Turkey Invades Syria

[David Guyatt]

Pepe Escobar's take on these recent events.

Hit the ATM: The Ankara-Tehran-Moscow coalition

Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia Times Online. Born in Brazil, he's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of "Globalistan" (2007), "Red Zone Blues" (2007), "Obama does Globalistan" (2009) and "Empire of Chaos" (2014), all published by Nimble Books. His latest book is "2030", also by Nimble Books, out in December 2015.


Published time: 25 Aug, 2016 16:44Edited time: 25 Aug, 2016 17:01

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Turkish soldiers on an armoured vehicle are seen in Karkamis on the Turkish-Syrian border in the southeastern Gaziantep province, Turkey, August 25, 2016. © Umit Bektas / Reuters



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So Turkish President, a.k.a. Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan is about to make a high-profile visit to Tehran the date has not yet been set - to essentially kick start the ATM (Ankara-Tehran-Moscow) coalition in Syria.
TrendsIslamic State, Syria-Turkey

Anyone as much as hinting at such a massive geopolitical tectonic shift a few weeks ago would be branded a madman. So how did the impossible happen?
A major strategic game-changer Russia using an airfield in Iran to send bombers against jihadis in Syria had already taken place, with its aftermath spectacularly misreported by the usual, clueless US corporate media suspects.
Then, there's what Turkey's Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim, said last Saturday in Istanbul: "The most important priority for us is to stop the bloodshed [in Syria] as soon as possible." The rest are irrelevant "details."
Read more
Can Russia trust Turkey this time?
Yildirim added Ankara now agrees with Moscow that Bashar al-Assad "could" and that's the operative word stay in power during a political transition (although that's still highly debatable). Ankara's drive to normalize relations with Moscow had an important share' in this policy shift'.
The policy shift' is a direct consequence of the failed military coup in Turkey. Russian cyber-surveillance aces in action 24/7 after the downing of the Su-24 last November reportedly informed Turkish intelligence a few hours before the fact. NATO, as the record shows, was mum.
Even minimalist optics suggests Sultan' Erdogan was extremely upset that Washington was not exactly displeased with the coup. He knows how vast swathes of the Beltway despise him blaming him for not being serious in the fight against ISIS and for bombing the YPG Kurds Pentagon allies - in Syria. The record does show Erdogan has mostly ignored ISIS allowing non-stop free border crossing for ISIS goons as well as letting Turkish business interests (if not his own family) profit from ISIS' stolen Syrian oil.
Compared to Washington's attitude Moscow, on the other hand, warning Erdogan about serious, concrete facts on the ground in the nick of time. And for Erdogan, that was highly personal; the putschists reportedly sent a commando to kill him when he was still in Marmaris.
Fast forward to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif's surprise visit two weeks ago to Ankara. Zarif and his counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu did discuss serious options by which the budding ATM coalition could come up with a viable exit strategy in Syria. One week later Cavusoglu went to Tehran and talked again to Zarif for five hours.
It's an uphill battle but doable. Tehran knows very well IRGC officers as well as Hezbollah, Iraqi and Afghan fighters were killed in the Syrian war theater, and that shall not be in vain. Ankara for its part knows it cannot afford to remain forever trapped in an ideological dead end.

Rojava, where and for whom?

And then there's the rub - the intractable Kurdish question. Iran, unlike Turkey, does not face active Kurdish separatism. A minimum understanding between Ankara and Tehran central to the current flurry of meetings, face-to-face and secret', via mediators, necessarily points toward a united, centralized Syria.
That implies no Rojava a possible independent Kurdish mini-state alongside the Turkish border, part of a not so hidden Washington/Tel Aviv balkanization agenda. Actually what is now in effect official Pentagon policy contains a mob element of Ash "Empire of Whining" Carter's revenge on Sultan Erdogan; payback because Erdogan did not do enough to smash ISIS.
And that brings us to the current Turkish offensive for all practical purposes invasion of Jarabulus. That's the last fort as in the last town that allows ISIS back and forth from southern Turkey to Raqqa in terms of smuggling goons and weapons.
Ankara would never allow the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) take Jarabulus. After all, the SDF fully supported by the Pentagon - is led by the Kurdish nationalist YPG, which Ankara sees as a mere extension of PKK separatists.
Imagine Ankara's terror at the YPG seizing Jarabulus. They would have crossed the ultimate Turkish red line; closing the gap between two Kurdish cantons across the border and for all practical purposes giving birth to the Rojava Kurdish mini-state.

Yet even if for Ankara an independent Rojava remains the supreme red line, there are declinations. A Rojava might come as quite handy if it became a dumping ground for Turkish PKK fighters. Arguably the PKK would not complain; after all they would have "their" state.
No one seems to be considering what Damascus thinks about all this.
And no one, for the moment, has a clue about the precise geography of a putative Rojava. If it includes, for instance, the recently liberated city of Manbij, that's a major problem; Manbij is Arab, not Kurd. Kurds once again seem to be thrown into disarray - forced to choose whether they are allied with Washington or with Moscow.
Moscow, for its part, is crystal clear on ISIS. It is dead set on smashing for good, by all means necessary, any militants who consider Russia their enemy.
Erdogan certainly calculated that a rapprochement with Russia had to include being serious against ISIS. Extra incentive was added by the fact the bombing this past Sunday in Gaziantep was most certainly an ISIS job.
So Erdogan's Syria master plan now boils down to - what else another wilderness of mirrors. By crossing to Jarabulus, Ankara wants to establish a sort of remnants of the Free Syria Army (FSA)-controlled enclave. The Americans can't blame him because this will be against ISIS even though it's mostly against Rojava. And the Russians won't make a fuss because Moscow is in favor of Syria's unity.

