Erdogan has Run Out of Room to Maneuver

According to Carlotta Gall, "Turkey Declares Major Offensive Against Syrian Government":

Sunday’s announcement appears to be a declaration of what was already underway for days, but also signals a sharp increase in the level of activity, Turkish analysts said.

Turkey has sought support from the United States and other NATO allies in its attempt to thwart the Syrian and Russia offensive in Idlib, but it appears to be conducting the operation alone.

Western officials have ruled out an engagement of NATO troops but have been helping Turkey in other ways, in particular with information. Jens Stoltenburg, the NATO secretary general, said after an emergency meeting Friday that NATO was providing airborne radar surveillance over Syria.

Reuters is reporting the recapture of Saraqeb:

Syrian state television broadcast live footage from inside Saraqeb, which lies on the country’s main north-south highway, and said it was under government control. Rebels denied the report, saying they still held the town despite heavy shelling.

Saraqeb has already changed hands twice in less than a month, reflecting its importance both as a gateway to the government-controlled northern city of Aleppo and to the rebel-held Idlib city to the west.

Rebels said Turkish drones had been striking Syrian army positions on the Saraqeb frontline, hitting at least two rocket launchers.

Colonel Cassad is less hesitant: The Syrian Arab Army fighting alongside Hezbollah has taken the city from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), ISIS and Turkey.

A scramble is underway prior to Erdogan traveling to Russia to meet with Putin this Thursday. Presumably, some sort of ceasefire will be announced because Erdogan is on shaky ground. Russia control the skies over Idlib, with the exception of some sort of allowance for Turkish drones, and this means that any sort of mechanized offensive by the Turkish army becomes a "turkey shoot" for Russian pilots.

Erdogan is skillful at managing the press. But so far his turning on of the refugee spigot has backfired. Greece and Bulgaria have blocked their borders with Turkey and are repelling the refugees; the Western corporate press has uniformly tagged Erdogan's decision a cynical ploy to engage NATO in a war with Russia.

No, Erdogan has run out of room to maneuver. He needs a ceasefire from Moscow. It'll be interesting to see if all Erdogan ends up with is the Gaza Strip along the Turkish border with northern Idlib that Gall predicted last month.

Erdogan Drops a Nuke

Turkey is not a nuclear state, though it does participate in a nuclear-weapon sharing program with the United States as a NATO member. Turkey does have a weapon in its arsenal that is capable of delivering a blow as devastating as a nuke; it is one that Turkish president Erdogan, in the wake of Syrian/Russian airstrikes yesterday that killed 33 Turkish soldiers in Syria's contested Idlib Province, has now deployed:

“We have decided, effectively immediately, not to stop Syrian refugees from reaching Europe by land or sea,” a senior Turkish official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“All refugees, including Syrians, are now welcome to cross into the European Union,” the official said, adding that police and border guards had been stood down.

Within hours, a column of dozens of migrants was heading on foot towards the European frontier in the early morning light. A man carried a small child in his arms. Others rode in taxis.

Four years ago, Erdogan, after much haggling with German chancellor Angela Merkel, agreed to block the flow of refugees from the Syrian war zone and warehouse them in Turkey. The flows of refugees destabilized Europe, led to Brexit and the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) ultra-nationalist party. Erdogan, whenever he feels like he is not getting what he wants from European leaders, threatens to turn on the refugee spigot; that he has finally done so means that he must be desperate for assistance. What he wants is NATO support for Turkey's offensive operation in Idlib Province, the rump caliphate Erdogan controls along with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), previously known as the Nusra Front, the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate.

The problem for Erdogan is that there is no deal-maker among the Europeans who can deliver what he wants. Merkel is a lamb duck with a greatly diminished base of support. Rank'n'file Christian Democrats are moving to embrace AfD. Macron is despised by the French. Boris Johnson has problems of his own. Across the Atlantic, Trump is in the middle of an election year that is taking place during the global coronavirus pandemic. To commit U.S. forces to a war with Russia would be political suicide.

It's not clear that NATO military aid to Turkey would do anything more than expand the refugee crisis during a plague year. The deal-maker Erdogan needs more than anyone is Vladimir Putin.

Erdogan's ask seems to be a return to the original Sochi boundaries minus the agreement's commitment to demilitarization; in other words, a complete absurdity. If Russia and Syria are going to move in a direction that Erdogan wants, a completely new agreement will have to be drawn, which will take time.

But the floodgates have opened. Refugees are crossing borders while the coronavirus continues to spread. We'll know that Erdogan is on his way to getting what he wants if a ceasefire is called in the next 48-72 hours. If not, 2020 is looking downright biblical -- locusts, plague, war.

The Return of the Free Syrian Army and the Fabled "No-Fly/Safe Zone"

Judging from the hue and cry brought on by Trump's announcement of a troop pullout in northeast Syria, one would think that it was 1948 and the United States had just abandoned West Berlin to Soviet tanks. Rojava must indeed be vitally important to U.S. strategic interests in the middle east: a quasi-state chock full of secret airfields to bomb any foe anytime -- exactly what the "deep state" wants.

But Trump is angling after a two-fer here: one, he gets to pose as a peacenik -- a little appreciated aspect of his successful presidential campaign -- in the run up to 2020; and, two, he gets to implement a strategic goal long sought by Western powers in Syria, the fabled "no-fly/safe zone" occupied by Syrian rebels.

The must read article this morning is Carlotta Gall's "Syrian Rebels See Chance for New Life with Turkish Troops." The much maligned and repeatedly left for dead Free Syrian Army is back at the centers of things once more:

Mr. Trump’s decision, announced late Sunday, has been sharply criticized by politicians of both political parties in the United States as a desertion of the Kurdish-led forces — the most reliable American partners in fighting Islamic State militants in Syria. But fighters and veterans of the Free Syrian Army point out that they were also abandoned by Mr. Trump when he cut support to their force in 2017.

Now, the Free Syrian Army, which has largely been marginalized in the conflict, sees a chance to regain lost territory in its struggle against President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

[snip]

Hisham al-Skeif, a former civilian leader of the anti-Assad uprising and a spokesman for a faction of the rebel army, said the creation of the safe zone had been negotiated to avoid clashes. Free Syrian Army soldiers would be on the ground, backed by Turkish forces, but would avoid areas where United States forces and their Kurdish-led allies were based, he said.

“We are allied with the Turks, and we are convinced this is for peace and not war,” he said. “We always say we never want to fight.”

