Middle East and North Africa 20 - The End of the Beginning in Syria? SPECIAL BONUS RUSSIAN JET CRISIS EDITION

[Free Northman Reborn]

Here's a nice explanation of Turkey's motives with the Peshmerga:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29694419

It's not that they like them, its that they need their oil, they need the economic benefits of them as an export market, and they see them as a buffer against the Shiites in Baghdad and Iran.

 

[cgrnosfe]

I'm sure Erdogan would love a Kurdish state straddling Northern Iraq, Northern Syria and Southern Turkey, with a population of some 30 million Kurds.

Personally, I find it shocking that an ethnic group of that size could not have their own country, but instead be forced to assimilate as oppressed minorities in so many surrounding countries.

Give them a friggin state already.

It is not your ignorance that terrifies me. It is your love with your ignorance that renders me hopeless.

A question: who gave their state to the Germans? Americans? Turks? Iranians?

There are two nations in this world without a liberation day : Iran and turkey. Just think what that means.

[Free Northman Reborn]

 

It is not your ignorance that terrifies me. It is your love with your ignorance that renders me hopeless.

 

A question: who gave their state to the Germans? Americans? Turks? Iranians?

 

There are two nations in this world without a liberation day : Iran and turkey. Just think what that means.

Look, you are clearly a Turkish nationalist. That's fine, and is your right.

I'm sure the 14 million Kurds in Turkey have a very different view to yours, though.

[Wouter]

Pkk / ypg is another force ( ones defending Kobane) and peshmerga is another force. Turkish army supports peshmerga not from the beginning of Syrian conflict, but since 1990s. Get your facts straight. Pkk / ypg is fighting isis but is in fact no differently than isis.

YPG is very different from ISIS; they are communists, not islamists. Their stances on women, for example, are extremely different. ISIS is committing worldwide terror attacks, PKK is only active in Turkey and the YPG isn't any more a terror group than the Peshmerga or the varied "moderate" islamists groups fighting Assad. And while ISIS is on the rise, globally, PKK is far less of threat to Turkey then it used to be.

[jarl the climber]

My take is that Erdogan is not particularly popular with his NATO allies but they look the other way because they don't want a feud with the Turkish people themselves, who frankly aren't in love with Erdogans Syrian policy to begin with. As far as the Iraq thing goes, Russia has allied itself with the Shiites and Turkey downing one of their jets has caused the regime in Baghdad which is a Russian ally, to move against Turkish interests. I'm not sure that they can expel the Turkish troops in Northern Iraq since the Kurds and Turkey itself has more influence there than the actual Iraqi government. As far as I know Russia does not have permission to act in Iraqi air space as far as I know. So I can"t see the Russians acting against Turkish troops in Iraq. Whether the Shiite Iraqis do is another matter, clearly they are trying to establish a legal basis for it, possibly, but I'm not sure if that is there motive or if they have the capability to do this as the Kurds effectively govern parts of Northern Iraq. 

[Darzin]

Calling the YPG the same as ISIS is laughable as others are saying, there stance on religious pluralism, women, and even the way they frame their ideology are all very different from ISIS and much better. The are linked with the PKK but the rebels Turkey supports are linked with Nursra. If you had to choose between a government ruled by the PKK and a government ruled by Nursra I think most everyone would choose the PKK, so again not equivalent. 

Also the YPG aren't really Communist. Their ideology is  Democratic Confederalism, which is a mix of direct democracy, libertarianism, and syndicalism. It's a very unique ideology and nothing that's been tried  before. The only time I've ever seen anything like it is in the Novel the Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin.

[Shryke]

To sort of clarify some shit here the problem with like 90% of the comments in the past page or so is that many of y'all are making some very silly conclusion based on not understanding that "the Kurds" are not one group. There is a Kurdish region of sorts (Kurdistan usually) that straddles Syria/Iraq/Turkey/Iran. There are many different Kurd groups across these various countries. Not all of them like each other. And not all of them are supported by the same people. Turkey is arming and training Kurds in Iraq and also hates Kurds in Turkey. While both being Kurdish, these groups are different.