Got ATM, will travel

Former Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, previously of "zero problems with our neighbors" then converted into "nothing but problems with our neighbors" is now history. Yildirim is a pragmatist. So the opening to Russia had to be inevitable.
And that leads us back to the alleged - end of Team Obama's obsession, "Assad must go". He may stay, for a while. Yildirim has confirmed this is now Turkish official policy. Although that does not mean Ankara and Washington for that matter have given up on regime change. They will keep up the pressure but tactics will change.
As it stands, the major fact on the ground is that Sultan' Erdogan seems to have had enough of the Americans (NATO of course included) and has pivoted to Russia.
Thus the sending of certified Keystone Cop Joe Biden to Ankara to plead "not guilty" on the military coup (forget it; most Turks don't believe Washington) and to implore Erdogan not to pursue his massive purge (pure wishful thinking).
Considering Erdogan's notoriously erratic record, his embrace of ATM may be just a gigantic illusion, or may open yet another unforeseen can of worms. But there are signs this may be for real.
Cavusoglu has already intimated that Ankara is aiming for a military/technological upgrade that is impossible under NATO's watch. In his own words; "Unfortunately, we see countries in NATO are a bit hesitant when it comes to exchange of technology and joint investments."
Moscow has every reason to be quite cautious regarding myriad aspects of Erdogan's pivoting. After all the Turkish military has been part of NATO for decades. As it stands, there's no evidence Moscow and Ankara are looking at the same post-war Syria. But if we're talking about the future of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), then it starts to get really interesting.
Read more
'US apoplectic as Turkey pivots eastward'
Turkey is already a "dialog partner" of the SCO, while Iran may become a full member as early as next year. Moscow is certainly envisioning Ankara as a valuable ally in the wider Sunni world, way beyond a role in repelling Salafi-jihadis in Syria. With Ankara and Tehran also talking serious business, this could eventually spill out into a serious debunking of the alleged apocalyptic Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian divide, which is the only Divide-and-Rule strategy spun and deployed non-stop by the US, Israel and the House of Saud.
It's this enticing SCO-enhancing possibility that's freaking Washington out big time. Russia pivoting East, Turkey pivoting East, Iran already there, and China now also actually involved in a stake in post-war Syria, that's a geopolitical reconfiguration in Southwest Asia that once again spells out the inevitable; Eurasia integration.

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[Drew Phipps]

I can assure you, and Escobar, that

the alleged apocalyptic Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian divide, which is the only Divide-and-Rule strategy spun and deployed non-stop by the US, Israel and the House of Saud.

is in fact a real thing, having lived for about a year (full disclosure: back in the 80's) in a country that housed both Sunni and Shia sects of Islam. A Shi'ite family, with which I broke bread on many occasions, and whose patriarch accompanied me on a couple of cross-country road trips, feared the (majority) Sunni as much as they feared Israel. The Iraq / Iran war is certainly the most spectacular example (half a million deaths) of the reality of this ideological divide, which historically stretches back to just after the death of Mohammed in 632 AD, and the arguments over who would succeed him.


Now, I have no way of personally knowing how the end of the Iraq (Sunni) / Iran (Shiite) war in 1988 and other developments since that time have impacted the relations between these Islamic sects; but I suspect that, with the recent rise of more militant factions, and with the Saudi's and Quatar's (Sunni) seeming willingness to foot the bill for military incursions against the (Shi'ite) government of Syria, that not that much has changed. (It must be noted that Assad's Shi'ite faction, that controls the government of Syria, is but 13% of the population, with 74% of the population being Sunni.) And a further example is that Saudi Arabia today accuses Iran of covertly supplying the Yemeni rebels with missiles.


I don't know whether or not it would be possible to redraw the Middle East to allow Sunni and Shi'ia to govern themselves. Probably not. It certainly seems like it would otherwise be a positive step towards a lasting peace in the area.

[David Guyatt]

I can assure you, and Escobar, that

the alleged apocalyptic Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian divide, which is the only Divide-and-Rule strategy spun and deployed non-stop by the US, Israel and the House of Saud.

is in fact a real thing, having lived for about a year (full disclosure: back in the 80's) in a country that housed both Sunni and Shia sects of Islam. A Shi'ite family, with which I broke bread on many occasions, and whose patriarch accompanied me on a couple of cross-country road trips, feared the (majority) Sunni as much as they feared Israel. The Iraq / Iran war is certainly the most spectacular example (half a million deaths) of the reality of this ideological divide, which historically stretches back to just after the death of Mohammed in 632 AD, and the arguments over who would succeed him.


Now, I have no way of personally knowing how the end of the Iraq (Sunni) / Iran (Shiite) war in 1988 and other developments since that time have impacted the relations between these Islamic sects; but I suspect that, with the recent rise of more militant factions, and with the Saudi's and Quatar's (Sunni) seeming willingness to foot the bill for military incursions against the (Shi'ite) government of Syria, that not that much has changed. (It must be noted that Assad's Shi'ite faction, that controls the government of Syria, is but 13% of the population, with 74% of the population being Sunni.) And a further example is that Saudi Arabia today accuses Iran of covertly supplying the Yemeni rebels with missiles.


I don't know whether or not it would be possible to redraw the Middle East to allow Sunni and Shi'ia to govern themselves. Probably not. It certainly seems like it would otherwise be a positive step towards a lasting peace in the area.

My take on that sentence, the "alleged" part anyway, was the association with word "apocalyptic".

I doubt he, and certainly not I, nor anyone else really doubts there is an actual divide between Sunni and Shi'ite sects, because it is plain for all to see. However, that that divide has been designedly worsened as part of US policy also seems evident too.

[David Guyatt]

Erdogan Calls Putin as Russia Seethes at Turkey's Syrian Incursion

ALEXANDER MERCOURIS19 hours ago 14 428
Russia furious at Turkish move to set up rebel "safe zone" inside Syria to assist Jihadi rebels there, putting the recently announced "normalisation of relations" between Russia and Turkey in jeopardy.

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In the immediate aftermath of the Turkish capture of Jarablus in Syria Turkish President Erdogan telephoned his "friend Putin" on Friday 27th August 2016.
The Kremlin's account of the conversation is remarkable even by its standards for its terseness

"The two leaders discussed the development of Russia-Turkey trade and political and economic cooperation in keeping with the agreements reached in St Petersburg on August 9. Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan exchanged opinions on developments in Syria and pointed out the importance of joint efforts in fighting terrorism. They agreed to continue their dialogue on the issues of the bilateral and international agenda."

The true subject of the discussion will in fact have been the Turkish capture of Jarablus in northern Syria.
Whilst it seems the Turks did inform the Russians of this move in advance, it is clear that the Russians are to put it mildly unhappy about it. Though the Turks appear to have tried to arrange talks with the Russian military leadership presumably to discuss this move even announcing a visit to Turkey by General Gerasimov, the Chief of the Russian General Staff no such talks are taking place, with the Russians denying that a visit to Ankara by their Chief of General Staff was ever agreed, and the Turks now saying that the visit has been postponed.
The Russian media meanwhile is carrying articles making clear the extent of Russian anger. An article in the Russian newspaper Kommersant, which is clearly based on official briefings, is accusing Turkey of "going further than promised in Syria". That this article reflects official thinking in Moscow is shown by the fact that the semi-official English language Russian news-site "Russia Beyond the Headlines" has republished it in English.
The article makes it clear that Turkey did not coordinate the Jarablus operation with Moscow or Damascus, and that it was much bigger than Moscow was led to expect. The Russians are also clearly annoyed by the extent to which the operation has been coordinated by Turkey with the US, which is providing air support.