Mr. al-Skeif said Free Syrian Army soldiers and Turkish troops were expected to occupy a strip of territory between the two border towns of Tell Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, where most residents are Arabs. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which have been allied with the United States, were reported to have withdrawn from the towns on Monday.

The operation to create a safe zone, if successful, would be a boost for Mr. Erdogan, who is under political pressure at home from splinter groups in his own party and growing public resentment against Syrian refugees.

Seen in this light, there is no U.S. double-cross of its Kurdish allies. The principal actors sat around a map and made a decision together. The U.S. has been talking to Turkey for months if not years about just this moment. What's happening now as Turkey prepares to invade is everyone is playing to their domestic audience.

NATO Engineered Genocide of Syria's Kurds?

Breaking news this morning (see "Trump Endorses Turkish Military Operation in Syria, Shifting U.S. Policy" by Eric Schmitt, Maggie Haberman and Edward Wong):

On Monday, witnesses in Syria saw United States forces withdrawing from two positions in northeastern Syria: observation posts in Tel Abyad and Ein Eissa.

“Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria,” the White House said in a statement released just before 11 p.m. [Sunday] in Washington. “The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial ‘Caliphate,’ will no longer be in the immediate area.”

It's not clear how significant a military campaign Turkey is launching here. Erdogan's "safe zones" are supposed to span 300 miles along the Turkey-Syria northeast border while penetrating 20 miles inside Syria, all territory presently claimed by the Kurdish state of Rojava. Anthropologist and left intellectual David Graeber sees a genocide in the making, one with NATO fingerprints.

Rojava and the Kurdish-led SDF are a contradiction that Trump inherited from the Obama administration. The existence of Rojava is considered by Turkey, a NATO ally, an unacceptable threat. But Rojava provides the U.S. a substantial footprint to wage ghost wars in the middle east. Trump, in a show of hollow bombast last year, called for the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria, only to capitulate ultimately. Now, though, it does seem as if the Kurds have been double-crossed:

Last December, Mr. Trump called for a complete United States withdrawal from Syria, but ultimately reversed himself after a backlash from Pentagon, diplomatic and intelligence officials, as well as important allies in Europe and the Middle East.

Soner Cagaptay, the director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and author of “Erdogan’s Empire: Turkey and the Politics of the Middle East,” said in a telephone interview that a Turkish incursion uncontested by the United States would allow Turkey to cut another swath into Kurdish-controlled territory in Syria. That would give Mr. Erdogan a ready place to send hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees and prove yet again his influence with Mr. Trump on Syria policy.

“It’s quite a significant development,” Mr. Cagaptay said.

Many Syria experts criticized the White House decision and cautioned that American abandonment of its Kurdish allies could widen the eight-year Syrian conflict and prompt the Kurds to ally with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad to combat the much larger and more technologically advanced Turkish army.

“Allowing Turkey to move into northern Syria is one of the most destabilizing moves we can do in the Middle East,” Representative Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat and former Marine who served in the Iraq war, said on Twitter on Sunday night. “The Kurds will never trust America again. They will look for new alliances or independence to protect themselves.”

The announcement by the White House came as a shock to the S.D.F., Kurdish officials said on Monday. In a statement, the S.D.F. said that it had fulfilled its obligations in the efforts to reduce tensions with the Turks but that the United States had not.

The statement warned that a Turkish incursion could endanger the progress made to establish security in the wake of the battle against the Islamic State. It also called on Kurdish forces to “defend our homeland from the Turkish aggression.”

Mr. Erdogan has demanded a “safe zone” for his nation to run 20 miles deep and 300 miles along the Turkish-Syrian border east of the Euphrates. That area, he has said, would be reserved for the return of at least a million Syrian refugees now inside Turkey. Mr. Erdogan has threatened to send a wave of Syrian migrants to Europe instead if the international community does not support the initiative to send them back to Syria.

Since early August, the American and Turkish militaries have been working together on a series of confidence-building measures — including joint reconnaissance flights and ground patrols — in a 75-mile-long strip of that 300-mile border area.

American-backed Kurdish forces have pulled back several miles and destroyed fortifications in that area.

Erdoğan Pledges to Settle One Million Refugees in Syrian Buffer Zone

Carlotta Gall had a must-read article the other day, "Turkey’s Radical Plan: Send a Million Refugees Back to Syria." Turkey is cracking down on Syrian refugees within its borders. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan promises to build new cities and resettle one million Syrians in the "safe zones" Turkey is negotiating with the United States. The safe zones, or buffer zones, are in U.S.-backed Kurdish-controlled territory in Syria, a.k.a., Rojava. As Gall notes,

The United States and Turkey agreed in principle last month to establish a jointly patrolled zone for refugees along the border but they are still negotiating the details and major differences remain.

Mr. Erdogan wants the zone to be 20 miles deep and run for 300 miles along the Turkish-Syrian border east of the Euphrates. The United States has limited Turkey’s access to a few miles.

American and Turkish troops conducted their first joint patrol of a small zone on Sunday.

But Syria has already called the plan a violation of its sovereignty and Russia emphasized the need to preserve Syria’s territorial integrity. The Kurds oppose the deal but have reportedly pulled back heavy weaponry from part of the border area.

American officials are focused on preventing clashes between Turkish and Kurdish forces.

Because Erdoğan is not getting what he wants he has started to threaten Europe again with an influx of migrants. The EU has given Turkey billions since 2015 to warehouse migrants and prevent another crisis that led to Brexit and the ultra-nationalism of Pegida and Matteo Salvini.

The U.S. is trying to square the circle here. It is likely using airfields in Rojava to conduct "mystery airstrikes" against Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lebanon. The U.S. needs the Kurdish shadow state to keep doing what it is doing, and it can't have a Kurdish shadow state without Kurdish support. So eventually there is going to be some sort of eruption. 

Turkish Buffer Zone in Northeast Syria Takes Shape

Turkey and the United States announced over the weekend that a joint operations center for overseeing the new buffer zone in northeastern Syria, or "safe zone" as Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan prefers, is opened for business. As Selcan Hacaoglu reports for Bloomberg,

Turkey sees its deal with the U.S. to carve out a narrow security zone in northern Syria as just the beginning, two Turkish officials said, with Ankara determined to purge Kurdish fighters from a much larger section of the border region.

After weeks of difficult negotiations, the NATO allies agreed this month to jointly patrol an area stretching 125 kilometers (78 miles) between the Syrian towns of Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, and up to 15 kilometers deep, according to the officials, who have direct knowledge of the talks but asked not to be identified in line with regulations barring them from talking to the media.

