Generational Dynamics World View

[John J. Xenakis]

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

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
  

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


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:

<QUOTE>"[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."<END QUOTE>

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:

• Turkey bolsters Idlib outposts as Syrian gov't forces make gains (Al-Jazeera, 7-Feb-2020)
  
• Russia unlikely to full-on push for Assad control over Idlib in Syria (Ahval, Turkey, 8-Feb-2020)
  
• Turkey reinforces troops in Syria's Idlib, talks with Russia (Reuters, 8-Feb-2020)
  
• Syria's Idlib offensive forces civilians to flee, pits Turkey against Russia (Axios, 6-Feb-2020)
  
• Idlib is an inferno. There are no good solutions left. (Washington Post, 7-Feb-2020)
  
• Turkey / Russia holds key to Idlib's fate as Syrian army advances (Reuters, 7-Feb-2020)
  
• Erdogan, Putin endure marriage of convenience (Al-Monitor, 8-Feb-2020)
  
• Syrian advance sends hundreds of thousands fleeing in Idlib (AP, 7-Feb-2020)
  
• Turkey’s Intervention in Syria Will Slow Assad, But It Won’t Stop Him (Foreign Policy, 7-Feb-2020)
  
• Turkey reinforces troops in Syria’s Idlib, talks with Russia (Middle East Monitor, 8-Feb-2020)
  
• Syria Showdown Looms as Third Turkish Base Besieged in Idlib (Bloomberg, 7-Feb-2020)
  
• Erdogan Threatens to Force Syria to End Siege of Turk Troops (Bloomberg, 5-Feb-2020)

Related Articles:

• Turkey, Russia and Greece face off in Syria, Libya and the eastern Mediterranean (26-Dec-2019)
  
  
• Syria, Russia veto humanitarian aid to Idlib as civilian massacre escalates (22-Dec-2019)
  
  
• Escalated bombing by Syria, Russia in Idlib sends tens of thousands to Turkey border (19-Dec-2019)
  
  
• Generational analysis of Turkey-Syria war and ceasefire agreement (18-Oct-2019)
  
  
• Evidence grows of Assad's 'final solution', extermination of Arab Sunnis in Syria (01-Dec-2018)
  
  
• Syria peace summit issues delusional call for political solution in Idlib (28-Oct-2018)
  
  
• Russia demands that US and EU pay to rebuild Syria (23-Aug-2018)
  
  
• US increasingly expresses total disgust with Syria regime for Bashar al-Assad's atrocities (21-Sep-2016)
  
  
• Turkey shoots down Russian warplane, evoking memories of many Crimean wars (25-Nov-2015)
  
  
• Turkey threatens Syria, as military attacks Palestinian refugee camp (16-Aug-2011)
  

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Turkey, Russia, Syria, Idlib,
Bashar al-Assad, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Vladimir Putin

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John J. Xenakis
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