"For Moscow, Ankara's operation was an unpleasant surprise, demonstrating that the expectations for a convergence of the countries' positions on Syria that emerged after the meeting between Putin and Erdogan were premature. In deciding about the operation in Jarabulus, the Turkish leader has sent a signal that relations with the U.S. remain a priority for him, and he prefers to act in the framework of the antiterrorist coalition led not by Moscow, but Washington."
(Bold italics added)

I have repeatedly warned against over-high expectations that the recent rapprochement between Turkey and Russia amounted to any sort of realignment. I have also said that despite Turkish annoyance with the US over the recent coup attempt, Turkey remains a US ally, continues to be committed to regime change in Syria, and is not going to throw the US out of Incirlik or allow Russia to use the base. My only surprise is that judging from this comment it appears there were some people in Moscow who thought otherwise.
The Kommersant article then continues ominously

"According to Kommersant's information, in case of aggravation of the situation, the Russian military and diplomats are ready to employ bilateral channels of communication with their Turkish counterparts, as well as express their concerns to the U.S. if necessary. According to Vladimir Sotnikov, director of the Moscow-based Russia-East-West centre, Ankara's actions could seriously affect the process of normalisation of bilateral cooperation that was agreed by presidents Putin and Erdogan in St. Petersburg".
(Bold italics added)

That suggests that behind the mild public language strong complaints have been made in private by Moscow to Ankara. Erdogan's call to Putin looks like an attempt to assuage Russian anger, to reassure Moscow about Turkey's intentions in Syria, and to keep the "process of normalisation" between Turkey and Russia on track. The terse Kremlin summary of the conversation suggests that Putin in response made Russian feelings and concerns perfectly clear, and that there was, in the diplomatic language of the past, "a full and frank exchange of views" ie. a row.
Why are the Russians so angry about the Jarablus operation?
Here I acknowledge my heavy debt to the geopolitical analyst Mark Sleboda who over the course of a detailed and very helpful discussion has corrected certain errors I have previously made about the Jarablus operation and has greatly enlarged my understanding of it.
In my two previous articles discussing the Jarablus operation I said that it looked to be targeted principally at the Kurds, whose militia, the YPG, has over the last year significantly expanded the area in north east Syria under its control. I also discounted the possibility that the Turkish seizure of Jarablus was intended to affect the course of the battle for Aleppo by providing supplies to the Jihadi fighters trying to break the siege there. In my latest article I said the following

"….. it is not obvious that the rebels actually need a "safe zone" in this area. They already have a corridor to send men and supplies to Aleppo through Idlib province, which they already control. Why add to the problems of setting up a "safe zone" much further away in north east Syria when the rebels already control territories so much closer to Aleppo?"

Mark Sleboda has explained to me that the principal corridor to supply the rebels in Syria has always been through the area of north east Syria around Jarablus. In his words

"Idlib is not an acceptable supply route from Turkey to forces in Aleppo province because the Turkish-Syrian border in Idlib is mountainous terrain small and bad roads and then long routes all the way through Idlib past SAA held territory into Aleppo province. The Jarablus Corridor north of Aleppo is and has always been absolutely vital for the insurgency,. That's why Turkey, Brookings, etc have always placed so much priority on a no fly zone there. Now its come to realisation."

In other words the Turkish capture of Jarablus before it could be captured by the YPG was not primarily intended to prevent the linking together of two areas within Syria under Kurdish control though that may have been a secondary factor but was primarily intended to secure the main supply route (or "ratline") Turkey uses to supply the Jihadi fighters attacking Aleppo.
Beyond that it is now clear that Turkish ambitions go much further than Jarablus. Various Turkish officials have over the last two days been speaking to the Turkish media of Turkey establishing a large rebel controlled "safe zone" in this area of Syria. Moreover as Mark Sleboda says they have now secured US support for it, as shown by the very active role the US air force is taking in supporting the Turkish move on Jarablus.
As Mark Sleboda has also pointed out to me, creating this rebel "safe zone" within Syria has been a declared Turkish objective for over a year. The Turks have up to now been prevented from realising it because of US reluctance to provide the necessary support, and because of concern in Washington and Ankara about a possible Russian military reaction. With the move to Jarablus and beyond now carried out with US support and through Russian acquiescence obtained by stealth, the Turks have now achieved it.
What implications does this have for the war in Syria and for the continuation of the Russian Turkish rapprochement?
Going back to the war in Syria, my own view remains that this will not in the end decide the outcome of the battle of Aleppo, where reports suggest that the Syrian army is continuing to gain ground despite the uninterrupted and in fact increasing flow of supplies to the Jihadi fighters across the Turkish border. My longer term view also remains that if the Syrian government succeeds in recapturing the whole of Aleppo and eventually Idlib, then it will have won the war. However what this episode shows is that the war is far from won, and that the Turks and their US backers are still prepared to go on escalating it in order to prevent the Syrian army winning it.
Beyond that I think the British reporter Patrick Cockburn may turn out to be right, that by trying to establish a "safe zone" within Syria Turkey is overplaying its hand and is taking a step that

"….would embroil Turkey in the lethal swamp lands of the Syrian-Iraqi war."

Already there are indications that the Turkish move is provoking a local reaction from the YPG and the Kurds. Despite earlier reports that the YPG was withdrawing all its forces back across to the eastern bank of the Euphrates, there are now credible reports of scattered resistance to the Turkish move by Kurdish militia aligned with the YPG, and there are also reports of mobilisation against the Turkish move in the Kurdish areas of Syria.
In my recent article I made the following point about the potential ability of the YPG to wreck any scheme to set up a rebel "safe zone" in this part of Syria

"North east Syria is a bitterly contested area in which the dominant force is not the rebels but the YPG. It does not look like a credible "safe zone" for the rebels or a credible launch area from which to launch attacks on Aleppo. On the contrary an attempt to create a rebel "safe zone" in this area would antagonise the YPG, and would restore the alliance between the Syrian government and the YPG to full working order, leading to constant fighting in the area of the so-called "safe zone" between the Syrian rebels and the YPG. That would surely defeat the whole purpose of the "safe zone", rendering it unsafe and effectively worthless as a "safe zone". Of course the Turkish military could try to garrison the area to defend whatever "safe zone" it created inside it. That would however require an incursion into Syria that went far deeper than the one to Jarablus, and which would risk the Turkish army becoming bogged down in a lengthy guerrilla war on Syrian territory with the YPG. I doubt Erdogan, the Turkish military or the US would want that."

In his article discussing the Turkish incursion Patrick Cockburn makes essentially the same point

"Turkey may be able to prevent the Kurds permanently extending their rule west of the Euphrates, but it would be a very different and more dangerous operation to attack the de facto Syrian Kurdish state, which has spread itself between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers since the Syrian Army largely withdrew from the region in 2012."