While the agreement should allow Turkey’s military to move into northeast Syria without firing a shot, the country could unleash a unilateral incursion if the zone isn’t deepened and extended by as much as several hundred kilometers at a later date, they said.

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on the Turkish plans.

Turkey has deployed 10 brigades along its frontier between the Euphrates River and the Iraqi border to confront an estimated 15,000 members of the Kurdish YPG, the officials added.

A joint Turkish-U.S. headquarters designed to oversee a buffer zone in northern Syria became “fully operational” on Saturday, state-run Anadolu Agency reported, citing Defense Minister Hulusi Akar. A first helicopter flight over the zone, which will be off-limits to U.S.-backed YPG forces, was planned for Saturday.

It looks like Turkey is getting much of what it wants. The Kurdish YPG must abandon its fortified positions, hand over its heavy weapons to the U.S. and leave the area:

The Turkish-U.S. agreement foresees the immediate withdrawal of YPG fighters from the buffer zone, with the U.S. collecting heavy weapons it had supplied to the group, the officials said. Fortified Kurdish positions and tunnels were to be destroyed, they said. Turkey wants members of the YPG’s political wing, called the PYD, to leave the area as well.

[snip]

The deal allows for Turkish armed drones to start surveillance flights over the zone but the U.S. hasn’t yet agreed to overflights by Turkish warplanes, the officials said. The U.S. also opposes Turkey’s proposal to move Ankara-backed rebels of the Free Syrian Army to the area, but did agree that refugees living in Turkey could return, they said.

Joint military patrols are expected to start within a month and Turkey will set up four bases ahead of the creation a local security force, the officials said.

Turkish demands to be able to deploy as many troops as it considers necessary to enforce security were rebuffed, with the U.S. agreeing only to the deployment of two Turkish soldiers for every American soldier, they added.

Turkey has stepped up attacks on the Kurdistan Workers Party; at the same time, Turkish alignment with Al Qaeda in Idlib has been exposed and is going poorly.

The Kurds are sophisticated actors. They will either resist a campaign of ethnic cleansing approved by the United States; or the U.S. has provided assurances that the safe zone is a ruse. It's hard to imagine the latter.

U.S. and Turkey Agree to Fudge on the Buffer Zone in Northeast Syria

Turkey and the United States decided to settle there differences over a proposed buffer zone in northeast Syria by agreeing to a hollow statement reaffirming the idea. According to Carlotta Gall,

Defense officials from both countries issued separate but similar statements after three days of talks in Ankara, the Turkish capital. The statements gave no details on the size of the zone or how it will be policed, which may still be undecided, but the agreement was presented by Turkey as a meeting of its demands.

[snip]

Discussions have been focused on the S.D.F. pulling its forces and weaponry away from the border area and on the size of the safe zone. The United States has preferred a zone that is just a few miles wide, whereas Turkey has sought a corridor along its border as deep as 20 miles.

The agreement announced on Wednesday appeared to be aimed only at ensuring that Turkish and American forces, who are NATO allies, do not come into conflict.

Syria blasted the agreement.

Turkey Threatens Rojava

U.S. Special Envoy for Syria James Jeffrey met with senior Turkish officials this week to hash out the details on the creation of "safe zones" in northern Syria. The talks did not go to Ankara's liking. According to Reuters,

After U.S. special envoy for Syria James Jeffrey held talks with Turkish officials, Turkey said on Wednesday it had run “out of patience” with Washington and warned that it would carry out a military operation in the region if an agreement on the safe zone was not reached.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the United States was stalling progress on the safe zone, just as it did with a joint roadmap agreed to clear the northern Syrian town of Manbij of the YPG last year.

At a briefing in Ankara on Thursday, Turkish military officials said talks on the planned safe zone with the United States would continue, but reiterated that Turkey’s expectations on the Manbij roadmap had not been met.

“Work is planned to continue in the coming period. We cannot share details as efforts are under way. Our aims are clear. The Turkish army is the only force capable of doing this,” one of the officials said regarding the safe zone.

These safe zones were agreed to by Trump last December. Trump promised at the same time to withdraw all U.S. forces in northeast Syria, which prompted the resignation of U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and ISIS czar Brett McGurk. Trump eventually walked back the troop withdrawal. Today thousands of U.S. troops remain in Syria.

What are these "safe zones"? The Defense Post reports that

How such a buffer zone would be created by Turkey is unclear. A 20-mile zone would encompass the majority-Kurdish towns including Qamishli and Kobane as well as strategic cities controlled by groups affiliated to the Syrian Democratic Forces, such as Tal Abyad and Manbij. It would also include Ayn Issa, the new administrative center for north and east Syria.

The Turkish government has long been threatening to launch a military incursion to clear the border area of the predominantly Kurdish YPG, which forms the core of the U.S.-led Coalition-backed SDF in ground operations against Islamic State.

Washington’s support for the group has infuriated the Turkish government, which views the YPG as a branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies.

In Manbij, Turkey expected the U.S. to get rid of all heavy weapons, eliminate the YPG, and hand the city over to a Turkish-approved governing council.

Turkey does not appear to be willing to settle for anything less than military control of this 20-mile buffer along the border, an area heavily populated by the Kurds and vital to any future Rojava.

Turkey appears willing to fight. The Defense Post story ends with the following:

Turkish media reported a significant buildup of Turkish military forces along the Syrian border in the days following the [S-400] missile system’s initial delivery.

An undisclosed number of U.S. troops still remain in northern Syria. American officials have taken Turkey’s threats seriously in past internal discussions.

American patrols were reported in the border area near Serê Kaniyê (Ras al-Ayn) earlier this week after the Turkish military said it retaliated against rocket fire from the Syrian side that landed in the Turkish town of Ceylanpinar.

Both the SDF and YPG also said a shell was fired from Syrian territory but denied responsibility and said an investigation was underway.

The YPG called the incident a “provocative act” and a “clear attempt to disrupt stability in NE Syria.”

The United States is vulnerable in northeast Syria. It would have to use air power to defend its troops on the ground. Erdogan's purchase of the S-400 is proof that Turkey is serious about attacking Rojava.

In a Battle of Wits between Trump and Erdogan, Take Erdogan

Both AP and Reuters are reporting that Turkish officials are in possession of audio recordings from Jamal Khashoggi's Apple Watch that document his torture and death. The story comes from the pro-Erdogan Sabah newspaper. 

