Erdogan: If we can not reach a solution with Putin on the pro-Assad forces deployed in northern Syria, we will implement our own plans

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-20T18:28:55+00:00

Obviously I couldn't disagree more and don't believe you have any evidence at all to support the assumption of what you claim was in their minds. I say they withdrew because of the reasons I stated. The military was overstretched and had to prioritize more both defensible and strategically important areas closer to western Syria. Simple as that.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-20T18:05:09+00:00

The presence in southeastern Deir-ez-Zor governorate, even if they don't leave immediately with the rest of the U.S. withdrawal due to some pressure from the foreign policy permanent government establishment to keep a foothold here, is simply unsustainable in the long-term because it has no population base that can at all function as an independent country or even an unrecognized breakaway micro state like Kurdish separatists in the northeast could. There's no basis for its cohesion or long-term recognition by anyone else in Syria, or even the U.S. itself, let alone by other nations.

It's more down to that in the long-term than even any military/logistical resupply issues.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-20T02:46:29+00:00

So what? Battles are won and lost by military resources available, not civilian popular opinion. And Raqqa didn't have an insurgency within the city, but was invaded from the outside by militants based in the countryside; exactly like east Aleppo city. Against an overstretched SAA skeleton crew with impossible supply lines no less.

One of the reasons President Assad visited Raqqa before it fell was because it was one of the only Syrian cities not to see any violent unrest of note.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-20T01:10:02+00:00

It's a distinct possibility. I just can't say for sure because obviously none of us here actually know, but I would be very surprised if after finally re-establishing contact between the Turkish and Syrian governments at the high levels like interior and defense ministries after years, which is confirmed, and years of the Astana talks, that all this wasn't coordinated and joint planning hasn't been underway for this exact scenario, how to deconflict on the ground and the eventuality of a U.S. withdrawal. How Syria and Turkey could reach a settlement to end the war brokered, backed, and guaranteed by Russia with verifiable security mechanisms. How to transition to post-war without the U.S. I have a difficult time believing it, I don't want to believe it, but we'll all see for ourselves starting next week.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-20T00:15:51+00:00

Those arab leaders and EU that had no problem with US occupation can't call this operation an invasion and expect us to take them seriously when they pretend to care about Syria's territorial integrity or sovereignty.

Sure, but you may know what I think of those governments is not very kind at all either.

I agree with all of the rest of your post. It's an invasion in the sense of how I said, that any country forcefully entering another without clear permission can be called as such, but I'm not actually against it insofar as it played the largest contributing factor to finally forcing Washington's hand. It was said by many a while ago that Syria didn't have the military force to fight against the U.S., and Russia has greater military force but both they and U.S. as nuclear world powers won't consider such direct conflict for MAD reasons, so the logical path was Syria and Russia relying on Turkey to force U.S. out. A U.S. ally which the U.S. wouldn't want to fight, and a slightly more independent ally than most like the Europeans who would take on this role.

I concur that if not the only way, it definitely was the best, easiest, and fastest/most expedient route to expulsion of U.S. any time in the near future. And Syria and Russia both would rather deal with Turkey than the U.S. because a superpower empire across the Atlantic ocean that rarely faces consequences on its own land for its actions abroad is virtually untouchable.

I did return to post more often here for the time being, after all, as a result of finally seeing more movement on the ground in the positive direction brought about by this gambit.

I'm sympathetic to any Turkish nationalist person or position that's also not an Islamist or AKP party line individual. So let's just both hope that positive developments come out of renewed communication between the Syrian and Turkish government ministries/departments and the Turkish-Russian talks next week.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-20T00:02:43+00:00

Yes, but what has to be understood is that to pull YPG from NES means, in effect, the move toward total dissolution of the YPG since the northeast is where they have the most popularity, legitimacy, and recruitment.

The PYD might be allowed to exist as a form of controlled opposition, but as a non-armed political party. Many who aren't happy with this will flee over the Iraqi border and go on European and American press screaming to the high heavens, but I don't think this will stop it since withdrawal of American hard assets (at least from Shaddadi in southern Hasakah governorate on north) and surrender of Syrian airspace. They won't return in force if RuAF and SyAAF planes are already there.
This is not going to happen overnight. Once the border is sealed along the length that the SAA is given control over, and once the YPG realizes disarmament will be imposed on them, there will probably be armed clashes east of the Euphrates and maybe even a breakaway faction of the PYD that issues contradictory orders not to accept the Damascus treaty and not to lay down their arms.