Setting up a rebel "safe zone" inside Syria in the teeth of the opposition of the YPG is however what Erdogan and the Turks backed by the US have now decided to do.
In recent days there has been some renewed talk of Russia becoming bogged down in the war in Syria. In my opinion the country that runs by far the greatest risk of getting bogged down in Syria is not Russia but Turkey, which already has to deal with an Islamist terrorist campaign and a Kurdish insurgency on its own territory both in large part consequences of the war in Syria and which cannot afford to add a war between the Turkish army and the potentially Russian backed YPG in Syria to its mounting problems. That however is what Turkey by its latest move now risks.
There remains the outstanding puzzle of US policy. The US actively encouraged the YPG to capture the town of Manbij which lies west of the Euphrates from ISIS, and provided heavy air support for the YPG operation to the capture Manbij. It is now demanding that the YPG withdraw from Manbij and from all areas west of the Euphrates, and is providing air support for a Turkish military operation that is at least in part targeted against the YPG.
It is impossible to see any logic in these moves. As I said in my previous article

"It is impossible to see any coherent strategy here. Rather it looks as if CIA and military officials on the ground in Syria have been going their own way, encouraging the YPG to expand as fast as it can, heedless of the larger consequences. The political leadership in Washington, when it finally woke up to what was happening, then had to take disproportionate steps to bring the situation back under control."

Regardless of this, the Turkish move into Syria should bury once and for all any idea that Turkey is in the process of undertaking a geopolitical realignment away from the West and towards the Eurasian powers. Not only is Turkey still a US and NATO ally, but it is now conducting an illegal military operation against Russian opposition in Syria with US military support. That is not the action of a country in the process of carrying out a realignment and preparing to switch alliances from the West to Beijing and Moscow.
The Russians and the Turks are now talking to each other, which for several months they had stopped doing. The Kremlin's summary of Friday's conversation between Putin and Erdogan shows that they are still talking about improving their trade links and economic ties. However, as the Kommersant article shows, even that limited progress now appears to be in jeopardy as the two countries' conflicting stances in the Syrian war once again threaten to pull them apart.
In other words Turkey remains, as it has always been, an ally not of Russia and the Eurasian powers, but of the US and the West, and its actions in Syria are a clear demonstration of that.

Source

[Paul Rigby]

Putin and Erdogan have agreed on a restricted road map in Syria: the Kurds and Nusra will be the main losers

By Elijah J. Magnier: ‪@EjmAlrai

https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2016/08/3...in-losers/

During their meeting in St. Petersburg and following consecutive reunions later, plus an exchange of visits by high-ranking military officials, Russia and Turkey agreed on the role the Turkish forces could be offered in Syria, within specific parameters that will serve both sides interest, as long as there are limits and guarantees offered by both parties. Details of the Turkish forces' presence and deployment on the ground were discussed, including what each side could offer to thwart the US plan to divide Syria, a plan that was helping the Kurds to establish a "state", known as Rojava, from the north-east to the north-west of Syria, with a permanent US military presence. During five years of war Washington always rejected Ankara's request to create a no-fly-zone on its borders with Syria, 40km long and 110 km wide.

But Turkey considered itself in a strong position to impose its will on the US, indirectly accused of supporting the failed coup-d'état last July that almost cost the life of President Reccep Tayyib Erdogan. The Turkish President chose to accuse his political opponent Fethullan Gulen, resident in the US, for plotting against him rather than explicitly accuse the US administration who, right up to now, have refused to handed over Gulen to Erdogan.

Putin's talks with Erdogan ended the state of hostility between the two countries following the downing of the Su-24 last year on the Syrian Turkish borders. It was the first necessary step allowing the forces of Turkey and its allies in Syria to enter Syrian territory without being attacked by the Russian Air Force based in Syria or by its S-400 missiles specifically deployed to defy and hunt down any Turkish jet offering support to the ground forces inside Syrian territory.

Russia acknowledged the Turkish intervention to stop the Kurdish forces known as YPG or "People's Protection Units" which took control of Manbej after defeating the "Islamic State" group (acronym ISIS) and was at the gates of Jarablus, heading towards Azaz to reach Afrin.

Ankara committed itself to hunting down "ISIS" along the Syrian border with Turkey, and to preventing the Kurds from establishing themselves along the borders. Russia has accepted a Turkish incursion into Syrian territory due to the Kurds' declared hostility to the government in Damascus when YPG forces attacked and expelled the Syrian army from al-Hasakah city to the suburbs, with US backing, a clear intention to initiate the partition of Syria. Russia stands against a Kurdish state ruled by the US in the new Kremlin Mediterranean base, Syria. The Kurds had been enjoying the support of Damascus for the five years of war, and believe that the rebellion was not in vain, rather part of a plan to divide Syria.

Russia understands that the US is reluctant to exert influence over its allies in the Middle East to instruct their proxies in Syria to stay away from the (ex) Nusra group (Al-Qaida in Sham, newly rebranded as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham). Turkey expressed its willingness to collaborate and instruct many rebel groups under its direct influence, to reject unification, avoid the merger proposed by Nusra, and keep its distance from the Jihadists, mainly in the northern city of Aleppo. Those groups receive their logistic, finance, military equipment, medical treatment, medicine, hospitalisation, free access to the country and intelligence information from their sponsors in the Middle East: all via Turkey.

In fact, many of the rebel groups responded to Ankara' call to attack ISIS and Kurds-controlled land in the north of Syria, and they pulled out from around Aleppo to join the Turkish Army. Others expressed the "useless objective to continue fighting in Aleppo". Groups like Nureddine Zinki, Faylaq al-Sham, Firqat Hamza, Sultan Murad and Istaqem kama Umert, all left the Aleppo front and rejected the union with (ex) Nusra, along with one of the biggest northern rebel Islamic groups, Ahrar al-Sham, whose leadership is divided on this particular topic. These groups spat out their promise given to (ex) Nusra to form one group if it broke its ties with Qaidat al-Jihad in Khorasan, which Nusra did at the end but, indeed, without obtaining the promised unity and desired merging.

Moreover, Turkey showed its ability to change its long declared policy toward Damascus: Prime Minister, Binali Yildirim declared, "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could be a partner in this transitional phase". The tactical disagreement over Assad's future as the head of his country remains a suspended unsolved issue that Russia considers it is the right of the Syrian people to decide.

Turkey agreed to avoid any contact or clash with the Syrian army, mainly around Aleppo, in support of the Syrian rebels and jihadists. This is leaving (ex) Nusra almost alone with minor groups around Aleppo, Ramouseh and the academies, offering a perfect target to the Russian Air Force, and the US, if willing to act in partnership, since jihadists are left alone on that front.

Turkey succeeded in benefitting from Washington's blessing to engage its forces in Syria after five years of objection and rejection of a most wished no-fly-zone. Erdogan was carrying a sharp knife, blackmailing a US concerned that the Turkish president may fall into the arms of Russia, which would represent a threat to the NATO alliance. Erdogan was due to be pleased by the US to divert attention from the role he is unwittingly claiming that the US played and was not far from orchestrating the failed coup last July.