That should hopefully clear the situation up a bit without going into specifics.

[Horza]

Going into specifics: relations between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds, via the Kurdistan Regional Government and in particular Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party have been good for quite a few years now. On the other hand the Syrian Kurds represented by the PYD and its armed units the YPG are affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), whose peace negotiations with the Turkish government broke down earlier this year.

[Ramsay Gimp]

To sort of clarify some shit here the problem with like 90% of the comments in the past page or so is that many of y'all are making some very silly conclusion based on not understanding that "the Kurds" are not one group. There is a Kurdish region of sorts (Kurdistan usually) that straddles Syria/Iraq/Turkey/Iran. There are many different Kurd groups across these various countries. Not all of them like each other. And not all of them are supported by the same people. Turkey is arming and training Kurds in Iraq and also hates Kurds in Turkey. While both being Kurdish, these groups are different.

That should hopefully clear the situation up a bit without going into specifics.

People forget that Al Qaeda in Iraq was originally a Kurdish organization, operating where Saddam had no power. The popular image of Kurds is a unified friendly secular liberal pro-America faction, which isn't the full story.

Didn't know that about Turkey training Kurds in Iraq though. I love how Iran and Turkey have the headache of training Iraqis now instead of the USA. 

[Shryke]

People forget that Al Qaeda in Iraq was originally a Kurdish organization, operating where Saddam had no power. The popular image of Kurds is a unified friendly secular liberal pro-America faction, which isn't the full story.

Didn't know that about Turkey training Kurds in Iraq though. I love how Iran and Turkey have the headache of training Iraqis now instead of the USA. 

Signs point to the US just getting fed up with the Iraqi government. They've been yelling at them lately to stop freezing out Sunnis.

[Free Northman Reborn]

I don't quite get why Shia Iran is seen as the big evil by America, when it is really the Sunnis who are causing most of the shit for the West. Saudi Arabia, ISIS, Al Quaida, yes, even frigging Erdogan's Islamist nationalism, all Sunni caused.

While I'm sure there is plenty of Shia caused mayhem doing the rounds, the likes of Hezbollah and Iran appear mostly focused on Israel and don't really care much about launching terror attacks in the West.

It's the Sunnis that are the real threat to Western interests, led by the Saudis themselves.

[Ramsay Gimp]

Signs point to the US just getting fed up with the Iraqi government. They've been yelling at them lately to stop freezing out Sunnis.

Though I'm starting to wonder if the whole "Shia tyranny" thing has been overblown by experts  when it comes to Iraq. It seems like an easy cause that is just a little too neat, and too easily lets Sunnis and the USA off the hook. 

I know Maliki was showing great favor to Shiites and behaving like a tribal strongman, which understandably annoyed a lot of Sunnis. But were they really going to accept anything short of being the most privileged and powerful group in Iraq? The Sunni reaction to Shiites gaining influence was so savage and intense that it suggests a really childish and entitled attitude toward other groups. And it makes me doubt that they would act responsibly if entrusted with more power by the Iraqi state. I'm sure the KKK felt "boxed out" after blacks were given rights, but that doesn't mean there was some reasonable accommodation that have would soothed them. And I'm not sure that Maliki was really bad enough to drive otherwise-normal dudes to start raping and decapitating everybody.

Something that might explain Sunni rage is that a lot of them really think they're Iraq's majority sect. Saddam spread the myth that Arab Sunnis were the Iraqi majority during his reign, and its caused many of them to view other groups as ungrateful usurpers living in a Sunni country.

[Biglose]

I don't quite get why Shia Iran is seen as the big evil by America, when it is really the Sunnis who are causing most of the shit for the West. Saudi Arabia, ISIS, Al Quaida, yes, even frigging Erdogan's Islamist nationalism, all Sunni caused.

