Patrick Smith, Fiscal Times: Obama Paid a High Price to Get Turkey to Fight ISIS
The war against the Islamic State just widened to include Turkey as a combatant. The Obama administration has long tried to persuade the Islamic government of RecipTayip Erdoğan to get into the fray, but the vital question still needs to be asked: Is this “game-changer,” as one U.S. official calls it, a good thing or a bad thing?
There’s no simple answer, but on balance, this development offers a little short-term good and a lot of long-term bad.
There is no question that ISIS threatens everyone, including most Muslims, and is now destabilizing Turkey’s southern provinces. Countering this menace is an urgent task.
WNU Editor: President Obama is denying any deals with Turkey to assist coalition efforts to stop the Islamic State .... Obama denies sacrificing Kurds to gain Turkey’s help in Islamic State fight (Washington Times). U.S. officials are saying the same thing .... US: Turkey going only after ISIL in Syria, not Kurds (Today's Zaman). Facts on the ground say otherwise .... Turkey launches another attack in Iraq against Kurdish camps (Reuters).
2 comments:
WNU,
Well back on the soap box for me. All of this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. This Administration's approach to foreign affairs has been a mirror image of how it has handled it's domestic agenda. In essence it is to push an agenda regardless of consequence, buy off opposition and cooperation, leave as little exposure to liability as possible and in the last resort deny it all and brand your opponents as crazy and out of touch. Well starting in 2008 with a definite majority in election and the vast majority of the domestic press willing participants, it has been a success domestically (if you're of that political persuasion), in the foreign arena it has been a very different matter. It started off sort of well, the Nobel Peace prize, the Cairo speech, withdrawal from Iraq, etc. Unfortunately everyone knew the Peace Prize was B. S.. Believing that, Iran through Maliki and the Shia militias with a little air help from the US would defeat the "JV" ISIS, publicly denigrating our ally Israel (the famous chicken shit line) therefore cultivating Arabic sympathy, backing off Assad and the "red line" statement to mollify Iran and Putin, none of this has worked out to plan. Try to get a "Legacy Agreement" that would back up the peace prize, not doing as well as hoped. The Shias and Hezbollah have turned out not nearly as good as advertised with ISIS handling them easily and growing daily. The effort to get as many countries involved as possible (to help spread the blame) has fallen flat. They are discovering that other countries have other agendas and will pursue them without fear of the US, the foreign press may be corrupt etc etc, but it is not the Administration's creature.
Remember WNU, when I said above that one of their tactics is to say any opposition is crazy and out of touch, well remember what they said about Putin and Russia at the beginning of the Crimean crisis, how they were crazy, 19th century?
They are not only running out of people to buy off, but they are finding that they don't possess anything anyone else wants.
James .... I could not have said it any better.
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