Moscow informed Damascus of the Turkish plan, despite denial and contested positions through its Foreign Ministry expressed overtly against the intervention o the Turkish forces on its soil. Turkey was officially using its right to "go after the PKK Kurds according to the 1999 Adana agreement with Damascus". Moreover, Turkey was chasing ISIS from the north of Syria, an area that neither Damascus nor its close allies on the ground were willing to engage at any time in the future. Russia is aware that the Syrian Army, Iran proxies (Afghan, Pakistani and Iraqi) and Hezbollah have no intention of pushing their forces toward Jarablus, al-Bab or even Raqqa itself, ISIS's stronghold.

Russia made it clear to Turkey that it will not tolerate any infringement of the agreement or any clash with the Syrian Army drawing clear redlines, and threatening that its Air Force will hit the Turkish forces and its proxies in case of any similar violation.

Russia has advised Syria to avoid any official objection and condemnation deposited at the United Nations Security Council related to the presence of Turkish troops on its soil. Turkey is protecting its national interest, preventing the partition of Syria, a possible domestic Kurdish uprising and a Rojava state on its border, and eliminating a future permanent foothold of US forces in Syria.

Moscow told Damascus "Turkey is willing to cut the Kurds' toenails, they who believed the US is carrying a magic wand and could offer them a state in Syria without any objection or reactions. The YPG have no previous experience with American forces that can abandon them when US interests with Turkey prevails, despite hundreds of Kurds being killed on the battlefield against ISIS".

It is clear that no cease-fire is possible in Syria without direct intervention of the countries involved in the war for five years, imposing a solution upon everyone and gathering together forces against the jihadists and those who stand in the way, including ISIS. Turkey has been unable to achieve any significant gains on the battlefield through its proxies except the control of Idlib. That is why the presence on the ground of "the authentic" (Turkish) dismisses the role of the agent (Syrian opposition group known as "moderate rebels"); that any strategic significant achievement against ISIS or the Syrian Army could not be achieved without the direct intervention of the Turkish Army. Today, Ankara cannot hide any longer behind its groups since the main protagonists are exposed and known today on the Syrian arena.

For the Kurds, who have a role in Syria, they must be subject to a commensurate status without becoming a tool to divide the country. As the situation in Syria is changing continuously, any glitch in the Russian agreement will push the two superpowers directly involved in Syria The US and Russia to provide the necessary support for the Kurds so that they drag Turkey into the Syrian quagmire and for the complexities of the Syrian conflict to return to their starting point.

What about ISIS ?

There is no doubt that the withdrawal of ISIS from the north of Syria, leaving the arena for Turkey and its proxies, will free a large number of fighters to be invested against the Syrian Army in other locations, like Kuweires or along the Syrian desert. However, these attacks are expected. ISIS has no other targets at the moment as it is shrinking from all sides in Syria and Iraq. At the end of the day, the question remains: Who is going to finish off the ISIS stronghold in Raqqah before its militants get dispersed?

Decisional sources told me "Damascus and its allies are not willing to lose one single man to regain control of Raqqah. If the US wants with all its proxies, the Kurds or even Turkey to knock at the gate of Raqqah, they are most welcome to do so. Aleppo, mid Syria and its north are far more important than sending forces to be drained against ISIS that is just waiting to show a last show of strength before being whipped.

Thus, ISIS is expected to stay for a while longer until it is clearer who will sit on the throne in Washington. This would postpone the decision regarding the fate of the land which will remain in the hands of the terrorist group until after February-March 2017.

[Paul Rigby]

Damascus and Ankara strike a deal: Erdogan gets the Kurds and Assad gets Aleppo

August 30, 2016

https://yallalabarra.wordpress.com/2016/...ts-aleppo/

This is a loose translation of an article by Mohammad Ballout that appeared in Lebanon's Assafir newspaper on August 29:

The Syrians and the Turks are on the verge of a security understanding that will lead to a political one. The indications of this unprecedented understanding are not yet clear. But its first headline, without any surprises, is a trade off: the Turks backing off in Aleppo and closing the crossings used by some of the armed groups (the most important ones) in the north in exchange for the Turkish forces to be given the freedom to destroy the Kurdish project in Syria. In other words, the city of Aleppo goes to Syria and the corpse of the Kurdish project in Syria goes to the Turks.

The speech which Erdogan gave in Gaziantep, close to the Syrian border, was the first in which he didn't mention the Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad or the Syrian Army. Instead he attacked the PPK and said: "our goal in Syria is uprooting it".

The basics of this trade-off were put on the table in meetings between security officials. The Turks had, in what they considered a preliminary initiative from their side, and on the advice of the Russians and Iranians, informed Damascus about their Jarablus operation on August 16, one week before the Turkish tanks took off from Qarqamish towards Jarablus. For this understanding/deal to crystallize, a lot of the details still need to be ironed out in additional meetings for which a complete schedule has been set. So after Baghdad, there's a meeting in Damascus and another in Moscow and then possibly Istanbul. And according to reliable Arab sources, the Iraqi capital hosted last Thursday a trilateral security meeting that included representatives of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, the Iraqi military intelligence, three senior Syrian intelligence officers and a Turkish security delegation led by Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkish intelligence (MIT). The Syrian officers arrived in the Iraqi capital as part of a Syrian diplomatic delegation headed by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallim, who himself didn't participate in the negotiations which were limited to security officers and no diplomats. According to Arab sources, the participants expressed a lot of positivity towards opening a new page of mutual cooperation and the possibility of bringing back security coordination especially in relation to the PPK and its activities in Syria.

At the opening of the meeting, the Turkish delegation requested information on seven Turkish officers who had been fighting alongside the armed Syrian opposition and with whom Turkish intelligence had lost contact in February of last year. It is well known that Turkish special forces were directly involved in fighting against the Syrian army in Latakia, Idlib and in East Aleppo and that a number of them had been killed during these operations, but their deaths had not been announced officially by the Turkish Joint Chiefs of Staff. Several Turkish officers who were very effective participants in what was called the Great Epic of Aleppo were besieged in the city until waves of suicide fighters of the Turkish intelligence-directed Turkestan Islamic Party managed to open a passage in Ramouseh, in the southern part of the city, in order to evacuate them.

There is information that the Syrian side presented to the Turks documents about four Turkish officers who had been captured alive in the battle of Aleppo and were being held by the Syrian Army and Syrian intelligence. The Syrian side denied having any information about the remaining three officers that Turkish intelligence had lost contact with, but promised to work on getting more information on them.

There is also information that both the Syrian and Turkish security delegations had received instructions from the highest levels of their departments to show the maximum degree of cooperation and put on the discussion table all the dossiers. The Syrian delegation informed its leadership that they got a strong impression that the Turks were willing to develop cooperation and make a deal with Syria as soon as possible. Also the Baghdad meeting is to be followed by another one in Damascus next Sunday , where the Iranians will be given a role in the negotiations alongside the Turks, Iraqis and Syrians.