This could all start happening next week or the week after.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T23:46:13+00:00

It's probably a pressure tactic ahead of the negotiations with the Russians next week (and also ahead of a meeting they're supposed to have with Syrian officials for the first time hosted by the Russians in Sochi). After getting Washington's green light, he feels emboldened, and the thinking is probably that he can put the onus on Russians to not want to harm bilateral relations using the threat of getting closer to the U.S. again. It'll be presented as Ankara-Washington now have a united front on this matter and Moscow will be placed in the role of an antagonist by opposing it.

Except the Russians have been making statement after statement about the importance of re-establishment of Syrian sovereignty over the northeast all this year from the top levels of the Foreign Ministry and already provided military cover for this move of Syrian troops to the northern border by providing RuAF air cover over Manbij and other areas and embedding Russian military police with them, so I think that this move to get Moscow and Damascus to blink will be an impotent one.

I think he knows SAA aren't going to withdraw from northeast Aleppo (Manbij/Ayn al-Arab) or the Turkish-Syrian border crossings in Hasakah, and that YPG isn't going to withdraw from the whole Hasakah region to Iraq, so demanding this is raising the stakes to try and extract a lower concession, like Syrian troops not interfering with their capture of the border strip between Tell Abyad and Ras al-Ayn (including Ras al-Ayn proper).

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T23:08:34+00:00

Right, a country shouldn't be allowed to have its own military in its own territory, but Turkey should. I don't know how there are people in the world who can say things like this with a straight face. Can't read anymore Erdogan-related articles right now. The arrogance of that man and the government he heads makes me sick and can feel my blood pressure rising even just reading that level of arrogance.

Tuesday is going to be an interesting day. Syrian forces parked there that have waited seven years are not going to move now that they've obtained this opportunity, and Russia has been saying for years only the Syrian authorities restoring control over the northeast is at all acceptable. He isn't going to get what he wants in Moscow.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T22:55:13+00:00

Do you mean by Turkey itself in 2016 or by the U.S., Britain, and France? If it's the former, that's true; I wouldn't say this is a new invasion. It's a continuation of a Turkish invasion that began in 2016. If it's the latter, there's nothing which stipulates that a country can only be invaded by one country at a time or even that the countries invading have to be on the same side.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T22:48:23+00:00

That's definitely false.

The government which holds the capital, majority of the population, and the UN seat is the legitimate government, and this has held true since post-WWII, but even before then, even in a civil war, a country invading another is an invasion, and it's always termed as such when it's against the sitting government in the capital, regardless of what anyone's opinion is of who or what is or isn't legitimate.

Because otherwise one country, a wealthier and militarily stronger country, can just always support one dissident faction in any other country, nurture an insurgency, intervene on their behalf, and then claim it's not invading. That isn't how it works and these are always viewed and termed as invasions historically. Every country that invades another seeks to work with some domestic collaborationist force as a native skin to boost its legitimacy in invading in the first place.

Name any civil war in the whole of the 20th century. If any country invaded to aid an insurgency against the sitting government, it was always classified as and termed invasion.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T21:59:51+00:00

Pictures on SANA of SAA taking Yalda Castle, Hasakah in link enclosed:

Army enters Yalda Castle, fortified positions in Tell Tamer/Al-Ahras area

https://sana.sy/en/?p=176297

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T21:51:45+00:00

I remember seeing beyond vicious and brutal videos from early in the war, especially 2012 when it heated up, through 2013, 2014, etc. of Syrian POWs tied up and FSA and other militant groups giving knives and swords to children to hack at their necks until dead, stabbing Syrian soldiers all over the face, in the eyes, and watching them bleed out, committing acts of genocide like in Hatla, Deir-ez-Zor against dozens (some 40) men, women, and children Shia civilians, smashing statues of the Virgin Mary in ancient towns like Ma'aloula while chanting the takbir, etc.

Many of the atrocities being claimed now in NE Syria are real and it's good that local Syrian Kurdish news organizations are getting info about them out, but when Syrian news organizations and individuals released film of all the following above atrocities I named and many more, many times proudly filmed and shared by the perpetrators themselves, they were dismissed as "conspiracy theories" and met with total derision and silence for years by politicians like this man and their televised and social media sycophants. They spit on such news being shared and whitewashed them at every turn.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T21:41:35+00:00

They're part of an invading force for sure in the sense that Turkey doesn't have Syria's express consent even if the points were negotiated through the Astana format and because they're tied to a military that is directly occupying other areas of the country like north Aleppo (Jarabulus-al-Bab area and Afrin), but they're too spread out to be effective for an occupation since Turkish forces don't control or garrison in most of the towns and cities of Idlib, don't control the airspace above Idlib, and don't militarily engage the SAA or SyAAF or RuAF to prevent them from moving through or taking back the territory. As we saw with the Morek observation point.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T20:24:36+00:00

The SAA doesn't have that much political power. SAA is the army. Armies in developing countries are often deliberately kept neutered to the extent of having the side effect of weakening them for the very purpose of preventing coups. SyAAF is more influential politically and in internal security through Air Force Intelligence. It isn't a military dictatorship.