So much for the idea that there will be a swift rapprochement between Ankara and Riyadh. David Kirkpatrick thinks that the Turkish leaks are a strategy to force Trump to rein in Mohammed bin Salman. But so far the only evidence I've seen is of Turkey making concessions to the United States (see Carlotta Gall's "Turkey Frees Pastor Andrew Brunson, Easing Tensions With U.S.").

A silver lining here is the mainstream reporting done of late illuminating the myriad connections between the House of Saud and the corporate rulers of the capitalist world.

The great unwashed know what's up. Trump got traction in the 2016 primaries by attacking Saudi Arabia and promising to partner with Syria to roll back ISIS. Since 9/11 average citizens of the "indispensable nation" will lend an ear and often vote for any candidate who pledges to hold Saudi Arabia accountable.

One thing is absolutely clear. Jamal Khashoggi is dead, and the Saudi monarchy killed him.

What's unclear is how this plays out. If it's a battle of wits between Trump and Erdogan, I'll take the founder of the Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The Russian-Turkish Demilitarized Zone in Idlib

Niqnaq posts several translated items from Colonel Cassad which deal with the Russia-Turkey agreement creating a demilitarized zone in Syria's Idlib Province:

On the demilitarized zone.

1. Let’s move on to what, apparently, we already know by Oct 15 will be established area with a width of 9-12 miles. It will not include heavy weapons or extreme elements of the insurgency (rebels associated with AQ). The zone will be patrolled by Turkish and Russian forces.

2. The first critical point is to note whether this transaction will ensure that the highway that passes through Idlib and connects the north and the south of the country passes under government control. This was one of the strategic goals of Damascus in any operation in Idlib.

3. Damascus approved the deal, providing the highway will be considered as an immediate benefit. The deal will mean a delay in the plan of the state to reclaim “every inch” of its territory. Damascus is wary of the fact that the uprising has turned into a separatist project.

4. Turning to the armed groups in the transaction indicates that the area will not include heavy weapons or HTS/Nusra, but all other armed groups can stay. What we will likely see is a wholesale change of image, rebranding HTS/Nusra to become Ahrar al-Sham, Failaq al-Sham, etc.

5. There are various scenarios: A) Turkey has effective control over HTS/Nusra and therefore the ability to withdraw them from the new zone. B) the group agrees to obey, but rebrands itself and stays. C) Turkey will not be able to fulfill its end of the bargain and HTS/Nusra will remain as it is.

6. Regardless of whether HTS/Nusra disappears just visually or for real, this transaction is based on the assumption that all armed forces will carry out their part of the bargain and adhere to the requirements of Turkey to cease all military operations against the Syrian state from this area.

7. When it comes to Turkey, there is no doubt that Erdogan was able to delay/prevent a military operation in Idlib for the moment. But now he has to make the Idlib train arrive by the time scheduled at the final station. The behaviour of the armed groups in the province now explicitly depends on Ankara.

8. As for Russia, its own military will now officially patrol one area with a NATO member. Putin is patient and will see that this transaction will exacerbate divisions within NATO. All he had to pay for it, is to promise a delay in any military operations in Idlib.

9. The United States, of course, is absent in today’s agreement, but nevertheless Washington ascribes to itself the merits of preventing the attack on Idlib by means of pressure on Russia. In fact, Moscow and Ankara are now the leading foreign capitals in the matter of Idlib.

10. Like most of the previous “deals” in Syria, time will tell whether this agreement “demilitarized zones” different from those who preceded it. It’s an obvious assumption in this agreement that Erdoğan will be able to control all these armed people gathered in the province.

11. At the moment, Erdogan has strengthened his legendary status in the Syrian opposition. He personally voted to prevent military strikes against the province, and it will add points to his very high popularity in most opposition.

I Don't Think Turkey is Lehman Brothers 2.0

I'm not convinced that Turkey is going to be the big one, Lehman Bros. 2.0. There will be a Lehman Bros. 2.0, but not now I think.

It's been reported for many moons that Turkey's long financial boom was fueled by foreign loans denominated in foreign currency, principally dollars and euros. Now with the lira in free fall (the lira is trading at an all-time low against the dollar) those loans will be impossible to pay back. Turkish companies will go bankrupt. 

Turkey will likely issue capital controls to prevent panicked money from fleeing the country, repudiate a portion of the debt, and then Erdogan will go looking for a bailout because Turkey will probably not be able to export its way out of the crisis thanks to the devalued lira.

Does this mean that Erdogan is less likely to throw his weight around on the international scene? I doubt it. Erdogan's popularity in part is due to his willingness to tweak great powers.

****

"Turkey’s Financial Crisis Surprised Many. Except This Analyst." by Landon Thomas Jr.

Corporate, financial and other debt denominated in foreign currencies, mostly dollars, represents about 70 percent of Turkey’s economy, according to the I.I.F. Turkish companies and real estate developers used borrowed dollars to pay for new factories, shopping malls and the skyscrapers that now define the Istanbul skyline. 

The threat is that as the lira loses value, it becomes more expensive for Turkish companies to repay their dollar-denominated loans. Indeed, a growing number of companies in Turkey already have said they cannot repay these loans.

[snip] 

If Mr. [Tim] Lee’s 2011 call now looks prescient, it hasn’t won him much new business.

Lately, just as Turkey began its crackup, a number of his clients have left him.

Yes, he might have been right on Turkey. But his persistent gloom was wearing thin, especially as the markets continued to soar. 

“It has been some hard sledding,” Mr. Lee admitted. “I have lost a lot of clients because I have been too bearish.” 

Yet he is doubling down on his doomsday message: The river of global cash will dry up, the dollar will spike and there will be a series of financial seizures. Investors, he thinks, will flee developing economies, then Europe and eventually the American stock and bond markets. 

“It won’t be a banking crisis this time around — it will be a financial market crisis,” Mr. Lee said. “And I am very confident that it will happen.”

"Turkey’s Economic Woes Fuel Fears of Contagion in Markets" by Jack Ewing and Alexandra Stevenson:

There were already ominous signs on Monday. After the Turkish lira fell even further against the United States dollar, investors dumped other emerging-market currencies. The Indian rupee also dropped to a record low against the dollar. And in Indonesia, the rupiah flirted with a three-year low against the American currency. 

[snip]

Stock markets across Asia, including in Hong Kong; Seoul, South Korea; Shanghai; and Tokyo, fell on Monday, with many exchanges dropping nearly 2 percent during the day. European markets fared only slightly better. Stocks opened in the red, though the losses were less severe than on Friday. The euro hovered around its lowest point against the United States dollar in a year.