And in this framework, there is information that the level of the negotiations will be raised in the following days after an understanding is reached on the basic principles, and that Moscow will host Ali Mamlouk, the head of the Syrian National Security Bureau, on Tuesday September 6 so that he can update the Russians on the results of the ongoing meetings between the Turks, the Syrians, the Iranians and the Iraqis. A meeting is also to be set between the Russians and the Turkish Security delegation itself.

According to knowledgeable Arab sources, the Syrians and the Turks have made a preliminary deal under which Damascus, who had announced that the PPK is a terrorist organization during its clashes with the YPG in Hasakah last week, pledged to continue to consider all the armed Kurdish factions in Northern Syria as terrorist groups. Damascus also pledged to stop arming and supporting two Kurdish factions in Afrin as well as any factions that cooperate with the PPK.

In exchange, the Turks pledged to stop arming and supporting the armed factions fighting the Syrian army in Aleppo, and will agree to designate factions as terrorists in line with Russian lists.

Ankara will act on three international resolutions urging Turkey to close the crossings with Syria used by terrorists. Ankara will also respond to a Russian request, which in the past it had along with the US and Saudi Arabia impeded, since the Geneva conference last November, when Jordan who was assigned the task of compiling the UN requested list of terrorist groups , was unable to proceed beyond consultations with interior ministries of Syria's neighbors and ultimately failed to produce a terrorist list because of Saudi pressure.

The deal also includes studying different mechanisms to monitor the border crossings which Turkey will agree to allow Russian officers and units to supervise.

It is clear that this kind of agreement between the parties should have happened much earlier and is what was needed from the beginning of the crisis: namely, the return of Damascus to the spirit of the Adana agreement politically and militarily, and preventing the PKK from making the north of Syria a base from which it can attack the Turkish territories. In exchange, Turkey abandons the ambitions that it openly admits having in Aleppo, and stops supporting the armed groups that form the spearhead in the fight against the Syrian army, specifically in the north of Syria.

It can be said that the Turks have taken a first step to separate the moderate opposition from the extremist groups. Turkey's recent diversion of thousands of fighters from the fronts of Aleppo and Idlib represents a Turkish initiative to separate the factions it directly mentors from the extremist groups who coordinate their operations. Turkey diverted hundreds of fighters from the remnants of the Syrian Revolutionaries Front that was led by their man in Idlib Jamal Maarouf, who still controls 4000 fighters to Jarablus. Also, the Turks recalled major wings of the Levant Front after the latter's disagreements with Jaish al-Fateh over operations in Aleppo. Turkish intelligence also withdrew "Division 13" and the Turkmani brigades, which originally operated around the Turkish-Syrian border specifically the northern Latakia countryside and Jarablus and its rural areas. These brigades include Liwa Murad Al-Rabe', Sultan Salim, Estakem Kama Umert and other groups within Ahrar al-Sham and Faylaq al-Sham that are close to Turkish intelligence. But major groups like Jaish al-Fateh, Jaish al-Mujahideen and the Islamic Turkestani Party are still stationed in the military colleges in Aleppo and the Ramouseh crossing.

It's likely that this deal will face questions about the American role, and Turkey's ability to advance it's understanding and coordination with the Russians, Iranians and Syrians namely, the resistance axis without US approval is unlikely. The ability of Erdogan to shift from Turkey's traditional/historical position against the resistance axis, and rebel against Washington is questionable.

One can have doubts about the extent to which the Turks can adhere to the pledges made at a moment where they felt betrayed by their American ally and their obsession with the Kurds took over.

Until now, real indicators of a change in the Turkish position on the ground still need a lot of time, especially in Aleppo. However, there are indications that the Americans are feeling uncomfortable about the Turkish-Iranian-Russian rapprochement and have instructed their agencies to stop providing the Turks with military/security information in Syria. Additionally, US bombers will not participate in any air strikes aimed at the Kurds and their allies west of the Euphrates, in Manbij and rural Jarablus , which contradicts their original pledges (Joe Biden's threatening tone against the Kurds during his recent Ankara visit), but these began to dissipate with the first Turkish-Kurdish skirmishes near the village of Al-Amarenah and the destruction of two Turkish tanks by the Kurds. But the real Turkish-Kurdish war has not begun yet.

[Lauren Johnson]

These last two points by PR are most interesting and hopeful. I wouldn't be surprised that if are true, the prospect of the likely new POTUS being the Wicked Witch of the West would motivate the players to eliminate one of her target zones.

[David Guyatt]

These last two points by PR are most interesting and hopeful. I wouldn't be surprised that if are true, the prospect of the likely new POTUS being the Wicked Witch of the West would motivate the players to eliminate one of her target zones.

i agree Lauren, that there does seem to be some hope now, in light of these new understandings between Turkey, Syria, Iran and Russia.

I've been wondering why Russia's S-400 air defence system hadn't been deployed during the Turkish invasion of Syria, and it made (and makes) sense that this was the result of an understanding reached between Putin and Erdogan in their recent meeting, as explained in Magnier's article.


I thought the Mohammad Ballout article excellent.

[Paul Rigby]

EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. EVEN NOW

https://southfront.org/everything-is-pos...right-now/

2 September 2016

Written by Feodor Lukiyanov; Appeared in Bulgarian at A-specto, translated by Valentina Tzoneva exclusively for SouthFront

The Turkish army probably not without the agreement of the major players in the Syrian theatre of war, the USA and Russia started military operations in northern Syria, which were supported by the USA through direct hits from the air. At the same time, Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, without formally commenting on Ankara's actions, announced that it was concerned about "the further worsening of the situation in the conflict zone," considering the possibility of civilian victims and the "aggravation of inter-ethnic conflict between the Arabs and the Kurds." Unofficially, it said: "The anti-terrorist actions in Syria are needed now more than ever, especially in the region of the Turkish-Syrian border." From this, we can conclude that the Turkish actions are not in conflict with the recent agreements between Moscow, Berlin, Paris, Washington, Ankara, Tehran and probably Damascus. Six months ago, everyone was concerned that northern Syria would become an arena for a direct clash between Turkey and Russia. The relations after the downing of the Russian bomber deteriorated sharply. Ankara was concerned that the change in the situation on the Syrian front in favor of Assad and his allies would put an end to Turkish interests in the region, and for this reason, considered the possibility of a military intervention. Instead of this, however, an initiative for the "termination of hostility" by the Russian and the USA presidents was announced. According to statements made by American commentators, Washington agreed to cooperate not because its interests coincided with those of Moscow, but mostly due to fears of a Russia-Turkey war. A war would have increased the tension to an extreme, and neither the USA nor NATO would have been able to stay away from the conflict. Apart from that, a conflict between Russia and Turkey on Syrian territory would cause a judicial collision for the alliance. An answer must be given to the question to what extent the guarantees for collective security are applicable.