While I'm sure there is plenty of Shia caused mayhem doing the rounds, the likes of Hezbollah and Iran appear mostly focused on Israel and don't really care much about launching terror attacks in the West.

It's the Sunnis that are the real threat to Western interests, led by the Saudis themselves.

The same reason people are obsessed with russia even thought the only thing they have done to us in the last 50 years is selling us natural gas. (Granted the SU kind of supported the RAF but even there you might think this was more or less the DDR)

The awnser is buissnes intrests and money. The same reason the US invaded Iraq. Distributing federal money to privat people.

[Ramsay Gimp]

I don't quite get why Shia Iran is seen as the big evil by America, when it is really the Sunnis who are causing most of the shit for the West. Saudi Arabia, ISIS, Al Quaida, yes, even frigging Erdogan's Islamist nationalism, all Sunni caused.

While I'm sure there is plenty of Shia caused mayhem doing the rounds, the likes of Hezbollah and Iran appear mostly focused on Israel and don't really care much about launching terror attacks in the West.

It's the Sunnis that are the real threat to Western interests, led by the Saudis themselves.

You're very correct to notice this strange, illogical prioritizing of a non-threat (Iran). The unfortunate and uncomfortable answer to why our politicians focus on Iran so much is that it pleases the Jews. Which sounds like a joke, but that's the literal answer. 

Iran is seen by Israel as its #1 mortal threat, not ISIS. This combined with the fact that Jewish donors and the Israel lobby have massive control over our foreign policy is pretty much the whole reason that Iran is treated like some great threat to the American people, rather than just a nuisance that like to talk smack. 

Have you ever seen Netanyahu get as worked up over ISIS as he does about Iran and the nuclear deal? Not me, but it actually makes sense. The basic rationale from Israel's perspective is that a strong nuclear state is a much greater threat than a non state group because of their greater military capacity . Both Shiite jihadists and Sunni jihadists hate Israel, but a nuclear-armed and actively hostile Shia nation is a bigger strategic threat. It's similar to how the USSR was a greater threat to the USA then Al Qaeda was. Not because they were worse, but because they were stronger and could actually destroy us if they wanted to. At the moment, ISIS is largely fighting Israel's enemies (they blew up a Hezbollah base with a suicide bomber the same day of the Paris attacks).

So I don't blame the Israelis for trying to keep Iran in the hot seat; they are just acting in their national interest like any government should. Our politicians, on the other hand, are placing the interests of a foreign nation over whats best for America. It's a become a matter of pride for neocons to brag about how much they're willing to defer to the whims of a tiny strip of desert. "My first call will be to Bibi Netanhayu" 

[Horza]

People forget that Al Qaeda in Iraq was originally a Kurdish organization, operating where Saddam had no power. The popular image of Kurds is a unified friendly secular liberal pro-America faction, which isn't the full story.\

You're referring here to Ansar al-Islam, which a jihadist group that siezed a few villages in eastern Kurdistan in 2001. It was a mix of Kurdish and Arab fighters and had some support from al-Qaeda but it wasn't an al-Qaeda branch. That designation was given in 2004 to a group that formed out of Zarqawi's Tawhid al-Jihad following the latter's swearing an oath of loyalty to Osama Bin Laden.

There is a Kurdish Islamist movement, whose disaffected members have joined groups like Ansar al-Islam and its sucessors but on the whole Kurdish politics is far more secular than in surrounding states.

[Werthead]

What does Nato do then? Defend Turkey, despite Turkey being the clear aggressor in this instance?

The NATO charter only requires countries to aid NATO members who are under attack. If those countries are agitating for a conflict, they're on their own. That would apply to Turkey in this instance (and is why all talk of getting Georgia into the alliance ended when Georgia started sabre-rattling with Russia).

