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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 9-Feb-2020
9-Feb-20 World View -- Turkey sends tanks across border into Syria to confront al-Assad regime in Idlib

Web Log - February, 2020

9-Feb-20 World View -- Turkey sends tanks across border into Syria to confront al-Assad regime in Idlib

Turkey, Syria, Russia: The next steps in Idlib

by John J. Xenakis

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Turkey sends tanks across border into Syria to confront al-Assad regime in Idlib
The Turkey-Russia Astana agreements and Syria's de-escalation zones
Turkey, Syria, Russia: The next steps in Idlib

Turkey sends tanks across border into Syria to confront al-Assad regime in Idlib

The view from Idlib, Syria (Ahval)

The view from Idlib, Syria (Ahval)

Turkey sent a convoy of hundreds of tanks and armored carriers last week into Syria's Idlib province, to confront the army of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, which is backed by Russia.

Al-Assad has for years been saying that his army will take full control of Idlib province, and there's every reason to believe that is his intention. Al-Assad for years has been saying that the 3.5-4 million men, women and children in Idlib are terrorists. This is the standard method used by war criminals to justify genocide and ethnic cleansing. You pick out an illegal or terrorist act by a small group of people, and declare that the entire ethnic group are terrorists. This is the excuse that China is using to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Uighurs, and it's the excuse the Burmese are using to to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas. Those are all going on today. It's the same excuse that Hitler used to justify genocide of the Jews. It's an excuse that's as old as time.

So there's no doubt that Bashar al-Assad intends to take control of Idlib, even if it means exterminating as many of his Sunni Arab political enemies as possible.

Probably nobody would even care, no matter how many of those Sunni Arab men, women and children would be killed, but Turkey cares. Turkey already hosts 3.6 million Syrians who have already fled across the border to escape Bashar al-Assad, and now Turkey is facing the possibility of 1-2 million more Syrians from Idlib fleeing into Turkey.

Russia was supposed to stop this. Russia's president Vladimir Putin and Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan met several times at such glamorous meeting sites as Astana, Kazakhstan, and Sochi, Russia, to create the Astana Accords. Under these agreements, Russia would stop al-Assad from committing genocide in Idlib, if Turkey would separate out the "terrorists" from the civilians in Idlib, so that al-Assad could just exterminate the "terrorists," and leave civilians alone.

I've never understood why Erdogan agreed to that ridiculous condition, since it's a completely idiotic demand. How is Erdogan's army supposed to go into 3.5 Sunni Arabs in Idlib, and sort them into two groups, so that al-Assad could kill one group and leave the other one alone? That demand was so ridiculous and idiotic I can only assume that Erdogan agreed to it out of total desperation.

So Erdogan responded by setting up 12 "observation posts" in Idlib province, each of which had a few Turkish soldiers and a couple of tanks. The idea, I guess, was that these observation posts would stop al-Assad from going any further, since attacking a Turkish observation post would result in clashes between Syrian and Turkish troops.

Well, that's a nice theory, but Syria attacked three of the observation posts last week, killing some Turkish soldiers. Also, nine of the 12 observation posts are now encircled by Syrian troops. "B-b-b-but that's a violation of the Astana agreement," Turkish officials are gasping. Quelle surprise!

The Turkey-Russia Astana agreements and Syria's de-escalation zones

These Astana agreements (the "de-escalation zones") between Erdogan and Putin were all farcical anyway, since al-Assad was never party to them, and Russia never had any intention of enforcing any of them anyway. The agreements were simply a cover to give al-Assad's army and warplanes, along with Russia's warplanes, free time and space to exterminate Sunni Arabs in the more southern de-escalation zones, such as Aleppo, Ghouta and Daraa.

So nobody cared about al-Assad's and Putin's extermination of the hated Sunni Arabs in those other de-escalation zone. But now the crunch is on in Idlib, since there are already over a million people on Turkey's border, waiting for Turkey to open the border, and allow them to enter Turkey as refugees, and from there go on to Europe.

Erdogan is under a lot of domestic pressure. When the Syrian refugees began coming across the border in 2014-16, the Turkish public welcomed them. However, now in 2020 the Turkish public is very tired of them, and want them to return TO Syria. They definitely don't want a million more refugees coming FROM Syrian.

Turkey is also playing a grand game between Russia and Europe. Erdogan has repeatedly been slighted by the EU and Nato, and sees this linkage with Putin as a way of taking a stand against the Europeans.

Then there's also the question of the millions of Syrian refugees that entered Europe, especially in 2015-16. It was pretty clear that Putin loved seeing that happen, while al-Assad couldn't have cared less.

Turkey, Syria, Russia: The next steps in Idlib

Bashar al-Assad is a sociopathic monster and war criminal who wants to complete he work begun by his father, Hafez al-Assad, in exterminating the Sunni Arabs in Syria and replacing as many of them as possible with Alawites and Shia Muslims. His advance into Idlib might be slowed, but won't be stopped unless al-Assad himself is killed.

A spokesman for Erdogan said:

"[Syrian authorities] should know well that we won’t leave any threat to our soldiers without a response. From now on, any mistake by the [al-Assad] regime under the pretext of struggling against terrorism and terrorist groups will have grave consequences."

This weekend, Turkish and Russian officials are meeting to decide on a new farcical peace process in Idlib. Putin couldn't care less about Turkey's problems, and he would probably enjoy watching the millions of additional refugees that could enter Turkey and move on to Europe.

So what is Turkey going to do? In the last few days, Turkey sent a few dozen military vehicles into Idlib to provide its observation posts with supplies and reinforcements. That's not going to stop al-Assad. So will Russia find a way to force al-Assad to stop? Will Turkey just "observe" as al-Assad mass-slaughters hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs in Idlib? Or will Turkey capitulate and open the border and let a million more refugees come into Turkey?

Or will Turkey attack Syrian forces, and try to inflict the "grave consequences" promised by Erdogan's spokesman, risking war with both Syria and Russia?

Let's watch and see what happens.

Sources:

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(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the Generational Dynamics World View News thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (9-Feb-2020) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 9-Feb-2020 9-Feb-20 World View -- Turkey sends tanks across border into Syria to confront al-Assad regime in Idlib

Turkey sends tanks across border into Syria to confront al-Assad regime in Idlib

The Turkey-Russia Astana agreements and Syria's de-escalation zones

Turkey, Syria, Russia: The next steps in Idlib

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 9-Feb-2020
9-Feb-20 World View -- Turkey sends tanks across border into Syria to confront al-Assad regime in Idlib