The Arab Spring

Not quite that total, but it's wrong to assume Russia wouldn't escalate if a Turkish invasion were to hurt their interests in Syria. Turkey limiting themselves to the Kurds, as much as Russia is cool with the Kurds, would not constitute that.

Turkey invading to keep the rebellion going on the other hand, would.

I can't imagine the US isn't working behind the scenes to ether prevent the invasion, or at the least keep the Turks from wiping the Kurds off the map.

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

Thats probably what's stopped the Turks from doing it months ago. I imagine that still holds true.

Speaking of possible black swans....

Why does Saudi Arabia keep pretending to be a stable state that can project power? This Walter Mitty of Nations act is going to backfire in the long run.

Schild und Schwert der Partei

Yeah, Mb S needs to give it a rest, along with his papa. Caution suited them far better than this.

EDIT- The Turks deny they are prepping an invasion.

This merry go round is just not gonna get any better.

edited 4th Feb '16 4:28:00 PM by FFShinra

I assume this is the end of the matter, at least for a while. Maybe it was all just a warning to the Russians about what might happen if they are pushed to far.

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

The AKP government, unsurprisingly, has played this whole mess wrong. It was a terrible idea to let Turkey turn into the training ground of the terrorists at all. Blinded by the promises of their Western puppetmasters they decided to side against the legitimate government of Assad, and gave him incentive to support PKK, the only remaining anti-Turkey faction in Syria.

It is now too late to fix any of what happened, all we can hope for is to get out of the mess with minimum damage done. We should do everything we can to prevent PKK rule in Northern Syria, but because of the past idiocies some gain by them looks inevitable whether or not Assad regains control.

I would hardly call Erdogan a Western puppet, he opposed the invasion of Iraq, and was a constant pain in our ass until his guys shot down that Russian plane, whereupon Turkey cam crawling back to the warm bussum of Nato and Article 5. To put it bluntly Erdogan is 100 percent Turkey's creation and problem.

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

Erdoğan openly supported the Iraqi invasion, he was the one pushing for the bill that would allow a front from Turkey be opened. He didn't have complete control over the parliament back then, so the parliament could vote against the bill.

He always supported American interests in the region until late 2012 - early 2013, which unsurprisingly coincides with the period when you start to first see articles criticizing him in the Western media.

edited 4th Feb '16 7:47:23 PM by amateur55

Assad's regime is anything BUT legitimate. The protests that started this whole war were not engineered even if some of the groups later on were. Assad has no mandate left. He's essentially traded sovereignity and the whole of Syria's treasure to the Russians and Iran.

As for Erdogan, he had his own ambitions and wanted to do them on the cheap by using proxies. The war would have been over years ago if Turkey had directly intervened.

Why precisely should the Kurds be prevented from ruling? They work well with the "legitimate" Assad, and they work well with everyone else that isn't the Turks. They've earned their mandate.

edited 4th Feb '16 7:55:49 PM by FFShinra

They did not grant US troops land access for the invasion, or deploy troops in their own right, sans to maintain their own interests in the North. Maybe you were confused because Bush named Turkey as part of the "coalition of the willing" probably so we'd have at least one country in the region "supporting" the thing.

And I'm afraid I remember our media's opinion of Turkey quite differently. Thought 2011/2012 Turkey was seen as a model nation and an example of how Islamists could embrace Democracy, and a model for the new Republics of the Arab Spring to follow. Those illusions were proved false when Erdogan began to consolidate dictatorial power. And it certainly was not helped by the Kurds becoming our biggest ally in the fight against ISIS, and the Turks refusing to even let us use their airfields to bomb the bastards. The most infamous example was allowing an ISIS army to fight for control of Kobani within sight of the boarder. Plus their have been widespread reports of Turkey aiding ISIS.

The US may have had puppet regimes in Turkey, but they were the "secularists" and the deep state. Erdogan is not our responsibility.

edited 4th Feb '16 7:55:49 PM by JackOLantern1337

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

Assad's regime is legitimate, at least it is more legitimate than every single other faction in Syria, who are a bunch of foreign fighters who were planted there to install a Western-friendly government.

PKK is a direct enemy of the very foundation of the Republic, and no country is going to permit an openly hostile organization run a country next-door.