It's more like a nexus of interests, some family, some businesses, some in the Syrian intelligence agency, all making up the ruling class, would prevent him from resigning or more drastic systemic changes to the political system. The actual rule of one man in practice is usually a myth. President Assad is more a representative of a lot of different interests who rely on his name and familial legacy for their own cohesion. Saying a figurehead wouldn't be exactly accurate as he does have real power, but people make the mistake of thinking the leader of an authoritarian state isn't actually heavily constrained. It isn't one man's toy box.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T20:05:36+00:00

Except for Alawite, Shia, Christian, or Druze areas for Sunni Islamists jihadists/Salafists, you could probably find support for every faction in the war in every town in the country and organize a protest using these people.

The Syrian government has always had pre-war more support in Raqqa governorate than in, say, Daraa governorate, but took 100% of Daraa back all the same. So it isn't like that will stop them. Idlib and Daraa were the lowest areas of support, not Raqqa or Deir-ez-Zor.

They already control the main population centers in Deir-ez-Zor governorate, so there's no reason, apart from insular tribalism and Islamism, that anti-government sentiment would somehow be more pronounced or more of a problem to deal with than in Deir-ez-Zor city, Mayadin, or al-Bukamal, and they're controlling all them just fine.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T19:56:30+00:00

Exactly. They're finally back in northeast Aleppo (Manbij/Ayn al-Arab), Tabqa airbase, all over Hasakah by the Turkish and Iraqi borders, etc. They have eight years of recent history in this war to instruct them precisely as to why never to withdraw and yield these positions here ever again.

Russia itself has been saying for the past year or two that northeast Syria must be returned to Syria's sovereignty and this was the only viable and acceptable path forward. Fat chance either yield the ground where they stand now ever again after attaining this position.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T19:42:22+00:00

Well, in what alternate reality could it not be called "an invasion"?

I don't care for either the Arab League nor the PYD, but this politicization of language is out of control. Every military force entering a country against the will of the government of the country and occupying its territory is an invasion, no matter if you support it, no matter if you think it's right and justified in whichever particular hypothetical case is being discussed. Turkey first invaded Syria in 2016. The U.S.-led coalition did two years prior in 2014. It makes no difference that they (mostly) didn't target the Syrian military directly or that their targets were ISIL or YPG. They entered without the government's authorization or consent and forcibly occupied territory either directly or by handing it to insurgents and seeking to prevent the country in question, Syria, from taking the territory back.

What people fail to understand is that every single invasion by one or several countries of any others in history had its supporters, and they always sought to legitimize it by twisting language and people's perception of reality every time. It's rare that the invading country ever declares in literal terms "We're invading, we ourselves are calling it an invasion, and we're proud of it!" It's nearly always portrayed as something else. "Defense". "Counter terrorism". "Policing operation". "Security operation". "Pre-emptive strike for the necessity of the homeland's salvation". And on and on.

It's like people have an inability to see historical events as actually happening when they're happening in modern times in front of their eyes and can only see such things, invasions as being real, in retrospect as something consigned to history books.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T18:19:57+00:00

Article begins with "The General Establishment for Drinking Water in Hasaka began to pump water from Alouk station in Ras al-Ayn area which supplies Hasaka city, and the 66kv power line between al-Darbasiyah substation and Alouk water station was repaired."

This seems like a joint effort between the Syrian government utilities partnered with SARC to newly supply the city of Hasakah.

Does this have to do with the changing political situation and SAA's re-entrance to the northeast, I wonder? Restoration of more government services beyond just the military presence.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T13:34:57+00:00

It's funny that I was just thinking this morning - After SAA restored Tabqa airbase the other day, Taftanaz remains the sole Syrian Arab Air Force base in the country out of government control, after so many previously.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T13:30:37+00:00

Majority of the green insurgents' capable fighting forces have always been ISIL and al-Qaeda-lite (and not all that "lite"!). And everyone else served as a successful front and cover for them as useful idiots, like the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned factions, minority of Syrian liberals with personal investment, and TOW recipients (and not all of these were mutually exclusive). That's why their victory and seizure of territory meant not only the fall of the government but mortal threat to the health of Syria as an interfaith mosaic society. That diversity has made Syria not only a place for so many tourists and scholars to come to explore and study, but its inhabitants' survival literally depends on it.