Shares of European banks suffered some of the biggest losses. Those hit included not only the likes of BBVA of Spain and UniCredit of Italy, which have large holdings in Turkey, but also lenders such as Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank, which do not have major operations there.

The YPG/YPJ Have to Hold Afrin City

Rudaw reported yesterday, "Turkish forces advance, closing in on Afrin city," that the battle for Afrin has reached the point of a siege of the city. The Kurdish-led SDF responded by announcing a move of 1,700 fighters from the eastern Syrian province of Deir al-Zour. The SDF in Deir al-Zour are there primarily to guard the oil fields war booty coveted by the U.S.

Anne Barnard reports today from her office in Beirut that Turkey has requested that the U.S. block this troop transfer ("Turkey Asks U.S. to Stop Kurds From Shifting Fighters to Western Syria"). I would say that the chances of this happening are close to zero.

The Kurds of the YPG/YPJ have to hold Afrin because if they don't then they will have proven to be incapable of acting independently of the protection provided by U.S. air power and logistics. If Turkey and the CIA-trained Free Syrian Army triumph, then the Kurds will be seen as merely another mercenary proxy force that the U.S. exploits willy-nilly to achieve its objectives.

At this point the Turks appear to have all the advantage. They can lay siege to Afrin city indefinitely. Don't expect the same outrage over Afrin in the Western media as there is for East Ghouta.

Elections

Last summer's failed coup no doubt paved the way for Erdogan's narrow win in a referendum that moves Turkey from a parliamentary system where the president was a ceremonial position to a system where the president is the "Maximum Leader." Without the purges and jailing of political opponents, not to mention a hot war being waged against the Kurdish population in the country's southeast, Erdogan's Justice and Development Party would not have won the turnout game. Repression works.

One big election down, and  a couple more to go in the next seven days.

Jon Ossoff, a young Democrat running in Newt Gingrich's old congressional district, Georgia's 6th CD, has been designated the avatar of #Resist. If Ossoff is able to win outright tomorrow by garnering 50%-plus-1 of the vote, he will be on the front page of The New York Times. The GOP will definitely be in trouble. The problem for Ossoff is that most polls show him in the mid-40s, while the numerous Republican candidates add up to over 50%. So if Ossoff cannot wrap things up tomorrow, chances are good that he will lose in the runoff.

What's interesting about the race is the extent to which Trump's 180 of the last two weeks has an impact. The anti-Trump protests on Saturday were larger than I expected. Trump's wholesale abandonment of his campaign pledges will erode the motivation of his most committed supporters. That will have an impact.

The most hopeful prospect is the continuing surge of Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France's presidential election, which takes place Sunday. The most motivated voters are clearly Le Pen's and Mélenchon's. The French elite are beginning to show their concern, as Adam Nossiter reports in "Left-Wing Politician Shakes Up France’s Presidential Race":

“Mélenchon: The Insane Program of the French Chávez,” the right-leaning newspaper Figaro blared in a front-page headline last week. The candidate was delighted by this jittery jab.

“What is the liberty of the employee who is fired for not working on Sunday?” he asked the crowd, delivering repeated thrusts at capitalism. “What is the liberty of 120,000 families whose water is cut off because they can’t pay the bill?” His advisers depict him as a kind of French Bernie Sanders. Unlike Mr. Sanders, though, he has no vigorous party establishment to block his way.

“Masters of the earth, you have good reason to be uneasy!” Mr. Mélenchon yelled at the festive, youthful crowd on Sunday, some wearing revolutionary Phrygian caps, as he stabbed the air with his fist and paced back and forth on the stage. “Give it up! Give it up!” the crowd yelled, a message clearly intended for Mr. Mélenchon’s opponents.

“There must be decent salaries,” Mr. Mélenchon shouted into the microphone. “That’s why the minimum wage will have to go up!”

The youth vote was supposed to have gone to the youthful Macron. Mélenchon's rise in the polls is the worst possible news for the neoliberals.

The Future of Rojava: Pentagon vs. CIA

Now and then the most spook-friendly of reporters will produce vital journalism. "Obama’s Stark Options on ISIS: Arm Syrian Kurds or Let Trump Decide," by Michael Gordon and Eric Schmitt, two of the Deep State's loyal scribes, is an example.

Outlining the Raqqa puzzle Obama leaves unfinished as he exits the Oval Office, Gordon and Smith illuminate the contradictions of the administration's war in Syria.

The U.S. can't conquer Raqqa, capital of the Islamic State, without the radical, anarcho-feminist Syrian Kurd fighters of the YPG. The YPG must be armed for urban combat and then backed up by U.S. Apache helicopters equipped with Hellfire missiles. But to arm the Syrian Kurds risks almost certain reprisal from Turkey, including the possibility of a Turkish invasion of Rojava.

The CIA favors sidelining the YPG (see the Barzani quote below) by fabricating a larger force comprised of Turkish troops and Iraqi Pesh Merga. But the Pentagon knows that these CIA-engineered militias are more PR than actual fighting units. So it is insisting on the YPG. Obama will likely dither and punt it to Trump. And Trump, no anarcho-feminist, will probably want to curry favor with Erdogan. Then again Trump's administration is heavy with Pentagon brass, and Trump is none too keen on the CIA these days. So maybe Rojava has a shot.

But arming the Kurds would also aggravate Mr. Obama’s tense relations with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has contended that the Y.P.G. is linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which Turkey and the United States regard as a terrorist group.

The administration has been considering ways to ease Turkey’s anxiety, such as making arrangements to monitor the weapons given to the Syrian Kurds for the Raqqa offensive and thus prevent the weapons from being used elsewhere by the Kurds. In addition, Arab forces would occupy Raqqa after the city is taken, and Kurdish fighters would be withdrawn.

The United States also recently began carrying out airstrikes near Al Bab, a town in northern Syria that Turkey has been struggling to take from the Islamic State.

But American diplomats in Ankara, the Turkish capital, have warned that providing weapons to the Y.P.G. could provoke a Turkish backlash, officials say. Not only might it cause a deep breach in the United States’ relations with Mr. Erdogan, but the Turks might take actions against the Y.P.G. in northern Syria that could ultimately undermine the offensive to retake Raqqa.