You're confusing the parliament with Erdoğan himself. He himself supported the invasion, but the parliament vetoed it. Ever heard of separation of powers? You know, the thing that existed in Turkey before the courts in Turkey were infiltrated by members of the CIA-supported Gülen order, the AKP government's then-allies? The Western media was quite happy to celebrate the 'victory' of the 'democratic moderate-Islamist AKP government' over the 'secular elite' when they were busy locking up Turkish intellectuals who were supposedly connected to the so-called 'deep state' with fake evidence planted by Gülen's followers, weren't they? Isn't it funny how Erdoğan suddenly becomes a dictator once he becomes a political enemy to Gülen?

They are hostile to no one else. Therefore no one else will do anything about them. Turkey can do whatever it wants, but do not be surprised when Russia arms and trains and supports them like they do Assad. With the help of the US.

As for Assad being "more" legitimate, there IS no legitimacy right now. It's controlled anarchy. Sovereign authority is under Russian and Iranian practical control.

And like I said, buddy likes to support your Kurdish enemies when it suits him. Especially when Erdogan has it in for him.

Well, like I said in my original post, that's is completely Erdoğan and Davutoğlu's fault, they predicted a rebel victory, which is something that will never happen when said rebels are a bunch of Western-supported jihadist idiots.

And again, I never said anybody else should do anything, because the days I thought everybody are naturally opposed to terrorist factions are long gone, and people will support PKK when it serves their interest. I only said that we should do everything we can to prevent them gaining power, but even that has become virtually impossible because of our government's strongly anti-Assad position. If we sided with Assad early on there is no way he would be so friendly with them.

Ok, there's just one thing I'm not quite understanding from all of this recent discussion:

Said Gülen movement/order is supposedly a more moderate alternative within Islam as opposed to more extreme schools such as Salafism.

While I understand that the Gülen movement is doing shenanigans within Turkey (with some funding coming from the US charter schools), for their own internal political goals, what are, exactly, their intentions in regards to Syria and the Kurds?

edited 4th Feb '16 8:26:07 PM by Quag15

The rise of authoritarian Islam in Turkey has been a thing of worry for years, I know that at least one British minister was starting to worry about it in 2009, because he talked about it with my mum before we went on holiday to Turkey.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Since as an organization they refuse to have political goals and simply claim to be a religious movement that question doesn't have an objective answer. My own subjective answer would be that they support the current American position, whatever that is, at any time. They were allied with Erdoğan until mid-2013, when Erdoğan started disliking the idea of sharing control of the country with some shady organization and announced plans to shut down schools they fund.

edited 4th Feb '16 8:42:16 PM by amateur55

FYI: In case anyone else hasn't figured it out, amateur55's avatar is a QR code that says "Dictator Erdogan".

Also, good going saying that the foreign fighters in Syria are western plants. There goes all your credibility, for the nth time.

If I may ask, do you support Erdogan? It's rather difficult to infer your position from your posts.

edited 4th Feb '16 9:15:14 PM by KnitTie

Western backed jihadist terrorists? Thats only now, and even then not all are jihadists and not all (certainly not the jihadists) are western backed. Before Assad started calling in foreign assistance back in 2013, he was being beat by a general and politically moderate uprising. Its only after the chemical attacks when it became clear Syria would never get Western help a la Libya, that they started going to whoever could help them, including jihadists.

Revolution on the cheap ain't.

edited 5th Feb '16 12:41:51 AM by FFShinra

... Wait, what? Where the hell did you get that info? You're basically saying that there is no native Syrian in the anti-regime movement, which directly contradicts all of the video evidence that we have since the beginning of the war.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Of course I don't, what made you think that I might?

The 'moderate opposition' you're talking about is FSA, which was never really 'moderate' and mostly made up of foreign supported forces.

edited 5th Feb '16 7:08:27 AM by amateur55

Right. And the National Transitional Council and its allies were not backed by foreign governments? Let's face it: Unless huge sections of the regular military forces align themselves with a popular revolt, all anti-regime armed resistance groups in the Arab Spring have to be foreign-backed to have a chance at survival let alone actual victory.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

This very thread has tracked the early stages of the revolt. Most just wanted reforms. It was only when Assad overreacted that they took up arms. Hell, most didn't even want Assad to step down at the time...until he started attacking them.

Even just saying there were no moderates is an overgeneralization and simplification. You may find that necessary to justify Assad to yourself, but don't for one second think most observers will take you seriously.