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Turkey And Russia Are Declaring Peace In Syria
Hotair ^
| 10/23/2019
| Jazz Shaw
Posted on 10/23/2019 7:55:37 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It’s all over but the shouting, and there really doesn’t even seem to be much of that. Yesterday was supposed to be the end of the ceasefire in northeastern Syria, at which point we expected the Turks to begin “cleansing” the twenty-mile wide border region of any remaining Kurdish fighters. But dawn broke and the fighting still seems to be on hold. The reason was announced earlier this morning and it seems that the Russians have stepped in and put all the combatants back in their respective corners. (Associated Press)
Turkeys Defense Ministry is signaling it wont resume its offensive in northeast Syria, following agreements reached with the U.S. and Russia.
The ministry said early on Wednesday the U.S. had announced Syrian Kurdish fighters completed their pullout from areas Turkey invaded this month as a five-day cease-fire allowing for the withdrawal expired.
This came after the leaders of Russia and Turkey announced a separate deal for their forces to jointly patrol almost the entire northeastern Syrian border after the Kurdish withdrawal.
I suppose we can look at this as one of those “good news, bad news” deals if you’re the optimistic sort. While they’ve lost their territory in the north, the Syrian Kurds have relocated to the south and are no longer being slaughtered. The border region is at least theoretically open for displaced Syrians to return and resettle the area. (There will be a lot of infrastructure work required before that can happen at any large scale, though.)
But what sort of peace has been achieved? The only reason nobody is fighting right now is that Russia is effectively in control of the entire northern border of Syria. To the east, they are jointly patrolling with the Turks (who apparently now own that territory). To the west, they are patrolling in coordination with Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian military. So the Russians now control not only the naval port at Tartus but essentially the entire northern section of the country.
At the same time, Russia’s relationship with Turkey seems to be a permanent fixture, splintering Erdogan’s nation further away from their supposed allies in NATO. With Iraq saying that our troops need to clear out of that country and Iran’s influence there on the rise, we basically no longer have a foothold anywhere in that region closer than Israel. (Well, these days I suppose we could count Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but that’s iffy in its own way.)
A lack of shelling and people being “cleansed” along the border is still a good thing, and if our remaining troops are coming home that’s a plus also. But it’s impossible to deny at least the perception that we wound up being totally played in that part of the word. And if there’s a real winner here out of all the various interests competing in that region, it certainly looks like it’s the Russians.
Was this the ending we were shooting for after all these years of involvement? It doesn’t sound like it, but if we stop losing our soldiers over there perhaps it’s the best we could hope for now.
TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Russia; Syria
KEYWORDS: assad; assadholes; erdogan; europeanunion; hassannasrallah; hezbollah; iran; kurdistan; kurds; lebanon; mullahloversonfr; nato; nevertrump; nevertrumper; nevertrumpers; putinsbuttboys; receptayyiperdogan; russia; syria; trump; turkey; whey; winning
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To: Chad_the_Impaler
Because Russia and Turkey won’t be paying them. Neither will we.
We got stuck with rebuilding costs because in the wake of WW2, it was a really good idea to rebuild Germany (and to a far less degree Japan) - considering that the reason WW2 kicked off was because a beaten Germany (which was a Great Power of the time) was literally raped for ‘reparations’ and not rebuilt, fostering resentment and giving the housepainter with a funny mustache and a penchant for long rambling speeches a readymade audience who wanted to get even.
WW2 was therefore a direct sequel to WW1. Nobody in the US wanted to repeat the European powers’ stupidity and have to send our boys over to die yet again in another useless war 20 years later - they’d already seen the ending to this movie and did not want to see it again. Unfortunately, many in this country decided that this policy should be extended to most every country that we ended up invading/bombing/whatever.
We are one of the only countries on this planet that has this policy.
21
posted on
10/23/2019 9:26:35 AM PDT
by
Spktyr
(Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
To: SeekAndFind
Given the cartel violence in Mexico and the sabotage and destabilization efforts of the US federal courts we should emulate Turkey and seize 20 miles of Mexican territory along our southern border to resettle illegal aliens and to create a defense in depth that is totally controlled by the executive branch.
22
posted on
10/23/2019 9:27:53 AM PDT
by
wildcard_redneck
(If the Trump Administration doesn't prosecute the coup plotters he loses the election in 2020)
To: entropy12
Yeah, while I tend libertarian myself, that’s just a bad idea. We do have interests and treaty obligations around the world and to be able to honor our requirements, we need bases. We don’t necessarily need bases in countries that hate us, so I support moving our German bases to Poland, which would dearly love us to be there. And sure, there are some that should be closed because we don’t really need them any more.
But war, direct or otherwise, with China is starting to edge on inevitable and we’re not going to be able to prosecute that war without long established bases. If our ships have to sail all the way back across the Pacific for repairs, we’re going to lose a lot more of them and probably lose.
23
posted on
10/23/2019 9:30:42 AM PDT
by
Spktyr
(Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
To: lastchance
We end up being the “crusaders” that unite all the warring factions against us in many cases, I think.
