NOVANEWS
James R. Clapper
Posted by: Rahaf Online
Asked during testimony before a Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 27 if he was confident that Turkey would spin “more engaged” in a quarrel opposite a Islamic State (IS), US Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper replied, “No, I’m not. we consider Turkey has other priorities and other interests.”
Clapper’s candor, that is suggestive of Vice President Joe Biden’s “slip” on Oct. 3 that “our biggest problem is a allies” in traffic with unfamiliar fighters in Syria, put a spokespeople during a departments of Defense and State on defense. Asked about Clapper’s remarks, they responded with a common bromides about Turkey as a “NATO ally” and an “important partner” in a Middle East.
The latest justification of incompatible US and Turkish priorities is Turkey’s agreement on Feb. 19 to “train and equip” vetted Syrian insurgent forces. The agreement took months to negotiate in partial since of Turkey’s insistence that a rebels should be lerned to quarrel a Syrian government, in further to IS.
And Turkey believes it got what it wanted in a understanding final week. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu pronounced on Feb. 23 that he expects that these insurgent groups will also quarrel a Syrian government.
The Pentagon, however, had a opposite take. In response to a doubt about a US requirement to antithesis army if they took on a Syrian government, orator Rear Adm. John Kirby pronounced on Feb. 27 that “the idea for this module is to get them [Syrian antithesis forces] to do those dual things: to titillate their communities, strengthen their possess neighbors, and afterwards go on a offense opposite [IS]. The Syria member of this debate is an anti-[IS] component. That’s a focus, not about a [Bashar al-]Assad regime. [N]othing has altered about … a process that there’s not going to be a US troops resolution to Assad.”
Semih Idiz writes from Turkey: “Whatever a merits or demerits, signing a agreement to sight and supply assuage members of a Syrian opposition, and afterwards claiming this also targets a Syrian regime — when that is not a goal of a US-led bloc — usually reinforces a sense that a government’s Syrian policies, not to discuss policies on other informal issues, are in a daze.”
Fehim Tastekin pennyless a story for Al-Monitor in Oct 2014 that a tentative US-Turkish agreement on “train and equip” would be managed by Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT), that has been focused on deposing Syrian President Assad, and could give priority to training Syrian Turkmen forces.
Another pointer of a sense of a “daze” in Turkey’s Syria process occurred when a mainstay of dozens of armored vehicles and hundreds of Turkish soldiers entered Syria on Feb. 22 to leave 38 Turkish soldiers and a stays of a Tomb of Suleiman Shah. The tomb is famous as Turkish domain notwithstanding being inside Syria.
Despite a martial brag of a Recep Tayyip Erdogan government, Cengiz Candar writes: “The Turkish troops operation is being treated as a matter of indignation or troops imitation rather than a overwhelming troops success that a supervision had hoped it would be.”
There was a hold of irony in that a People’s Protection Units (YPG) — a armed bend of a Kurdistan Democratic Union Party (PYD) — helped secure thoroughfare for a Turkish mainstay during a operation. It was not prolonged ago that Turkey resisted assistance to Syrian Kurds when they were underneath conflict by IS in Kobani.
Kadri Gursel reports: “History’s fun to Erdogan and his celebration lies here: Without a corner onslaught of a United States and a new informal ally, a PYD, that suspended IS from Kobani, a Turkish tanks would have had no protected track to go and leave a tomb.”
Candar cautions that a tomb operation should not be deliberate a gesticulate to a PYD and a Turkish affiliate, a Kurdistan Workers Party. To a contrary, he writes that a preference to immigrate a tomb only across the Turkish limit in Syrian Kurdish domain competence be improved accepted as a “‘strategic’ pierce to forestall a Kobani canton of a PYD from joining with a Afrin canton over west to yield a geographic smoothness for contingent Kurdish self-rule.”
Israel should give adult “illusions” in Syria
Jacky Hugi writes that Israel’s support for Syrian rebels might be a sleazy slope, lenient radical jihadists who are some-more of a hazard to Israel than a Syrian supervision and Hezbollah:
“As distant as Israel is concerned, knowledge teaches that a Shiite-Alawite stay is led by useful individuals. While they might be encouraged by a titillate to conflict Israel and strew a blood, this is not a outcome of some bloodthirstiness or messianic eremite fervor, as it is with a several Sunni nonconformist factions. Yes, Damascus is Jerusalem’s normal enemy, though it also knew how to keep a limit still for 4 decades. Even in a countless instances when Bashar al-Assad was allegedly pounded by a IDF (some of these instances according to unfamiliar news sources), Assad was demure to respond, so as not to open adult a front with Israel. With a Middle East experiencing a rising waves of fundamentalism, it is improved to face a physical rather than a eremite enemy.
“We should stop with a illusions: a day ‘after Assad’ won’t move about a physical magnanimous statute alternative. The nonconformist organizations are a many widespread factions in Syria nowadays. Any blank left in Syria will be seized by them, not a assuage rebels. This is what happened in Iraq and Libya. This is what will occur in any other locus in a region.
“Israel has a sour measure to settle with Hezbollah, too, though during slightest it is a trained transformation whose word depends for something, and that has a singular loyalty. It is a organisation that can be oral to (through mediators, of course). Its policies embody avoiding attacks on rivalry civilians, solely in impassioned circumstances, or when there is a need to retaliate in kind. Its fighters do not decapitate anyone, nor do they set their prisoners on fire. When it wants to conflict Syria or Hezbollah, Israel has an residence to spin to. The same can’t be pronounced about a Sunni nonconformist organizations. With them, it’s tough to tell who’s pulling a strings from a stretch today, and who will be pulling a strings tomorrow. A retaliatory operation opposite them can infrequently resemble chasing after a ghosts of yesterday.”
Will Netanyahu “cash in” on Iran?
Akiva Eldar reports from Jerusalem that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu anticipates a domestic win-win in a Mar 17 Israeli elections by severe a Barack Obama administration over a probable chief understanding with Iran.
“If a P5+1 and Iran are on their approach to an agreement, that has been called a “bad agreement” by most Israeli politicians on a right, left and center, afterwards a people need a clever and gifted personality like Bibi. Only he can stop a Iranians by recklessly brushing aside a genuine American president. In an emergency, a Likud propagandists will argue, Israel can’t means a new primary minister, one who believes a Arabs and is fearful of a Americans.
“Even if negotiations with Iran are headed for a passed end, Netanyahu will money in. One moody to Congress by Super-Bibi, over a objections of a president, derailed a bad agreement, his advisers will bellow. The Likud debate commercials will contend that interjection to Netanyahu, sanctions on Iran will be increasing and a approach paved for Israel to act on a possess opposite a enemy’s chief installations. Doesn’t a male who disfigured a arms of a universe powers merit another term?”
Women in a Middle East
Beginning this week, Al-Monitor will launch a special array focused on women in a Middle East. While so many stories concentration on a hurdles confronting women, Al-Monitor’s array will prominence a care and accomplishments of Middle East women leaders in many fields, including diplomacy, a humanities and journalism. Our writers from opposite a segment have contributed to this series, that will be published in Arabic, English, Hebrew, Persian and Turkish. The array will embody profiles of Al-Monitor correspondents and analysts, as good as interviews with H.E. Alya al-Thani, Qatar’s permanent deputy to a United Nations, and H.E. Dina Kawar, Jordan’s permanent deputy to a UN, in further to on-the-ground reports and research from a region.