Anticipating Mr. Obama’s decision, the Turks have been quietly increasing the pressure by delaying approval for American air missions that are flown from the Turkish air base at Incirlik and supplies going in and out of the base. Incirlik has been a major hub for carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

Turkey’s sensitivity on the issue was clear last week when the United States Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, posted a statement on Twitter by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the umbrella group that includes Syrian Kurds as well as Syrian Arab fighters, affirming that it is not part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party as “some regional governments” have claimed.

“Is this a joke or @CENTCOM has lost its senses,” Ibrahim Kalin, Mr. Erdogan’s spokesman, responded on Twitter.

Faced with the dilemma, some administration officials have suggested that American officials go back to the drawing board and try to cobble together a more diverse force to take Raqqa that would include Turkish Special Forces as well as Turkish-supported Syrian opposition groups. American commanders say about 20,000 troops will be needed to seize the city. By contrast, Turkey has been able to muster only about 2,000 Arab fighters in its battle to reclaim Al Bab, and that campaign has been bogged down by fierce resistance.

During a visit to Washington last month, Masrour Barzani, a top security official in the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq, pressed American officials to work with Syrian Kurds who are separate from the Y.P.G. and are operating in Iraq, a group known as Pesh Merga of Rojava, or Roj Pesh. Aides to Mr. Barzani assert that the Roj Pesh are trained by the pesh merga, would be politically acceptable to the Turks and number about 3,300.

“Roj Pesh are the most efficient and politically diverse force,” Mr. Barzani said. “They can be the bridge to lessen regional tensions and a force multiplier in the campaign.”

But Pentagon officials say that the Y.P.G. has the most effective fighters, is already closing in on Raqqa, and that trying to assemble, train and equip an alternative force could be difficult and at best would take many months.

Hatred of the Poor + Erdogan is Correct about the CIA

By month's end Obamacare should be finished. Never a fan of the Affordable Care Act -- because it makes a real problem, for-profit health care, even bigger -- at least it did significantly expand Medicaid. It is clear from reading Robert Pear's "Republicans’ 4-Step Plan to Repeal the Affordable Care Act" that the linchpin is "Eliminat[ing] tens of billions of dollars provided each year to states that have expanded eligibility for Medicaid."

Tens of millions of people are going to lose coverage. It is going to be hard to cloak the political reality of what is happening here -- crass class war. This is hatred for the poor with a heavy dose of negrophobia stirred in. The GOP, whose popular foundation is erected on white resentment and hatred, will now have to manage the consequences. To stay in power they're going to need a ready supply of "enemies" easy to grasp.

Tim Arango's "In Turkey, U.S. Hand Is Seen in Nearly Every Crisis" is an interesting story on how alienated Turks are from the United States. Each day top Turkish government officials blame the CIA for the many terrorist bombings convulsing the nation and those condemnations are dutifully reported in the Turkish media. As Arango writes,

Mr. Erdogan, who spoke this week with President Obama in a condolence call, also told his audience what he believed Turkey, in facing so many terrorist attacks, was really up against: a plot by the West.

Invoking the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the subsequent Turkish war against Western armies and their proxies, he said, “Today Turkey is in a new struggle for independence.”

Erdogan is right. One of the casualties of the U.S.-led jihadi war in Syria is Langley's alliance with Ankara. Turkey has always been a second home for the CIA. But contradictions spawned by the U.S. regime-change project, such as the de facto state of Rojava with its progressive constitution in the same vicinity of aWahhabite caliphate with its harsh interpretation of sharia, have poisoned the relationship. Who can deny that the CIA had a hand in the July coup attempt?

Erdogan waits for a new day to dawn with Trump. His patience might just be rewarded. According to this morning's Foreign Policy Situation Report:

CIA shakeup. The CIA might be in for a major overhaul if President-elect Donald Trump and his administration get their way. The Wall Street Journal has discovered that Team Trump is working on a plan “to restructure the Central Intelligence Agency, cutting back on staffing at its Virginia headquarters and pushing more people out into field posts around the world,” Damian Paletta and Julian Barnes report.

The proposal sounds quite a bit like what Michael Flynn -- Trump’s national security advisor -- wanted to do while director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Flynn and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), whom Trump named as his nominee to be the next CIA director, are reportedly pushing the planning. Flynn and Pompeo, according to the WSJ “share Mr. Trump’s view that the intelligence community’s position—that Russia tried to help his campaign—is an attempt to undermine his victory or say he didn’t win, the official close to the transition said.”

Will the Deep State allow itself to be pruned?  It won't --

On the Hill. Speaking of Russian influence on the U.S. presidential election, senior U.S. intelligence officials are heading to Capitol Hill Thursday to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee on that very subject. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Marcel Lettre are expected to appear before the panel at 9:30 a.m., which is chaired by Republican John McCain, a noted critic of Putin. Livestream here. 

Trump Needs a Miracle + Blows Against the Empire

This morning, the first post-convention Monday in the long march to the general election in November, is a good indication of why it will take a miracle for Donald Trump to win the White House. Stories with the most prominent placement are "Donald Trump’s Confrontation With Muslim Soldier’s Parents Emerges as Unexpected Flash Point" and "How Paul Manafort Wielded Power in Ukraine Before Advising Donald Trump." The former plays up Trump's bigotry and divisiveness; the latter, the new McCarythism. The media will tattoo Trump and the Trump campaign every day for the next three months. Trump will be unable to whittle down his disapproval rating and narrow the gender gap. Because the media monopoly has gone all in for Hillary, Trump is effectively in a box; absent the miraculous, there he will stay.

Then there is the issue of the daunting electoral map. Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman in "Electoral Map Gives Donald Trump Few Places to Go" outline the harrowing journey ahead for The Donald. Basically he has to run the table on the big swing states -- Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida -- and hold North Carolina. Problem is, Trump is woefully underfunded at this point, not to mention that he has alienated a large part of the GOP machine. Even assuming a richly-funded, well-organized campaign, Trump's task ahead is Herculean. Given that he is having trouble raising money -- and it doesn't look like he is going to bankroll himself -- and his campaign infrastructure is skeletal, once again, a miracle is called for.

Nate Cohn limned the contours of this miracle in "Donald Trump’s Path: What Map Should Democrats Fear the Most?" Trump runs the big swings as well as the little swings -- Nevada, Iowa, New Hampshire -- and ends up tied 269-269 with Hillary. The election gets dumped into the House of Representatives where Paul Ryan anoints Trump il Duce. Far-fetched? Absolutely.

True, Trump has proven he is a real wild card and not one to be counted out, but I think as we get deeper into August his limitations are going to catch up with his campaign and Hillary will get back to her four-to-five-point lead.