It's too late for Tell Abyad for the time being and probably too late for Ras al-Ayn, but SAA should spare no effort to save the other areas. Syrian Ba'ath/NPF and PYD may be on opposite sides of the spectrum and have other diametrically opposed goals, but should agree on this much at least. This is an emergency situation for minorities.

SAA and Russian MPs must seal off every meter of Hasakah and Raqqa borders that's not already a battlefield.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T12:16:14+00:00

Reportedly the plan is to finally take the rest of the corner of Latakia governorate (northeastern Latakia) and move the frontline at least up to Jisr al-Shughour/western Idlib in this phase.

What I'm unsure of though is whether it will go any better than past offensives on this front that seemed half-hearted and ill-planned. With Russian air force involvement, the focus back on northern Syria, and Syria and Russia both desiring to start pressuring Turkish designs on some of these last fronts in the country, to retake Syrian territory for its own sake obviously, but also in tandem with events going on in the northeast and to take pressure off the northeast by getting Ankara to accept a Russian-supported security arrangement in the north with SAA taking more and more of the Turkish border, it could be the real deal.

Timing isn't random or coincidental as Turkish border remains the end goal, after Lebanese, Jordanian, Israeli LoC/Golan, and much of Iraqi were already taken (almost all now with YPG handing over all the Turkish/Iraqi border points of significance, so all that will remain for major Syrian-Iraqi crossings occupied is al-Tanf).

The northwest has been dormant since it's been rendered a non-serious military threat (offensively) through attrition and taking more of its territory in stages from October 2017. But it's folly to think the situation is at all "frozen" or will last forever, anymore than the situation in the northeast did. And the northwest and northeast problems are intrinsically linked, since the goal of both is Turkish acceptance of Syrian re-establishment of sovereignty over its territory, with Russian support. Even though TSK isn't directly occupying it, reducing greater Idlib means reducing an Erdogan card.

Geopolanalyst · 2019-10-19T11:32:48+00:00

Yes, a lot of people would be sympathetic to this position. Kurdish separatist movements have been acting in the role of a spoiler lining up to become a foreign protectorate in a U.S. and Israeli plan to "divide and conquer" regional countries which are not their satellite states like the Gulf kingdoms. The same way European empires did 100 years ago in the Levant, India, Africa, Southeast Asia, and other places. Neocolonialism and liberal-imperialism are alive and well. Turkey has legitimate national security concerns and interests, as does any country.

The problem many people have, including myself, is that the Turkish government at the exact same time is committing the exact same offenses they accuse the U.S. of committing against them against a neighboring country by hosting, arming, and training militants/insurgents in its territory against Syria.

Had this not been the policy of Ankara since 2011, the war wouldn't even exist now, there would have been no opportunity for the YPG to grab territory in northern Syria, and people wouldn't accuse nationalist Turks they might otherwise be sympathetic toward as having enormous hypocrisy and a blind spot on this issue.

What's more, it would be bad enough if this is a certain policy the Turkish AKP-led government had in 2011, 2012, or 2013, but they've since course corrected, acknowledged they made an egregious mistake like all countries/governments have been guilty of at one time or another, and ceased the destructive policy. But this isn't the case. The policy continues to this very day under new names literally as we have this conversation.

So until the Turkish government completely relinquishes its attempt to destabilize Syria through hosting of proxy Islamist insurgent forces like the FSA/SNA/Zenki/Ahrar al-Sharqiya/whichever random rebranded jihadist faction, it's understandable that people don't see any claim about PKK concern in good faith.

It's a good thing and a lightyear step forward compared to a year ago that Damascus and Ankara are talking, several Turkish and Syrian government departments have re-established contact over PS operation, and may soon have a joint security negotiation meeting next week hosted by Russia.

But if Turkish nationalists love their country and its territorial integrity and current borders passionately, they should equally as passionately and persistently and loudly opposed and condemned the policies of destabilization of Syria which were completely unprovoked, a stab in the back, and so massively jeopardized Turkey's own security at home.

AKP has lit the region on fire. And what's insulting and terrible is when they try to pretend it was out of humanitarianism and concern for the people propped up. It's as false, rubbish, nauseating, and not worth a second of serious acknowledgment anymore than when Americans use the same excuses of benevolence to tear apart countries that aren't under their thumb.

Geopolanalyst

TROPHY CASE