Today the relations between Moscow and Ankara have taken a reverse direction, but Washington's position is wavering. With this, we are not able to say that the Syrian plot is undergoing a qualitative change. The fight against the Islamic State remains the major problem, which no one contests, and it appears as though everyone is participating to resolve it. However, there is another theme. The theme for the future structure of Syria and its potential participants, although it may look strange, only partially depends on the fight against the Islamic State. This theme is important in principle, albeit in a different way, for the participants in the Syrian conflict because it is directly connected to the question of the prospects for Bashar all Assad. The disagreements between the external players on the question of whether the opposing Damascus groups including Jabhat al-Nusra (now Jabhat Fatah ashSham) which has been recognised as a terrorist group are legitimate or not, have not been finalised.

To draw a simple diagram of the events in Syria is impossible. Two events are taking place simultaneously between the different players: on one hand, there is coordination for limiting and destroying Islamic State, while on the other, we are witnessing sharp competition between the countries which hold the groups fighting on the battlefield in their hands. Everything changes at a kaleidoscopic speed. It is enough to look at the zig-zagging maneuvers of the Syrian Kurds. On one side, they are pressurised by the war with Islamic State in which they practically have the support of all other countries; and on the other side, they are threatened by the conflict with Turkey, in which the external forces are sometimes on the side of the Kurds and other times against them, depending on the current conditions of the relations with Ankara.

And this boiling pot is not a result of the escalation of military activities, but as it is popular to say today, is due to the "new norms." Therefore, the situation there won't become clearer because to undo the ball of conflicts requires a number of participants of different calibres to make hundreds of compromises. Actually, there is one component which, regardless of all the contradictions, can be viewed in a long-term plan as a strategic circumstance. A hundred years after the secret agreements between the great powers for sharing of the Middle East, the region is returning to a new version of behind-the-scenes deals. And the external factors take precedence over the internal ones, because the regional participants are not able to do anything on their own.

In May this year, Islamic State made a special statement dedicated to the centennial of the so-called Sykes-Picot agreement to partition the Ottoman legacy after World War I between the British and French Empires. For the Islamic State, this document symbolises the unpardonable interference of the "crusaders" in the internal affairs of the Muslim world, and is the epitome of a vicious principle for state structure through an irregular outline of borders and the creation of artificial "nations" on the living body of the caliphate. Not surprisingly, in his planned sermon made in the summer of 2014 immediately after the Islamists took over Mosul, shocking the whole world, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced that "this blessed march will not end until the final nail is hammered in the coffin of the Sykes-Picot scheme." Two and a half years later, the Iraqi army together with American support, slowly but surely moved closer to Mosul and the zone controlled by Islamic State became smaller; its military defeat now looks quite possible. Apart from that, the "caliph" reached the goal that he announced in 2014. The Islamists hammered enough nails and the Middle East will never be what the western diplomats planned a hundred years ago. But the big hopes of the Islamists are empty, too. The Arab world is not united and it has fallen into a more confusing dependence of the big players. Turkey's direct involvement in the Syrian conflict has turned Syria into an arena in which external forces interact with one another. In other words, everyone has declared support for the unity of Syria and the other states of the Middle East. In practice, however, to imagine the restoration of the Syrian state in this range and this degree of manageability as it was six years ago, is impossible.

We can imagine that the fighting will stop at some point; the parties will realise that victory in the war is unreal and will be forced to fix the situation. Let this be a relatively steady partition, justified by an ethno-confessional and political point of view, where the conditional "subjects" of the future Syria will start negotiations for a new state structure. But the main problem is that none of these subjects will be capable of doing so without the support of one or another external force. This applies as much to Assad's regime which will crash without Iran and Russia's military support as well as to the "moderate opposition" helped by the West and Saudi Arabia; the same applies to the Islamists to whom even now there is a flow of sometimes genuine and sometimes ad hoc support. In other words, the degree of involvement of foreign interests in the Syrian disagreement is such that it has become an inseparable and necessary part of any construction, regardless of whether we speak about war or peace. With the new historic background, the situation is returning to the time when in 1915-1916, Sir Mike Sykes and Francois George Picot partitioned the Middle East. At that time, despite the secret character of the agreement, its contents were not a secret to anyone. Now, the colonial tendencies of the big players are unlikely to pass. A century of Arab nationalism has not been in vain. However, the regional players cannot cope on their own. They curse foreign intervention which ruined everything, but at the same time, provokingly attract the West and Russia, and now even China, in their conflicts.

The next deal in the spirit of Sykes-Picot (and why not "Kerry-Lavrov") is believed to be ideologically unacceptable. After the Cold War, the progressive humanity angrily rejected the very idea of "spheres of influence." The alternative is a further internationalisation of the conflict and turning it into a "global war of the authorised" (Proxy World War). The opposing coalitions are starting to form. One of them is grouping around the Russian military machine and the second around the American. Nevertheless, we must not forget that a bad peace is better than the best war. And in principle, this is not only related to the war in Syria.

[David Guyatt]

As has been suggested earlier, the Turkish military incursion into Syria caught the US off guard and all the subsequent media and Obama administration ballyhoo that it was a coordinated joint effort was simply a load of old balls deployed to conceal the fact of a worsening relationship.

Significantly, Turkey's incursion received the backing of Russia during Erdogan's recent meeting with Putin.

If you can get beyond the pay wall, the WSJ article HERE details this ---- otherwise read the same story below carried by another outlet:

