Let's Keep Our Eyes Peeled for Another Bogus Chemical Weapons Attack in Syria

The New York Times editorial board is calling for the leadership of Syria, Russia and Iran to be tried for war crimes (see "Who Has Innocent Syrians’ Blood on Their Hands?") as it laments the lack of a broader U.S.-led UN-backed regime-change operation to collapse the Syrian government.

Jordan Shilton of Word Socialist Web Site answers that the U.S. has plenty of innocent Syrian blood on its hands (see "Syrian government offensive prompts calls for intensified US military intervention"):

When the battle shifted to Raqqa last summer, US war planes were slaughtering more than 100 innocent civilians every week as they dropped high-powered explosives on residential areas. In the end, to pursue its broader strategic goals of preventing Iran from consolidating control of eastern Syria and opening up a land corridor from Tehran to Damascus, Washington allowed thousands of ISIS fighters to escape Raqqa so they could take on pro-Assad forces.

Throughout both of these shameful episodes, which international rights groups criticized as war crimes, the Times and other establishment media mouthpieces not only buried reports of civilian casualties, not to mention images or videos from the war zone, but positively praised the US military for its supposed restraint in carrying out air strikes.

Elijah J Magnier sees the ongoing developments in Afrin as the beginning of the end for Rojava:

Only one month after the beginning of the “Olive Branch” operation, the Afrin administration began to understand the reality of the power struggle- but yet not completely. Russia is teaching the Kurds a lesson so that these understand the price of plying for favors from the US. The US feels impotent towards the Kurds and exposed, forced to reveal its plans for staying in Syria and for occupying a piece of its territory regardless of the defeat of ISIS. The Kurds can’t yet fully grasp the extent to which they are wood for the Syrian fire, caught between two superpowers.

In Syria, there are only two alternatives: either Moscow or Washington forces will remain in Syria (if the game remains rough), or they will cohabit as they did in Berlin after the Second World War.

The Afrin administration doesn’t understand that for every day that goes by there will be new Syrian demands. If the Kurds continue to resist these demands, Damascus will ask for further concessions and further withdrawal of the Kurds to the east of the Euphrates, to join the US forces (and remain as a burden on them). This is also allowing Turkey to be more determined in allowing the Syrian army to regain control of Afrin.

Although the central government in Damascus agreed to send several hundreds of local militants from Nubbl and Zahraa and other national forces as a preliminary support, it is likely that the negotiations over Afrin will continue until mid-March in Kazakhstan between Russia, Turkey, Iran and Syria (indirectly), discussing not only Afrin but also Idlib- unless the Kurds acknowledge without delay all of Damascus’s conditions. Otherwise, with every day that goes by Turkey increases its influence and occupies more territory in the enclave.

Russia is not expected to be satisfied with one hit against the US in Afrin but is accelerating the end of control by al-Qaeda and other militants (Faylaq al-Rahman and Jaish al-Islam) over al Ghouta, east of Damascus. The Russians would like to see the US alone (Russia considers Turkey is the lesser evil in Syria and can deal with it later) in Syria to point out its illegal presence and therefore illegal occupation of north east Syria, particularly when the remaining of ISIS concentration is situated within the area on the Syrian-Iraqi borders which is under the US control. The US forces are now looking like a force protecting the terrorist group and allowing it to continue its existence and operations in Syria and in Iraq.

Erdogan is promising to attack Afrin city within days. If this happens, and Afrin falls to the Turks/Free Syrian Army, Rojava will not be able to deny that for all intents and purposes it is but a fig leaf for the outlaw U.S. occupation of northeast Syria.

On the other hand, if the pro-Syrian Shiite militias entering Afrin are successful in blocking "Operation Olive Branch," then, as Magnier says, the Kurds will have to accommodate further Syrian demands.

So it doesn't look good for the Kurds. And if we accept Magnier's reasoning, what is bad for the Kurds is bad for the United States.

Anytime the U.S. is looking at the "jaws of defeat" it is always wise to consider the "make the problem bigger" scenario, a favorite page in the U.S. playbook. Here, as in the past, not to mention the signal offered by the NYT editorial, it would likely be in the form of an airstrike retaliating for alleged SAA chemical weapons use. Moon of Album warned of this last week.

There would be no support in the American electorate for such an attack. But people are distracted with the Mueller indictment -- we are being told basically that all social media is compromised by Russian bots -- and the popular uprising to ban the sale of assault weapons. So if McMaster wanted, and he was able to convince Trump to front it, he could get away with it now.

These Contradictions are Real. Someone is Going to Have to Lose.

