Turks Use US Fighters to Attack US-Backed Rebels in Syria

Turkish Air Force uses F-16s to
hit US-backed Kurds in Syria

by Daniel McAdams: I have not seen the utter futility -- perhaps insanity -- of our Middle East policy laid bare in a clearer way than in this week's breathtaking developments in Syria. Shocked and threatened by announcements from US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis that the US would field and fund a 30,000 strong Kurdish militia to carve out and control parts of Syrian territory, and that massive shipments of US weapons were being received by Syrian Kurds, the government of Turkey launched a major military attack inside Syrian territory against US-backed Kurds in the Afrin region.

It almost seems like a bad dream: the US is engaged in a proxy war against its own NATO ally, Turkey, with both sides launching opposing operations from the same Turkish/NATO airbase! While the Turks take off from Incirlik with bombs to kill Kurds in Syria, US jets take off from the same base to provide those same Kurds weapons and air support.

The US has made a point of dismissing the Turk moves on the Afrin Kurds by suggesting that the US is not engaged with that particular group. But both Afrin and Manbij/Rojava Kurd groupings are from the "People's Protection Units" (YPG) so its a distinction without much of a difference. And Turkish President Erdogan has already said that the Manbij/Rojava Kurds are next to feel the wrath of NATO's second largest army armed to the teeth largely with American weapons.

Will Washington stand by and watch its planned proxy army in Syria be annihilated by NATO ally Turkey? As Secretary Tillerson outlined in a speech to Stanford University's Hoover Institution last week, this US proxy force was to be the foot in the door for a two-pronged new/old policy of overthrowing the Assad government and expelling any Iranian military forces remaining in Syria. The Iranians played a major role in ousting ISIS from Syria, but US policy in Syria appears increasingly in the service of allies Saudi Arabia and Israel and both of these want regime change in Iran as well.

Former CIA officer Paul Pillar wrote in the National Interest this week about Tillerson's newly stated US Syria policy, particularly on Israel as an apparent driving motivation for US policy decisions, post-ISIS:...Tillerson said, 'Iran seeks dominance in the Middle East and the destruction of our ally, Israel. As a destabilized nation and one bordering Israel, Syria presents an opportunity that Iran is all too eager to exploit.' Of course, the United States and Israel have no mutual assistance security treaty. Nor did Tillerson suggest anything the United States would get out of doing Israel’s desired work in Syria. He also did not mention that Israel has the most powerful military in the Middle East and that any thought of Iran trying to achieve 'destruction' of Israel, from Syria or anywhere else, is something between folly and fantasy.Pillar make some tough, but fair points. Is the Trump Administration, in its eagerness to please an Israeli government with which it finds itself very closely tied, actually taking US interests sufficiently into consideration?

Another wild card question is what will the Manbij/Rojava Kurds do after seeing the US standing by as the Afrin Kurds are wiped out by Turkey? Will they hold their ground against a formidable Turkish military, or will they revisit Assad's offer of protection in exchange for allowing Syrian government forces to return to the area to secure Syrian borders. At Col. Pat Lang's Sic Semper Tyrannis site, this is exactly what they suspect will happen: faced with the reality on the ground, the remaining Kurds will see that they've been sold out by Washington and look to Russia for protection. A deal will be made to allow a bit more local autonomy in exchange for Syrian government control and an end to Turk shelling.

Where does all of this leave the approximately 2,000 US troops currently occupying parts of Syria without invitation or UN mandate? Secretary Tillerson said that US forces in Syria were going nowhere until Assad was overthrown, ISIS was gone, and Iranian influence was defeated. But will facts on the ground, primarily the Turk move on the last group controlled by the US, the Kurds, leave the US exposed and friendless in eastern Syria?

France called an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Monday to address the Turkish incursion into sovereign Syrian territory but the Security Council failed to condemn the Turk military moves into Syria because it would have also had to condemn similarly the similarly illegal US invasion into Syria.

Which brings us back to the beginning, where we pondered the insanity of US policy in the Middle East. Faced with the fact that the US has invaded Syria, has violated its sovereignty, and is actively seeking to overthrow its government, Defense Secretary James Mattis' press conference yesterday provided a hearty dose of heavy duty hypocrisy.

Slamming Russian and Chinese foreign policy at the press conference, Mattis explains why US foreign policy is far superior: I think that what we're looking for is a world where we solve problems, and we don't shred trust. We don't militarize features in the middle of international waters. We don't invade other countries, in Russia's case -- Georgia, Ukraine. That we settle things by international rule of law, you know, this sort of thing. And so I think that in terms of great power and competition. One point I want to make is we respect these as sovereign nations with a sovereign voice and sovereign decisions, and we don't think anyone else should have a veto authority over their economic, their diplomatic or their security decisions. (emphasis added)And Washington wonders why the rest of the world has a hard time taking it seriously.
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Daniel McAdams is Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.

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