Will Turkey Drag America Into a ‘World War III Scenario’ With Russia?
Yes, if State Department has its way
Editor’s note: Article is posted as a good summary of everything that has been said by US officials on the prospect of US involvement in Syria’s Idlib on Turkey’s side as it tries to block the Syrian army from delivering the final defeat to al-Qaeda affiliated Islamists.
As the article hints the US military is against it, but the civilians — particularly in the supposedly touchy-feely and bleeding-heart, but actually incredibly blood-thirsty and warlike State Department — want to tiptoe in that direction.
Russia and Turkey are headed towards a Cold War nightmare scenario after fighting between the two major powers in Syria left two Turkish soldiers dead.
Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad is driving his forces [that would be the Syrian Army] into Idlib, the last rebel-held stronghold in Syria, with Russian support. Turkey faces a humanitarian crisis on its borders as up to two million Syrians fleeing Assad’s rule are left with nowhere else to go, and Turkish forces have entered Idlib to stop the offensive. Now, the United States is mulling over its response to the escalating tensions.
The fresh concerns about America’s role in the region come on the heels of an airstrike by either Russian or pro-Assad forces, which killed two Turkish soldiers during a rebel counter-offensive east of Idlib on Thursday. In response, the Turkish military has reportedly asked the United States to deploy anti-aircraft missiles and launch air patrols in Turkey in order to deter Russia.
“The North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] has never seen fighting of this intensity this close to the border of a member state,” said Amb. Robert Ford, the last U.S. ambassador to Syria, at a Thursday press conference at the U.S. Capitol.
The prospect of a NATO intervention in Syria has exposed fault lines between the State Department and the Defense Department over the U.S. mission in Syria.
The State Department has been Turkey’s closest remaining ally in Washington after the Turkish military began using Russian anti-aircraft missiles and attacked U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led forces in northeastern Syria.
But the U.S.-led “military coalition is focused on defeating ISIS in the eastern part of Syria,” Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Col. Myles Caggins said in a Sky News interview on Wednesday. Caggins referred to Idlib as a “magnet for terrorist groups” who are “a nuisance, a menace and a threat to civilians.”
“We continue to call on pro-regime forces to halt the offensive and allow for humanitarian efforts in the area,” he added in a later statement.
The U.S. military had earlier called for de-escalation.
“We’re seeing the Russians and the Turks have come very close to having more extensive conflict in the area. We’re hopeful that they will find a solution to avoid that,” said Department of Defense spokesman Jonathan Hoffman on Wednesday. “There needs to be a political settlement in Syria that will be for the best interests of the Syrian people.”
“We stand by our NATO Ally Turkey . . . and fully support Turkey’s justified self-defense actions,” declared Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after pro-Assad forces killed several Turkish peacekeepers [LOL!] in Idlib on February 2.
Amb. James Jeffrey, the State Department official overseeing Syrian affairs, was in Turkey on February 11, as clashes erupted in Idlib between Turkish and pro-Assad forces, killing five Turkish troops.
“Today, in Idlib, our ally Turkey’s soldiers are facing a threat,” Jeffrey declared in Turkish. “We have martyrs on the ground.”
Jeffrey told Turkish television two days later that Russia, Iran, and Assad will come to the table once they “see that they’re not going to make any more [military] progress without coming into conflict with us . . . or the Israeli Air Force or Turkey.”
Additionally, two former State Department officials called for the United States to back Turkey against Russia at a Thursday press conference at the U.S. Capitol.
Wa’el Alzayat, who served under both Ford and Jeffrey, emphasized that Assad’s record of atrocities “makes whatever ISIS did pale in comparison.”
He called for “urgent action to provide political and material support to Turkish forces today who are currently serving as a last line of defense, urgent action for NATO to signal to Russia that what is happening on its border is unacceptable, and we’ll defend an ally.”
“I think it is important that the government of the United States, governments in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, meet with Turkish officials to discuss how one could establish a safe zone for Syrian civilians on the Syrian side of the Syrian-Turkish border,” Ford himself said. “The Turks can help with the safe zone from inside Turkey, but because they’re facing Russia, they will need help from the United States.”
Ford emphasized to the National Interest that he is not calling for U.S. forces to deploy in Syria itself, adding that a U.S. incursion into Idlib with “combat air patrols” could mean a “World War III scenario.”
U.S. forces are already deployed to northeastern Syria alongside Kurdish-led counterterrorism forces. They reportedly killed a local man during a clash with a pro-Assad militia on February 12, and nearly ran a Russian military vehicle off the road in a confrontation on Wednesday.