Eventually the United States is not going to be able to manage the contradictions created by its policy of perpetual war. Case in point is Syria. As Carlotta Gall reported over the weekend in "Some Syrian Refugees Are Going Back to War Alongside Turkey," the CIA-spawned Free Syrian Army has joined the Turkish Army's invasion of Syria and is battling the Pentagon-sponsored Syrian Democratic Forces, a.k.a., the People's Protection Units of Rojava:

KILIS, Turkey — Turkey is relying on a newly reconfigured, 20,000-member American-trained force with three army corps as it tries to carve out a buffer zone within Syria. The force has already taken 16 casualties in two weeks of fighting on the front lines.

But the soldiers are not Turks. Rather they are the mostly Arab fighters of the Free Syrian Army, once trained and assembled by the C.I.A. and Western allies to oust President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

Since the routing of the Islamic State, alliances in Syria have been scrambled. The latest round of the conflict, in fact, features two American-trained forces fighting each other.

The Free Syrian Army, out of favor with the United States and badly depleted after seven years of fighting on multiple fronts, has long had common cause with Turkey, whose incursion has angered the Americans.

On the other side are Kurdish groups, under the umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces, who are the United States’ favored fighting tool on the ground but who are disliked by local Syrians for driving them from their homes and seen by Turkey as a security threat.

But it is not going well. "Operation Olive Branch" is in its third week and Afrin is still under Kurdish control. The Turkish Army suffered its worst day of fighting on Saturday, the same day a Russian fighter was shot down by Al Qaeda. According to Rod Nordland in "Turkey’s Worst Day Yet in Syria Offensive: At Least 7 Soldiers Killed":

KOBANI, Syria — Turkey’s military suffered its worst day yet in the two-week offensive in Afrin, Syria, when at least seven soldiers were killed and a tank was destroyed in the fighting, official Turkish news outlets reported on Sunday.

But the losses may be higher, according to other reports.

Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led militia defending the city in northern Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces, said its fighters had killed eight Turkish Army soldiers in two episodes northeast of the city on Saturday. Two tanks were destroyed, he said.

An independent monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that two tanks had been destroyed and that 19 Turkish soldiers and allied Syrian militiamen had been killed in total on Saturday.

It was the single biggest one-day loss for the Turkish forces since they pushed into Syria on Jan. 20, vowing to take the enclave from the Syrian Democratic Forces, which Turkey describes as terrorists. The losses bring to at least 14 the number of Turkish soldiers killed in the offensive so far.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said in a statement on his Twitter accountthat Turkey would retaliate for the losses. “They will pay for this twice as much,” he wrote.

The deaths occurred on the same day that a Russian warplane was shot down over Idlib, about 50 miles south of Afrin, and the pilot, who had apparently parachuted out, was killed on the ground.

An affiliate of Al Qaeda in Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or H.T.S., claimed responsibility, broadcasting footage of the plane’s downing. Elements of that same group are among the Free Syrian Army militias, many of them Islamist extremists, who are allied with the Turks and fighting in Afrin, according to the group and to analysts in the area. 

Russia, which controls Afrin’s airspace, has allowed Turkey to operate its air force there for the offensive.

Al Qaeda coordinates with Turkey in Idlib. Turkey coordinates with Russia to conduct the air campaign of "Operation Olive Branch." Russia controls the air space over Afrin. Turkey minus air power has no hope of defeating the Kurds of Rojava.

The New York Times is prominently featuring a story by Eric Schmitt, "Thousands of ISIS Fighters Flee in Syria, Many to Fight Another Day," the long and short of which is that ISIS has not been defeated after all:

WASHINGTON — Thousands of Islamic State foreign fighters and family members have escaped the American-led military campaign in eastern Syria, according to new classified American and other Western military and intelligence assessments, a flow that threatens to tarnish American declarations that the militant group has been largely defeated.

As many of the fighters flee unfettered to the south and west through Syrian Army lines, some have gone into hiding near Damascus, the Syrian capital, and in the country’s northwest, awaiting orders sent by insurgent leaders on encrypted communications channels. 

Other battle-hardened militants, some with training in chemical weapons, are defecting to Al Qaeda’s branch in Syria. Others are paying smugglers tens of thousands of dollars to spirit them across the border to Turkey, with an eventual goal of returning home to European countries.

So ISIS fighters are joining back up with Al Qaeda, and Al Qaeda is working with Turkey and the Free Syrian Army against the Syrian Arab Army, Russia and Syrian Democratic Forces, who are backed by the U.S. military. But the Free Syrian Army is a creation of the CIA, and Turkey is a NATO ally, and SecDef Mattis recently announced that GWOT is on the back burner and great power conflict with China and Russia is what's really cooking.

These contradictions are real and cannot be massaged out of existence. Someone is going to have to lose.