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When Turkish ground forces delivered a lightning strike on Islamic State fighters in Syria last week, the Pentagon hailed what it described as close U.S.-Turkish coordination.
But behind the scenes, cooperation between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners broke down at senior levels, according to officials on both sides. The two countries weren't as aligned on the operation as their public statements indicated.
While the White House was preparing to consider a secret plan to have American special forces join the Turks, Ankara pulled the trigger on the mission unilaterally without giving officials in Washington advance warning. When clashes started between Turkish and Syrian Kurdish fighterswho are directly backed by U.S. Special Forcesthe Pentagon issued unusually blunt calls for both to stand down.
U.S. officials say the Turks' decision undercut a behind-the-scenes effort to clear rival Syrian Kurdish elements out of the conflict zone first and created a prickly, new challenge for the U.S. as two of its most important partners in the campaign fight each other instead of Islamic State. The breakdown in coordination adds a new layer of tensions between Washington and Ankara on top of those sparked by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's crackdown since the July coup attempt in Turkey.
Officials in Washington said they warned their Turkish military counterparts Monday that the U.S. won't provide air support to Turkish forces pushing southward, deeper into Syrian territory. The U.S. will continue to provide air support to Turkish forces moving westward, into the border area threatened by Islamic State.
Likewise, U.S. officials told the Kurds that U.S. air support hinged on their forces moving east of the Euphrates River and on advancing south toward Islamic State's self-declared capital, Raqqa, to ensure they wouldn't come into conflict with the Turks, according to the officials. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Monday that the Kurdish forces had begun to move eastward, easing the friction between the two sides.
Turkey has long accused the main Syrian Kurdish militia of being an extension of the Kurdish separatist group that uses car bombs and suicide attacks in Turkey as part of a two-decade-old fight for more rights and autonomy.
A reconstruction of events leading up to Turkey's ground intervention, based on interviews with U.S. and Turkish officials and Syrian rebels involved in the offensive, shows discussions between the U.S. and Turkey over a joint operation along the Turkish-Syrian border date back to the spring of 2015.
Under the original Turkish proposal, which Mr. Erdogan discussed with his top generals in June 2015, his government would have sent as many as 2,000 troops across the border. Turkish officials were so convinced of the political will to launch the operation that they had drafted news releases announcing the military decision.
In addition to Turkish forces, Ankara wanted the Obama administration to commit to sending in U.S. commandos, but the White House was cool to the idea, according to U.S. officials. Instead of using foreign ground forces, the U.S. and Turkey agreed to use air power and artillery to support thousands of Syrian rebel fighters who would move in to clear a 60-mile stretch of the border.
Turkey shared the names of the Sunni rebel units that it wanted to spearhead the ground operation, allowing U.S. intelligence agencies to vet them for any possible terrorist ties. One of the largest groups on Turkey's wish list for the operationAhrar al-Shamwas rejected by the Americans as too extreme.
But talks between the U.S. and Turkey over the joint operation bogged down last summer as Pentagon leaders and some Turkish generals raised doubts that Ankara would be able to mobilize enough rebels to carry out the proposed mission.
The proposed operation was shelved as unfeasible when Russia intervened in Syria last year to shore up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, especially after a Turkish jet shot down a Russian warplane on the Turkey-Syria border. Many of the Turkish-backed rebel groups were too busy trying to fend off Mr. Assad's resurgent forces in Aleppo to join Turkey on another front against Islamic State.
Talks renewed in the winter during a short-lived cease-fire. Then, in March, Turkey provided the U.S. with a list of 1,800 Syrian rebel fighters it had identified to lead the operation, a senior Turkish official said.
July's attempted military coup against Mr. Erdogan ratcheted up tensions with the U.S. But top military officials on both sides said they didn't want to let the discord affect cooperation against Islamic State.
After Mr. Erdogan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 9, Turkey sent a high-level military delegation to Russia to discuss its planned operation into Syria. The Russians assured Turkish officials that Moscow wouldn't target Ankara's forces if Turkey moved across the border, according to senior Turkish officials.
Turkey's plans progressed after Aug. 13, when Kurdish-led forces backed by U.S. commandos seized control of the Syrian town of Manbij, which sat on Islamic State's strategic supply route between Raqqa and the Turkish border.
That next week, alarm bells sounded in Ankara and Washington when some of those Kurdish units started to push north toward the Turkish border. Turkey had agreed to the U.S.-backed operation to liberate Manbij from Islamic State after receiving assurances from Washington that the Syrian Kurdish forces spearheading the fight would leave the largely Arab town once the jihadist group was defeated and move back to the east side of the Euphrates.
By Aug 17, Turkey was calling in Syrian rebel militias who were part of the battle plan, according to people familiar with the matter. Turkish security forces began transporting those friendly fighters to staging grounds along the Turkish border.
At the same time, Kurdish elements were taking more villages around Manbij, and not retreating as they had promised the U.S. Some Kurdish leaders also indicated that their next military objective would be Jarablus, a Syrian town on the Turkish border, instead of Raqqa. U.S. officials said the main Kurdish forces they backed never threatened to go to Jarablus.
By Aug. 20, Turkey had a new reason to launch its attack: A suspected Islamic State bomber targeted a wedding celebration in Gaziantep, a city of about two million near the Syrian border. At least 54 people were killed.
Turkish and American officials said the Turkish military wanted to look decisive and to show loyalty to Mr. Erdogan, particularly after the coup.
With their Syrian rebel allies massing, the Turkish military briefed their American counterparts based in Turkey on their plans.
They asked for a contingent of U.S. Special Operations forces to enter Jarablus alongside Turkish commandos, according to U.S. and Turkish officials. U.S. commandos would help call in airstrikes and coordinate with rebel fighters on the ground.
Pentagon leaders backed the plan, which called for deploying at least 40 U.S. commandos. Then, early last week, they began talks with the White House about the proposed joint ground operation.
The Pentagon was looking for a speedy answer. Instead, the White Housecautious about putting American troops on another front inside Syriatold the Pentagon that it wanted certain questions answered before proceeding. Specifically, the White House wanted to know how Special Operations forces would be protected given the presence of al Qaeda-linked fighters in the area, officials said.
Military officials said the White House's request for more information amounted to a rejection of the plan because they knew the Turks wanted to move quickly.
As White House officials awaited answers to their questions, the Pentagon pressed Ankara to give U.S. deliberations more time. Meanwhile, U.S. officials were trying to get Kurdish forces to leave areas where Turkish forces would deploy.
Late on Aug. 23, the White House told the Pentagon that it was prepared to convene a high-level meeting the next day to consider the Pentagon's proposal to insert U.S. Special Operations forces as part of the Turkish operation.
But overnight, Turkey launched its offensive without giving officials in Washington advanced warning. The proposal never reached President Barack Obama's desk, according to a senior administration official.
While Turkey publicly cast the campaign as a joint operation with the U.S.-led military coalition, the first airstrikes carried out by Turkish jets on Jarablus were done unilaterally, not under the coalition umbrella.
Turkish aircraft fired from Turkish airspace, not Syria's, according to U.S. officials.
When U.S. military commanders in the region realized that Turkish forces had launched their operation without the Americans, the head of the U.S. military's Central Command, Gen. Joe Votel, used existing authorities to have U.S. forces in the region provide the Turks with limited air support via drones, F-16s and A-10s.
Instead of participating at the front line, U.S. Special Operations forces took up positions on Turkish soil overlooking Jarablus to try to help direct U.S. strikes from the sidelines. But officials said the commandos could do little from the distance.
The battle for Jarablus, which U.S. officials thought would take days or even weeks, was over within hours as Islamic State militants pulled back without putting up much of a fight.
Turkish officials seized on the quickness of their victory as evidence that the Americans were wrong to doubt their capabilities. "Obviously, the liberation of Jarablus by the Turkish military and the Free Syrian Army is proof that our troops were always up to the task," a senior Turkish official said.
U.S. officials acknowledge that they misjudged Islamic State's determination to hold that town. But they say they are more worried now about the danger that a NATO ally could get bogged down in Syria and inadvertently take pressure off Islamic State.

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