I don't quite get why Shia Iran is seen as the big evil by America

 America backed the wrong horse during the 1979 revolution and has been unable to admit it was completely in the wrong ever since. The hostage crisis was handy for the States in that it allowed to paint the Iranians as aggressors, then the States backed Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War and was then proven wrong about that as well in 1990.

The other issues were of course both Israel and Saudi Arabia not wanting a regional rival growing in power, so have spent all of their time agitating against Iran on the basis of their own national self-interest. In fact, one of the reasons the USA has been able to make nice with Iran recently and in the peace talks is because it now has the luxury of completely ignoring Saudi Arabia, as it is no longer so dependent on their oil.

It's not that they like them, its that they need their oil, they need the economic benefits of them as an export market, and they see them as a buffer against the Shiites in Baghdad and Iran.

Turkey's thought process here seems to be that if there is one day a Kurdish state, it will be centred on the region where the Kurds already hold autonomous and near-exclusive power, i.e. the northern chunk of Iraq. If Kurdistan does form out of Iraqi (and maybe Iranian) territory and not Turkish, they're down with that. It also gives them somewhere they can "encourage" Kurds in Turkey to emigrate to. So they're playing the long game there.

The Kurdish forces fighting in Syria (which are generally smaller and less successful than the Iraqi Kurds) OTOH are the ones wanting to carve out their own nation from Turkey, so they hate them.

[Ramsay Gimp]

You're referring here to Ansar al-Islam, which a jihadist group that siezed a few villages in eastern Kurdistan in 2001. It was a mix of Kurdish and Arab fighters and had some support from al-Qaeda but it wasn't an al-Qaeda branch. That designation was given in 2004 to a group that formed out of Zarqawi's Tawhid al-Jihad following the latter's swearing an oath of loyalty to Osama Bin Laden.

There is a Kurdish Islamist movement, whose disaffected members have joined groups like Ansar al-Islam and its sucessors but on the whole Kurdish politics is far more secular than in surrounding states.

-I understand they weren't a branch of  Al Qaeda at first. That's why I said "Al Qaeda in Iraq was originally a Kurdish group." I forgot the original name cuz its 2:30am

-Oh, definitely true that they're more secular in general. But I guess my point was that Kurds are an ethnic group, not an ideology or a state, so they can run the whole gambit in beliefs/actions. 

[Horza]

-I understand they weren't a branch of  Al Qaeda at first. That's why I said "Al Qaeda in Iraq was originally a Kurdish group." I forgot the original name cuz its 2:30am[emoji14]

-Oh, definitely true that they're more secular in general. But I guess my point was that Kurds are an ethnic group, not an ideology or a state, so they can run the whole gambit in beliefs/actions. 

They weren't a branch of Al-Qaeda ever is my point. They were in touch with and received some support from them but so did dozens of other small jihadi groups all over the world. The only Iraqi branch of Al-Qaeda was Zarqawi's group.

[Ramsay Gimp]

 America backed the wrong horse during the 1979 revolution and has been unable to admit it was completely in the wrong ever since. The hostage crisis was handy for the States in that it allowed to paint the Iranians as aggressors, then the States backed Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War and was then proven wrong about that as well in 1990.

Eh, this is an interesting backdrop but it doesn't explain why politicians pledge undying fealty to Israel at debates, in interviews, etc. It doesn't explain why they want to call Netanyahu as soon as they get to the White House. Before your own mother, guys, really?

The other issues were of course both Israel and Saudi Arabia not wanting a regional rival growing in power, so have spent all of their time agitating against Iran on the basis of their own national self-interest. In fact, one of the reasons the USA has been able to make nice with Iran recently and in the peace talks is because it now has the luxury of completely ignoring Saudi Arabia, as it is no longer so dependent on their oil.

I forgot to mention the Saudi angle in my reply to Northman. It makes me very happy that someday soon they will become irrelevant to U.S. policy. Too much to hope for Israel?

[Ramsay Gimp]

The only Iraqi branch of Al-Qaeda was Zarqawi's group.

Weren't they also based in Kurdistan before the invasion, though?