While we are hypnotized stateside with the Trump circus, the U.S. Empire is about to absorb some big blows:

1) Some sort of rapprochement is underway between Russia and Turkey. Putin and Erdogan are to meet next week in St. Petersburg. Turkey appears convinced that the U.S. had a hand in the recent coup attempt.

2) The jihadis are surrounded in Aleppo. Pro-jihadi think tankers are already licking their wounds and looking for some sort of silver lining. That silver lining appears to be "Just wait until Hillary gets here."

3) Italy is on the verge of a full-blown banking crisis. Renzi is on the ropes. Another anti-EU party, M5S, is looking strong.

4) Britain will likely continue to trod a rocky road as it becomes apparent that Theresa May plans on screwing the white working class that voted for Brexit.

Get ready. Crisis time approaches.

Failed Coup in Turkey: Not the Usual U.S. Color Revolution

As Erdogan rounds up his opponents following the failed coup of Friday night/Saturday morning (for a particularly good synopsis read this morning's Foreign Policy Situation Report by Paul McLeary and Adam Rawnsley), it is worthwhile to question the level of support the putschists received from the United States. According to McLeary and Rawnsley:

How does this end? The Turkish government is lashing out in all directions, with a high-ranking member of the Erdogan government accusing Washington of directly helping to foment the putsch. Turkish Labor Minister Suleyman Soylu bluntly claimed over the weekend that “the U.S. is behind this coup attempt.” The comments “come on top of the long-standing U.S. criticism of Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian tendencies, which include opening roughly 2,000 legal cases against political opponents, journalists, comedians, and ordinary Turks accused of insulting the president,”  FP’s Yochi Dreazen writes.

Judging from the reaction to the coup's failure in the U.S. opinion pages, the labor minister appears to be on the money. The Gray Lady's unsigned editorial today calls Erdogan's reaction to the coup attempt a "countercoup" (see "The Countercoup in Turkey").

If the U.S. was involved it must have been in a passive role. The favored U.S. method of regime change after the shelving of "shock and awe" during the Obama administration is the color revolution format witnessed in Kiev's Maidan or the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. In a color revolution there has to be a mass of protesters to act as a foil for the coup plotters. The scheme is to have the protesters elicit a crackdown by security forces. The police overreaction ignites the rebellion. But there was no popular uprising here. There were no Gezi Park protests of three years earlier.

In order for this to work the coup plotters had to take out Erdogan. When they failed to do this the coup could not succeed. Consider this from McLeary and Rawnsley:

Commando raids, F-16s. Some critical details of the scope of the insurrection emerged on Sunday, which included a daring special operations raid on the coastal resort where Erdogan had been staying which just failed to nab the leader, and a harrowing incident where two rebel-flown F-16 fighters followed the president’s plane on its way to Istanbul, locking radars on the jet, but failing to fire.

As the purge of the military continued on Sunday, one of those arrested was Gen. Bekir Ercan Van, the chief of Incirlik Air Base, from which the U.S. military flies missions over Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State. Reports have emerged claiming Van asked U.S. officials at the base for asylum, but was refused. The Greek government also finds itself in a tough spot after eight Turkish officers flew a helicopter to Greece in a bid for asylum. Turkey has demanded their extradition.

An attempt is being made to rewrite the U.S. reaction to the coup as one of immediate and fulsome support for the Turkish government. This is not how it went down in real time. Obama and Kerry were mum until it was clear that Erdogan would survive. Then they expressed their support.

Arango on the Outskirts of Falluja: NYT's Reporting on Conflict in Iraq and Turkey

Tim Arango is one of The New York Times' better reporters. He is stationed in Turkey but he has been reporting out of Baghdad for some time. Reporting on Iraq NYT staff have to follow certain guidelines that are identical to USG talking points. First, Iraq is a sectarian mess mostly due to the corruption of Shiite leadership and the malign, Snidley Whiplashesque influence of Iran. The recrudescence of Al Qaeda in Iraq in the form of ISIS is blamed on former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki (onetime U.S. favorite). Almost no mention is made of the Wahhabi jihadis of Islamic State and their sectarianism and where it comes from. Next, as Iraqi forces, both Iranian-led militias and U.S.-led regular army and special forces, take back territory from ISIS there is a great deal of attention paid to the plight of civilians (compared with, say, Yemen).

Tim Arango in his story the other day, "Iraqis Who Flee Fighting in Falluja Find Hardship and Hunger," adheres to the guidelines in the first two-thirds of his dispatch from the outskirts of Falluja. But the able reporters find a way to subvert the standard narrative, and Arango delivers: the Iranian-led Shiite militias are conducting themselves professionally with no targeting of the civilian Sunni population fleeing the war zone, and any sectarianism appears to be fomented by Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies:

Shiite militias have played a prominent role in the offensive to retake Falluja after nearly three years of Islamic State rule. But because of that, the battle is playing out amid persistent worries that the campaign could intensify the sectarian tensions that are tearing the country apart. [A good distillation of the official U.S. position.]

The Sunni extremist fighters for the Islamic State have warned civilians that the Shiite militias would slaughter them in revenge attacks whenever possible. The news media in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries have framed the battle in crass sectarian terms, warning that Iran’s militias were intent on killing Sunnis. [Not at all dissimilar from NYT's reporting.]

But for the most part, civilians who have fled the areas around Falluja have said they had tired of the grim life under the Islamic State and had been treated well by the militias and Iraqi soldiers.

“We were surprised that they treated us so well,” said a man at a camp who was in his 50s and gave his name as Abu Muhammad, standing on Sunday outside his tent. “Daesh had told us the Shiites wanted revenge and would kill us.” 

Instead, he said, he was given cookies and orange juice.

For evidence of ruthless state-sponsored terrorism which news consumers hear almost nothing about, Arango needs to travel back to his old turf, Turkey, where president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is waging a scorched-earth campaign against the Kurdish population of the country's southeast.

Erdoğan's Kurdish war fulfills all the guidelines of NYT's Iraq reporting, but the Gray Lady gives the Turkish government a pass for the most part. I say for the most part because Ceylan Yeginsu did have an informative piece yesterday, "Bomb in Istanbul Kills 11 Near Tourist District":

Violence has surged in the country’s predominately Kurdish southeast in recent months, after Turkey undertook a major military operation to eradicate militants from their strongholds in the region.

