkey will want something in return.
While I emphatically, whole heartedly, unequivocally do NOT agree with the decision of the American government in this situation, I can appreciate the very difficult position that POTUS and other American leaders are in.
FULL RETARD
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