“The Coalition’s goal is to de-escalate any unplanned encounters with other forces operating in northeastern Syria,” Caggins told the Military Times after Wednesday’s incident.
Source: The National Interest
“””Jeffrey told Turkish television two days later that Russia, Iran, and Assad will come to the table once they “see that they’re not going to make any more [military] progress without coming into conflict with us . . . or the Israeli Air Force or Turkey.”
SAA is in the final stages of cleaning up Idlib, US is merely blowing hot air, Turkish Air Force is limited in its capability, Israeli Air Force has been muted by Suk 35 challenges, Israel and Turkey are more vulnerable to counterstrikes from Syria’s Shia allies.
Israel bomb Syria just about every week with impunity, if Shia allies really want to attack Israel then Assad would be toast!
Frankly this whole thing has been a massive gamble for Putin, i basically don’t understand what he’s getting out of it, the potential for it all going wrong is increasing, is Assad really worth all out conflict with NATO and Turkey?
Yes, it’s really worth an all out conflict because Hebrew slime like you has to be stopped for the world to survive.
Nope not at all
Why in the 21st century do we need a world full of idiot dictators, like Assad, why can’t you people except reality,Assad failed!
He’s now nothing more than a puppet dictator, but then the history of Soviet Russia was pretty good at propping up idiots like Assad, so Putin carries on the ‘good work’ of maintaining global authoritarianism
Bob, you really need to stick to sites like Lady’s Home Journal or Haaretz. The vast majority of people in this forum are capable of analytical thought, and your delusional BS will only smell sweet to you.
Israel is bombing Syria with impunity? That is why they hide behind commercial airlines to deliver their cruise missiles, and use Lebanon’s mountainous cover to run back home.
So what if they launched some missiles from Golan heights. Syria can do that from its territory as well.
NATO is a sisified organization that does well against third world countries, not against near peer or peer adversaries. Russia is establishing her presence in Syria and gradually dispersing the US presence and influence through military actions and political alliances.
Tactics dear boy!
As for NATO don’t even think about the consequences of testing your hypothesis as you’ll find it’ll probably end civilisation as we know it,so frankly a stupid thing to write
Russia is simply propping up a failed state, Assad would have been long gone without Putin, the Assad regime over the decades, has failed, its failed its citizens millions of who now live as refugees, but i suppose you ill tell me they’re the ‘ wrong’ kind of syrians!
Please, allow me to pen a response to your idiotic post: It was a stupid thing you wrote.
Pen whatever you want,doesn’t mean your right!
Perhaps not, but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
Tactics? A terrorist using a human shield is not a tactic of conventional warfare, it is a tactic of those are not willing to get involved in a fair fight because of obvious lack of capabilities. 40 years old F16 stand very little chance against present day EW and the S300. Israeli capabilities are a reflection of American capabilities which are obsolete against a peer enemy.
Maybe NATO instead of living in a delusional universe, should realize their their conventional military capabilities cannot support the hubris and arrogance they project, and maybe Iran, Russia and their proxies can bring them into the real universe.
Syria is doing better as these western proxy armies are eradicated, and territorial integrity is gradually accomplished.
There is no ‘ conventional ‘ war anymore, this is what future war looks like
The s300 is an over rated heap of junk, funny how for all it’s reputation its not been able to shoot down those forty year old planes, as for EW i think Israel capabilities are far more advanced than anything the Syrians have
Iran can’t even bring themselves into the ‘ real ‘ universe, never mind NATO, they’re just another failing state, look at the recent so called elections, 41 % turn out, and these idiots in Iran like to lecture the west, they have no legitimacy, just a bunch of rogues masquerading as a government, childish violent incompetence long overdue regime change
“””There is no ‘ conventional ‘ war anymore, “””
Sure there is, you pathetic NATO and Israeli forces are afraid of conventional war, because you going to get beaten and account for thousands of body bags, maybe tens of thousands if you choose to remain in your delusional reality.
Israel allegedly has over a hundred thermo nuclear warheads, if anyone in the middle east wants to push things to the ultimate it’ll be millions dead but very few will be going into body bags and most of them will be Iranian or Syrian or any other idiot
Conventional armed missiles can destroy as well, if Israel’s capabilities will be expressed through nuclear weapons, Hezzbolah has over 100000 missiles that can be aimed at Israel. Iran’s MRBMs would be a nice surprise armed with some N. Korean nuclear warheads.
They may as well nuke themselves in that case,but since they’re stupid i wouldn’t put it past them!
