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Turkey Hasn’t Won Anything Yet in Syria

Surely you’ve all noticed by now I’m not on the same page as many analysts or op- ed writers/journalists that have declared Turkey “the winner” in Syria. I can’t even listen to the Duran when they talk about this situation as their analysis is just absurd to me. Actually they’ve lost me since they’ve been such Trump fan boys. Particularly Alexander Mercouris.

But, to each their own!

It’s too early to celebrate Assad’s departure as Erdogan’s victory

Since Bashar al-Assad’s fall in mid-December, a variety of foreign-policy analysts and journalists have declared Turkey “the winner” in Syria. It is a narrative that Turkish officials and their supporters have advanced in both ham-handed and worrying ways. But is it true? No. Or at least, Turkey has not won anything yet.

It is true that Turkey is in an advantageous position in Syria. Ankara’s patrons, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the amalgam of militias called the Syrian National Army, were responsible for the end of the Assad regime. Turkey’s proximity to Syria and the well-known Turkish expertise in infrastructure development will also help firms that are well connected in Ankara to win reconstruction contracts.

Yet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confronts major obstacles to establishing himself as the external powerbroker in Damascus.

Much of the claim that Turkey won Syria hinges on the fact that HTS and the Syrian National Army militias spearheaded the fall of Aleppo that led to Assad’s flight from the country that his family dominated for half a century. But things are not always what they seem to be. The Turkish-approved attack on Aleppo that began in late November was intended to be limited.(Which suggests some other interested parties hijacked the plan) Rather than the fall of Assad, Ankara’s aim was to pressure the then-Syrian president to goal that the Turkish government had pursued for the prior two years. It was only when the Syrian military collapsed that the Turks revised their policy, claiming that Bashar’s demise was always their plan.

And that makes sense to me. The intent to apply pressure to Bashar al Assad. This Turkish/Syrian reconciliation was something Turkey & Russia had worked towards for years. My hope was that it would come to fruition. Multiple meetings had taken place at very high levels of government members.Frankly speaking Syria would be in a better place,right now, had Syria and Turkey reconciled with the aid of Russia and Iran.

The Turkey-HTS partnership was obviously productive, but the idea that Ankara is victorious in Syria assumes that the Turkish government has all the power in this relationship. It likely (weasel wording- HTS = ISIS=AQ = US/UK and Israel) once did, but after the end of the Assad regime, HTS needs Erdogan and company less.

Not long after HTS liberated Damascus, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan appeared in the Syrian capital, where he figuratively and literally embraced the HTS.

Although Fidan beat everyone else to Damascus, a parade of delegations also beat a path to HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa’s doorstep, including diplomats from the United States, United Kingdon, and France and Germany (collectively representing the European Union). Iraq’s intelligence chief made the trip to Syria. Representatives of the Syrian leadership have also been reaching out to its neighbors. The transitional foreign minister, Asaad Hassan al-Shaybani, has visited Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Doha, Qatar; and Amman, Jordan. Clearly, al-Sharaa has more options for external partners than he and HTS had just two months ago.

Turkey is not out of it, of course, but the efforts of major Arab states to establish contact and a working relationship with Syria’s new leaders highlights a Turkish weakness in the region:

Then there is the thorny issue of Kurdish nationalism and the Syrian Kurdish fighting forces called the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which has formed the core of Washington’s partner against the Islamic State in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces. The Turkish government believes (the author of this piece is expressing his belief in this regard- we really can’t know what others believe without direct contact with them) that with the end of the Assad regime, HTS in power in Damascus, and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s previous willingness to withdraw American forces, there is an opportunity to use the Syrian National Army to destroy the YPG, which it does not distinguish from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)—a designated terrorist group. This would, from Ankara’s perspective, finally rid it of a security threat from the south.

America has increased it's forces in the region and is constructing yet another base. It would seem vastly more plausible to me that Turkey has already made other plans to deal with the security threat at their border.

3 replies on “Turkey Hasn’t Won Anything Yet in Syria”

Last thing I heard is that he almost got poisoned. People were assuming it was the Russians which I doubt. Apparently he will open up an eye clinic in Russia? He seems to have disappeared now. Wonder how him and his family feel now. They must have so much security around them.

thanks Ally
I’ve been checking news reports everyday, including today, but, I haven’t seen anything.
Other than attempts to hold him accountable for war crimes? Which is unbelievable considering what Bibi Netanyahu has been getting away with!

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