Erdogan Says "Operation Olive Branch" will Proceed Until Turkey Controls Manbij

The Turkish assault on the Kurdish-controlled northwest Syrian region of Afrin continues. The United States foothold in Syria is predicated on a fiction. That fiction is the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S. re-branding of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). The YPG is a Syrian PKK militia.

There is a good story by Anne Barnard and Ben Hubbard, "Allies or Terrorists: Who Are the Kurdish Fighters in Syria?":

Y.P.G. leaders say theirs is a homegrown movement that sprang up to defend civilians in the early days of Syria’s war and against offensives by the Islamic State.

That role, and the backing of the United States, has transformed the group into the most prominent political and military force in northeastern Syria.

Formerly an impoverished and marginalized minority, Syria’s Kurds now administer substantial territory, where they are teaching Kurdish in schools and setting up local administrations. Critics have accused them of displacing Arabs.

American officials have long sought to minimize the Y.P.G.’s ties to the P.K.K., but Turkey is enraged that the United States is giving military support to a group that idealizes Mr. Ocalan, the sole inmate of an island prison in the Sea of Marmara.

Many Y.P.G. leaders speak openly of their history with the P.K.K., and Kurds from Iraq, Iran and Turkey have joined the movement in Syria.

Mr. Bonsey said there had been hope among the Americans that they could pull the Y.P.G. away from the P.K.K.

But such a prospect appears unlikely — especially with the Kurds now uncertain that they have solid support from the United States, which has sent mixed messages about how strongly it would back them against a Turkish onslaught.

The American ambivalence was clear on Wednesday in comments by Thomas P. Bossert, Mr. Trump’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“I’m not in any way critical of the Turkish decision, but I’m just praying for their longer-term strategic patience,” Mr. Bossert told reporters.

Asked if the Turks should withdraw, Mr. Bossert said, “I would prefer it if for now they would remove themselves from the capital of Afrin.”

The United States effectively gave a green light to the current Turkish offensive against Afrin, urging restraint but emphasizing that it does not work with the Y.P.G. there.

The enclave is in northwest Syria, not connected to a larger territory held by the Syrian Democratic Forces in the country’s northeast, where several small American military bases and several thousand American advisers are.

But Mr. Erdogan has threatened to attack that larger area, beginning with the town of Manbij. The Turks say the Americans promised that the Syrian Democratic Forces would withdraw from such majority-Arab areas after taking them from the Islamic State, but it has not.

The ingredients for this clash have been brewing since Syrians rose up against the authoritarian rule of President Bashar al-Assad in 2011. Within a few years, the northeastern province of Hasaka, with a large Kurdish population as well as Arabs and Assyrians, was effectively ruling itself.

As it became the area’s dominant force, the Y.P.G. tried to implement its vision of a utopian society, inspired by Mr. Ocalan. Influenced by Murray Bookchin, an American anarchist, Mr. Ocalan has called for autonomous rule by local committees unbound by national borders. Proponents say they do not seek to break up Syria but are leading a long-term social revolution that will ensure gender and minority rights.

Reuters is reporting that in a speech today Erdogan reiterated that the goal of Turkish military campaign is to take Manbij. Problem there is that is where the U.S. Special Forces have a base:

ANKARA/BEIRUT (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday Turkish forces would sweep Kurdish fighters from the Syrian border and could push all the way east to the frontier with Iraq -- a move which risks a possible confrontation with U.S. forces allied to the Kurds.

The Turkish offensive in northwest Syria's Afrin region against the Kurdish YPG militia has opened a new front in the multi-sided Syrian civil war but has strained ties with NATO ally Washington.

Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist group but the militia has played a prominent role in U.S.-led efforts to combat the hardline Islamic State in Syria.

Since the start of the incursion, dubbed "Operation Olive Branch" by Ankara, Erdogan has said Turkish forces would push east towards the town of Manbij, potentially putting them in confrontation with U.S. troops deployed there.

"Operation Olive Branch will continue until it reaches its goals. We will rid Manbij of terrorists, as it was promised to us, and our battles will continue until no terrorist is left until our border with Iraq," Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara.

Any drive by Turkish forces toward Manbij, part of Kurdish-held territory some 100 km (60 miles) east of Afrin, could threaten U.S. efforts in northern Syria.

The United States has about 2,000 troops in Syria, officially as part of the international, U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State.

U.S. forces were deployed in and around Manbij to deter Turkish and U.S.-backed rebels from attacking each other and have also carried out training missions in the area.

Washington has angered Ankara by providing arms, training and air support to the Syrian Kurdish forces. Turkey sees the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a deadly insurgency in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast for three decades.