The Turkish authorities have imposed round-the-clock curfews across several southeastern cities and pounded Kurdish militant targets with tanks and artillery, and they claim to have killed almost 5,000 militants. In the process, they have reduced many Kurdish cities to rubble.

Critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan say he deliberately short-circuited the peace process with the Kurds last year to stir nationalist sentiments after his ruling Justice and Development Party fared poorly in a first round of parliamentary elections. Premeditated or not, the tactic worked, as the party went on to win in a landslide in November, prompting the president to say the country had voted for stability.

Despite that victory, violence sharply escalated and the P.K.K.’s youth branches, fighting for self-rule, began carrying out increasingly sophisticated attacks in urban areas.

Last month, lawmakers from Mr. Erdogan’s governing party pushed through a contentious amendment to the Turkish Constitution that would strip lawmakers’ immunity. Analysts say the move will lead to the ouster of Kurdish politicians, many of whom could face terrorism charges. Kurdish politicians have warned that their exclusion from Parliament could aggravate tensions in the southeast.

Erdoğan's Turkey has been rewarded by the E.U., under Merkel's leadership, for its help in keeping refugees away from European shores.

With Palmyra U.S. has Lost the Information War in Syria

The routing of Islamic State jihadists from Palmyra by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is another game-changer in a series of recent game-changers in the global proxy war taking place in Syria. First, there was the military victory by the combined forces of Russia, Syria, Iran and Hezbollah in Aleppo Province; next, a ceasefire, excluding Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State; then, Russia's announcement of a "mission accomplished" withdrawal of forces, followed, this past weekend, by the military victory in and recapture of Palmyra, a UNESCO world heritage site filled with ancient ruins where the Roman and Persian worlds intersected.

On the losing end is not only ISIS, but the United States, Turkey and their clients in the Gulf Cooperation Council as well. For a superb explanation of these events turn to yesterday's post at Moon of Alabama, "Syria - How The Palmyra Victory Changes the Narrative."

U.S. involvement in Syria is defined by contradiction papered over by crass propaganda. The overarching theme of the propaganda is that Syria is ruled by a bloodthirsty dictator who feeds on the broken bodies of a peaceful citizenry. The U.S. supports the peaceful citizens, the "moderates,' in a war against Islamic jihadists and regime goons.

When Russia intervened militarily last fall, the United States wailed constantly -- a cry amplified in the Western press -- that Russia was attacking the "good guys," the U.S.-backed "moderates," and not the ISIS jihadists. The press asserted that Russia and Syria were actually working with Islamic State to keep Assad in power.

Russia explained that there were no "moderate" jihadists in the war theater; and if indeed there were, why didn't the U.S. provide coordinates of their location so that Russian bombers might spare them?

With the victory in Palmyra, Russia, as Moon of Alabama persuasively outlines, is vindicated. The campaign against U.S.-backed Islamic militias working in concert with Nusra led to a ceasefire which freed up troops to retake Palmyra from ISIS. Obama's false narrative is debunked. Even the Los Angeles Times is taking note in "Syrian army's blow to Islamic State presents a paradox for Obama" by Patrick McDonnell, and "In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA" by Nabih Bulos, W.J. Hennigan and Brian Bennett.

Where the discredited U.S. position on Syria goes from here is anybody's guess. If a major daily newspaper is reporting that the Pentagon and CIA are actively engaged on opposite sides of a proxy war in Northern Syria -- the Pentagon backing the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units; the CIA, from its operations center inside Turkey, Fursan al Haq, or Knights of Righteousness -- one wonders if this might be the future: U.S. wars overseas where one branch of government battles another.

Russian Military Power, Syrian Federalization and Merkel's Refugee Deal with Turkey

Recently I've been wrong about two of the biggest issues facing the West: war in Syria and the European refugee crisis that it has helped to create. I didn't think that the February 27 U.S.-Russia negotiated ceasefire in Syria (minus territory controlled by Nusra and Islamic State) would work. It has for the most part. There have been violations from the outset, but the agreement has held; so much so that last week Putin announced the withdrawal of the bulk of Russian forces from the war-torn country. (The S-400 missile defense system will stay of course.) Then in Brussels on Friday Turkey and the Europe Union actually settled on a Rube Goldbergesque plan to stem the flow of refugees to Europe.

What is going on? It looks as if the warpig Western leaders are -- finally -- turning the battleship around. We should be incredulous since the neoliberal coin of the realm is stamped with the motto "In war we trust." But something is definitely happening here.

Whenever the reporting largely goes blank in The New York Times you know that it is not for lack of action on the ground but because a political decision has been made to put out the lights. It happened in Ukraine after the junta got its clock cleaned in Debaltseve. The paper, which had three reporters -- Andrew Kramer, David Herszenhorn and Neil MacFarquhar -- regularly filing dispatches, basically stopped reporting on the Donbass conflict. Debaltseve impressed upon the Obama administration the ease with which Russia could take Kiev. So I suspect the word went out to ratchet down coverage of the New Cold War in Ukraine, and editors of "the newspaper of record" complied. The free press at work.

I think what happened in Debaltseve at the beginning of last year in Ukraine is something similar to what the Russians accomplished in Syria with the recent victories in Aleppo Province. A game changer. The West and the Gulf sheikhs were forced to the table; we got the ceasefire and now the gradual press blackout.

There has been little coverage of the ongoing peace talks in Geneva. One thing seems clear though, federalization of Syria is the country's future. It is hard to believe that Turkey will accept any form of Kurdish statehood. I think this is where the refugee deal with Europe comes in. Beginning this summer, provided certain unnamed conditions are met, Turkish citizens will be able to enjoy passport-free travel to Europe. If Turkey and the EU manage to accomplish this, then Turkey's membership in the European Union is closer to becoming a reality than ever before; such a historic achievement for Erdogan would likely grease Turkish support for a federalized Syria.

As for Merkel's Rube Goldberg scheme to block refugees in Greece for rapid return to Turkey at the same time admitting to Europe a refugee warehoused in Anatolia, I think it is bound to fail. Just supplying the administrative manpower needed to process migrants in Greece for return to Turkey is an enormous logistical feat. What about corruption? What prevents smugglers from pursuing an Italian route? The agreement only covers Greece. How long can the heinous canard of listing Afghans as "economic migrants" be maintained? At least there is a partial ceasefire in Syria; in Afghanistan there is nothing of the sort. What about international humanitarian law? Merkel's EU plan is in violation. Refugees will not be allowed to seek asylum. They will be registered in Greece and then whisked back to Turkey.