24
posted on
10/23/2019 9:31:20 AM PDT
by
Spktyr
(Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
To: wiseprince
What owning Northern Syria gives you is control of route to build an oil and natural gas pipeline from Qatar and other the Gulf oil states to economically supply the European energy markets and the control to develop Northern Syrias substantial but as of yet unexploited oil and gas reserves.
Pretty valuable and an independent Kurd state in North Syria as a de facto American protectorate and client state would have given our political class great power to sell
25
posted on
10/23/2019 9:36:34 AM PDT
by
rdcbn
( Referentia)
To: Spktyr
And add another dimension to an existing conflict.
26
posted on
10/23/2019 9:40:38 AM PDT
by
lastchance
(Credo.)
To: rdcbn
So, own Turkey so you can build an oil pipeline...super! Firstly, that didn’t happen in 10 years. Secondly, I find it ironic that the people who go through great lengths to block Trump from opening up oil reserves locally want to fight a war to do it abroad. The policy is non sense. The goals are simply not worth it. A client Kurdish state? Turkey, in most situations, is fine with the U.S launching from military bases there. Even more so if the U.S chose there side in a civil war. If they want a Kurdish state... they’ll have to fight for it with their own people
To: SeekAndFind
Every time peace is declared in the ME a new war breaks out.
28
posted on
10/23/2019 2:24:38 PM PDT
by
Karliner
(Jeremiah 29:11, Romans 8:28 Isa 17 "This is the end of the beginning" W Churchill)
To: SeekAndFind
Russia must have forgotten the lessons of Afghanistan.
29
posted on
10/23/2019 2:42:19 PM PDT
by
airborne
(I don't always scream at the TV but when I do it's hockey season!)
To: Chad_the_Impaler
And I am talking about the United States not paying a dime towards any cost of any sort regarding rebuilding Syria.
I was not ambiguous in any way in my statement.
30
posted on
10/23/2019 2:59:49 PM PDT
by
MrEdd
(Caveat Emptors)
To: Spktyr
You must not know about the places called “Japan” South Korea” and “The Philippians”
31
posted on
10/23/2019 3:54:15 PM PDT
by
MNJohnnie
(They would have to abandon leftism to achieve sanity. Freeper Olog-hai)
To: Spktyr
We can’t honor anything with $22,000,000,000,000 national debt and climbing. We are more in debt than any country in history of mankind. We are flat broke, but just won’t admit it.
I can’t think of anything more stupid than borrowing money from Japan & China to fight wars in the middle-east, to protect oil flows from middle-east to Japan & China. They are both bleeding us dry economically, and we no longer need the middle-east oil, thanks to president Trump.
32
posted on
10/23/2019 4:01:21 PM PDT
by
entropy12
(You are either for free enterprise or for government price fixing. Can't be for both as convenient.)
To: MNJohnnie
Please locate The Philippians on a map.
If you are instead trying to refer to the Philippines, we pulled out of there in the 90s and only recently when a more friendly government was elected were able to use five smaller bases. The arrangement with them allows their government to kick us out at will. China pressures them, theyll fold
South Korea? China pressures them a lot and theyll deny us basing.
Japan? Already not happy with us over misbehavior at the base on Okinawa. Often refuses to let openly nuclear combat ships in. May go neutral in a war between China and the US.
Also, all of those are an awful long flight or swim for damaged attack vehicles.
33
posted on
10/23/2019 4:03:27 PM PDT
by
Spktyr
(Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
To: entropy12
China goes to war with us, most of that debt disappears.
34
posted on
10/23/2019 4:04:29 PM PDT
by
Spktyr
(Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
To: Spktyr
Wake up and smell the coffee. China is killing us economically by stealing millions of our middle class jobs in manufacturing. China does NOT need to fight us militarily. China has built humongous infra-structure using American money with those ugly trade deficits we have with them. And China has expanded their military by orders of magnitude since USA helped them get into WTO.
35
posted on
10/23/2019 4:09:41 PM PDT
by
entropy12
(You are either for free enterprise or for government price fixing. Can't be for both as convenient.)
To: MNJohnnie
And Russia doesn’t seem to care about body bags, so let them die for that region. Kudos to Trump and I will say here I was wrong to doubt this move.
To: SeekAndFind
Funny, when America is there, Turkey is all for war on the Kurds, but Russians come and he sucks Putin.
37
posted on
10/23/2019 4:20:05 PM PDT
by
JudgemAll
(Democrats Fed. job-security in hatse:hypocrites must be gay like us or be tested/crucified e)
To: entropy12
I say start with Afghanistan, then Turkey, then Pakistan and the Saudis; followed by the European twits. And I didn’t realize how large the Japanese military budget was. Are we still in there?
To: Sam Gamgee
Yes, in Okinawa,Japan AFAIK.
And WTF are we doing in Korea after 65 years after the war ended?
And why are we spending (BORROWING ACTUALLY) Billions to maintain military in prosperous Germany?
The WWII mentality never ends, and the country has gone bankrupt. The grand children are going to cuss this gang of chickenhawks to no end, because they are saddled with the crazy debt.
39
posted on
10/23/2019 4:43:25 PM PDT
by
entropy12
(You are either for free enterprise or for government price fixing. Can't be for both as convenient.)
To: SeekAndFind
This should have happened long ago. NeoCons & NeoLibs stopped it.
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