[News] Why Turkey won't go to war with Syria

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Why Turkey won't go to war with Syria
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has yet to understand the new 
deal struck between Russia and the US.

Last Modified: 06 Jul 2012 11:45
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/07/20127581333324728.html


Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan never saw it coming.

He knew he was in trouble when the Pentagon 
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304830704577497081567553846.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews>leaked 
that the Turkish Phantom RF-4E shot down last week by Syrian 
anti-aircraft artillery happened off the Syrian coastline, directly 
contradicting Erdogan's account, who claimed it happened in 
international air space.

And it got worse; Moscow, via Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, 
<http://en.ria.ru/world/20120630/174333287.html>offered "objective 
radar data" as proof.

There was not much to do except change the subject. That's when 
Ankara introduced a de facto buffer zone of four miles (6.4km) along 
the Syrian-Turkish border - now enforced by F-16s taking off from 
NATO's Incirlik base at regular intervals.

Ankara also dispatched tanks, missile batteries and heavy artillery 
to the 500 mile (800km) border, right after Erdogan 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/06/20126271837381879.html>effectively 
branded Syria "a hostile state".

What next? Shock and awe? Hold your (neo-Ottoman) horses.

Lord Balfour, I presume?

The immediate future of Syria was 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidesyria/2012/07/2012628142225151490.html>designed 
in Geneva recently, in one more of those absurdist "international 
community" plays when the US, Britain, France, Turkey and the Gulf 
Cooperation Council's Qatar and Kuwait sat down to devise a "peaceful 
solution" for the Syrian drama, even though most of them are 
reportedly weaponising the opposition to Damascus.

One would be excused to believe it was all back to the Balfour 
Declaration days, when foreign powers would decide the fate of a 
country without the merest consultation of its people, who, by the 
way, never asked them to do it on their behalf.

Anyway, in a nutshell: there won't be a NATO war on Syria - at least 
for now. Beyond the fact that Lavrov routinely eats US Secretary of 
State Hillary Clinton for breakfast, Russia wins - for now.

Predictably, Moscow won't force regime change on Assad; it fears the 
follow-up to be the absolute collapse of Syrian state machinery, with 
cataclysmic consequences. Washington's position boils down to 
accepting a very weak, but not necessarily out, Assad.

The problem is the interpretation of "mutual consent", on which a 
"transitional government" in Syria would be based - the vague 
formulation that emerged in Geneva. For the Obama administration, 
this means Assad has to go. For Moscow - and, crucially, for Beijing 
- this means the transition must include Assad.

Expect major fireworks dancing around the interpretation. Because a 
case can be made that the new "no-fly zone" over Libya - turned by 
NATO into a 30,000-sortie bombing campaign - will become Syria's 
"transitional government", based on "mutual consent".

One thing is certain: nothing happens before the US presidential 
election in November. This means that for the next five months or so 
Moscow will be trying to extract some sort of "transitional 
government" from the bickering Syrian players. Afterwards, all bets 
are off. A Washington under Mitt Romney may well order NATO to attack 
in early 2013.

A case can be made that a Putin-Obama or US-Russia deal may have been 
reached even before Geneva.

Russia has 
<http://rt.com/politics/nato-transit-russia-afghanistan-059/>eased up 
on NATO in Afghanistan. Then there was the highly choreographed move 
of the US offering a formal apology and Pakistan duly accepting it - 
thus 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012/07/201275915696842.html>reopening 
NATO's supply routes to Afghanistan.

It's crucial to keep in mind that Pakistan is an observer and 
inevitable future full member of the Shanghai Cooperation 
Organisation (SCO) - run by China and Russia, both BRICS members 
highly interested in seeing the US and NATO out of Afghanistan for good.

The "price" paid by Washington is, of course, to go easy on Damascus 
- at least for now. There is not much Erdogan can do about it; he 
really was not in the loop.

Keep the division of labour intact

So here's the perverse essence of Geneva: the (foreign) players 
agreed to disagree - and to hell with Syrian civilians caught in the 
civil war crossfire.

In the absence of a NATO attack, the question is how the Assad system 
may be able to contain or win what is, by all practical purposes, a 
foreign-sponsored civil war.

Yes, because the division of labour will remain intact. Turkey will 
keep offering the logistical base for mercenaries coming from 
"liberated" Libya, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Lebanon. The House of Saud 
will keep coming up with the cash to weaponise them. And Washington, 
London and Paris will keep fine-tuning the tactics in what remains 
the long, simmering foreplay for a NATO attack on Damascus.

Even though the armed Syrian opposition does not control anything 
remotely significant inside Syria, expect the mercenaries reportedly 
weaponised by the House of Saud and Qatar to become even more 
ruthless. Expect the not-exactly-Free Syrian Army to keep mounting 
operations for months, if not years. A key point is whether enough 
supply lines will remain in place - if not from Jordan, certainly 
from Turkey and Lebanon.

Damascus may not have the power to strike the top Western actors in 
this drama. But it can certainly wreak havoc among the supporting 
actors - as in Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and, of course, Turkey.

