World War in Idlib

Turkey's president Tayyip Erdogan has promised a large-scale invasion of Syria by the end of the month unless Syria and its allies call off their campaign to retake Idlib Province from Turkey's proxy, the Salafist and Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

Erdogan has been seeking assistance from France, Germany and the United States. The big question is if Turkey, once it begins its invasion of Idlib, will invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty requiring the United States and the European powers to declare war on Syria and its allies, Russia and Iran.

Russia controls the air space over Idlib, which it demonstrated yesterday, by rolling back a Turkish effort to regain territory recently liberated by the Syrian Arab Army.

The Western media is attempting to package this latest threat of World War Three as a humanitarian crisis precipitated by the insatiably bloodthirsty duo of Putin and Assad. The corporate reporting has been pure propaganda. All mention of the fact that HTS controls 90% of the "rebel-held" territory in Idlib is air-brushed from the narrative.

There is talk of a four-way summit between Russia, Turkey, France and Germany to take place in Istanbul at the beginning of March. Earlier this month Carlotta Gall reported that the best outcome for Erdogan is going to be some sort of Salafist Gaza Strip on its southwest border with Syria.