Israel’s choice of using nuclear weapons would bring tens of thousands of potent missiles saturating all air defenses and striking Haifa and Tel Aviv with impunity.
As it is well known that N. Korea is in close cooperation with Iran, and giving them nuclear warheads is not out of question. Pakistan has hundreds of nuclear weapons and threatened Israel…….you think the Zionists can bluff the nuclear option without being destroyed by conventional and nuclear weapons?
For the past couple of decades the USA has been methodically knocking over secular Middle-Eastern and African states – not necessarily democracies by any stretch of the imagination, but secular states in which all religions coexist more or less harmoniously – and replacing them with hardline theocracies or failed states governed by warring fundamentalist tribes. Syria has been on the list since before the Dubya Bush government, and it has never been about it being a failed state. The USA is obsessed with breaking Russia’s energy hold on Europe and replacing it with its own or that delivered by its toadies in the Gulf. The USA very much wanted a gas pipeline from Qatar which would run across Syria, and Assad said no thank you very much, and struck a deal with Iran instead. Up to that point relations between Syria had been relatively cordial; it was to Syria that the CIA ‘rendered’ its captured alleged al-Qaeda terrorists and hapless nobodies whom the USA guessed ‘knew something’ to get that information out of them, such as Canadian Maher Arar.
Syria is actually reasonably progressive. So was Libya, although it’s a complete wreck now, and the Jamahirya government model introduced by Gaddafi makes the average western democracy look totalitarian by comparison. In both countries there have been massive public demonstrations in support of the elected leaders, which were either ignored by western media or pityingly characterized as terrified citizens driven into the streets at gunpoint. The west’s machinations – all, of course, about freedom and democracy – are at the cartoon level, and nobody but those who think cartoons are real takes them seriously.
Syria isn’t progressive, I’ve never heard such a stupid thing in all my life
There’s literally a mountain of evidence against the Assad family dictatorship going back decades
They came to power through illegal means and have continued with their criminal ways
They’ve killed and injured millions of their own citizens, driven them out, and threatened them with death if they try to come back, i suppose in your warped world that passes as progressive!
They’ve created the most dangerous thing any leader can do, develop a hateful and deeply divided country,it’ll never heal itself, not in my life time, what a fabulous story of progress
u r an ignorant fascist—obviously an amerikan
Well no actually I’m not, however the record of the Assad family and the dynastic dictatorship they’ve created stands up as murderous and evil, more inline with fascist states than America
And this is the business of the US military – why, pray tell??
Syria is a sovereign nation and is hands off – Russia’s assistance was requested..the reason their military is there. US is there to steal Syria’s oil…those cowboys belong in their home country.
Too bad there isn’t a more powerful country than the US to come in and take care of the Trump administration…it is totally wreaking havoc with the American people and its environment.
Turkey settled Turkish citizens in Idlib over the last 2-3 years and they have also been using Turkish currency, One would suspect that the majority of refugees would be Turks and terrorists with there families.
“amerikans have been liars and braggarts for 3 centuries”. Daniel Boorstin
everyone from Tocqueville, Gorer, Sennett, etc has observed that individualism produces a self doubting, antagonistic, anxious people—the USA the most individualistic society on earth according to Hofstede….and of course all sociologists whether marxists, parsonians, etc r fully aware that in the word of Philip Slater, “amerikans poor;y understand that individualism produces uniformity”—a nation Of “over-conformist semi-automatons ” (David Riesman) troubled by a profound insecurity and fear of death—something perceived by everyone from Geoffrey Gorer to Christopher Lasch will never go to war with powerful nations like Russia, North Korea, etc…amerikans only bully weak defenseless peoples—indeed only in the USA does the concept of the “sissy” exist…and recent studies referenced by Sennett finds that bullying occurs most in the USA followed b y the UK……and of course Durkheim was correct, “the state always reflects the values and desires of it’s peoples”—-something only the mediated ignorant amerikan will deny—of course amerikans deny reality—living in a “representational reality”. Debord) or per Baudrilliard, amerikans r Disney characters that live in “hyperreality”…don’t believe the hysteria—puritans will smoke marijuana and take anti-depressants and hide in their barracks…there will be no WWIII….the US ruling class is a good deal more aware that the a average amerikan. as lash wrote, “amerika requires a stupified population”
No, going to WW3 over a bunch of Turkeys?!? No likely. The Turks are going to get their noses blooded and then they will promptly leave Syria–it is Syria that they have invaded. They like the Israelis have no manners!