Jordan, the weak link, a wobbly regime at best, has already closed 
off supply lines. Hezbollah sooner or later will do something about 
the Lebanese routes. Erdogan sooner or later will have to get real 
about what was decided in Geneva.

Moreover, one can't forget that Saudi Arabia would be willing to 
fight only to the last dead American; it won't risk Saudis to fight Syrians.

As for red alerts about Saudi troops getting closer to southern Syria 
through Jordan, that's a joke. The House of Saud military couldn't 
even defeat the ragtag 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2012/06/2012630195727807952.html>Houthi 
rebels in neighbouring Yemen.

A final juicy point. The Russian naval base at 
<http://blogs.aljazeera.com/topic/syria/russia-preparing-send-two-amphibious-assault-ships-syrian-port-tartus>Tartus 
- approximately a mere 55 miles (90km) away from where the Panthom 
RF-4E was shot down - now has its radar on 24/7. And it takes just a 
single Russian warship anchored in Syrian waters to send the message; 
if anyone comes up with funny ideas, just look at what happened to 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2008/08/2008810225659470997.html>Georgia 
in 2008.

Time to shuffle those cards

Erdogan has very few cards left to play, if any. Assad, in 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/07/201273142230371284.html>an 
interview with Turkey's Cumhuriyet newspaper, regretted "100 per 
cent" the downing of the RF-4E, and argued, "the plane was flying in 
an area previously used by Israel's air force".

The fact remains that impulsive Erdogan got an apology from wily 
Assad. By contrast, after 
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2010/05/201053133047995359.html>the 
Mavi Marmara disaster, Erdogan didn't even get an unpeeled banana from Israel.

The real suicidal scenario would be for Erdogan to order another 
F4-style provocation and then declare war on Damascus on behalf of 
the not-exactly-Free Syrian Army. It won't happen. Damascus has 
already proved it is deploying a decent air defence network.

Every self-respecting military analyst knows that war on Syria will 
be light years away from previous "piece of cake" Iraq and Libya 
operations. NATO commanders, for all their ineptitude, know they 
could easily collect full armouries of bloody noses.

As for the Turkish military, their supreme obsession is the Kurds in 
Anatolia, not Assad. They do receive some US military assistance. But 
what they really crave is an army of US drones to be unleashed over Anatolia.

Turkey routinely crosses into Northern Iraq targeting Kurdish PKK 
guerrillas accused of 
<http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/turkish-planes-troops-attack-iraq-kurds/story-e6frf7lf-1226171895227>killing 
<http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/turkish-planes-troops-attack-iraq-kurds/story-e6frf7lf-1226171895227>Turkish 
security forces.  Now, guerrillas based in Turkey are reportedly 
crossing the border into Syria and killing Syrian security forces, 
and even civilians. It would be too much to force Ankara to admit its 
hypocrisy.

Erdogan, anyway, should proceed with extreme caution. His rough 
tactics are isolating him; more than 
<http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/137522/most-turks-oppose-taking->two-thirds 
of Turkish public opinion is against an attack on Syria.

It's come to the point that Turkish magazine Radikal 
<http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2012/06/lonely-man-of-middle-east.html>asked 
their readers whether Turkey should be a model for the new Middle 
East. Turkey used to be "the sick man of Europe"; now Turkey is 
"becoming the lonely man of the Middle East", says the article.

It's a gas, gas, gas

Most of all, Erdogan simply cannot afford to antagonise Russia. There 
are at least 100,000 Russians in Syria - doing everything from 
building dams to advising on the operation of those defence systems.

And then there's the inescapable Pipelineistan angle. Turkey happens 
to be Gazprom's second-largest customer. Erdogan can't afford to 
<http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/gazprom-warns-turkey-on-gas-deal.aspx?pageID=238&nID=24422&NewsCatID=348>antagonise 
Gazprom. The whole Turkish energy security architecture depends on 
gas from Russia - and Iran. Crucially, one year ago a $10bn 
Pipelineistan deal was 
<http://openoil.net/2012/03/28/syrias-transit-future-all-pipelines-lead-to-damascus/>clinched 
between Iran, Iraq and Syria for a natural gas pipeline from Iran's 
giant South Pars field to Iraq, Syria and further on towards Turkey 
and eventually connecting to Europe.

During the past 12 months, with Syria plunging into civil war, key 
players stopped talking about it. Not anymore. Any self-respecting 
analyst in Brussels admits that the EU's supreme paranoia is to be a 
hostage of Gazprom. The Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline would be 
essential to diversify Europe's energy supplies away from Russia.

For the US and the EU, this is the real game, and if it takes two or 
more years of Assad in power, so be it. And it must be done in a way 
that does not fully antagonise Russia. That's where reassurances in 
Geneva to Russia keeping its interests intact in a post-Assad Syria come in.

No eyebrows should be raised. This is how ultra-hardcore geopolitics 
is played behind closed doors. It remains to be seen whether Erdogan 
will get the message.

Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times. His latest 
book is named Obama Does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).





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