David Takaki · @Truth2Pwer
9th Oct 2014 from TwitLonger
8 October 2014 UPDATE: Kobanê is Strategically Important for Several Reasons
8 October 2014 UPDATE: Kobanê is Strategically Important for Several Reasons
• Kobanê has, like Qamishli in the Rojava canton of Cizîrê to the east, over the past
24 months, become a city of refuge for Syrians fleeing the civil war. Many of those
who sought safety in this Kurdish town are Arab and minorities who know the Kurds
wouldn’t push them away. The outcome of this battle will in all likelihood send
survivors streaming to the north into Turkey to avoid another Shingar massacre.
Terror is a weapon in this conflict. Bashar al-Assad has demonstrated this amply
and ISIS is perfecting it.
• Taking Kobanê will enable ISIS to close off another part of the border and give
Turkey further excuse to create a buffer zone that extends into Syria as an effective
anti-PKK-YPG buffer zone. Make no mistake, Turkey sees the Kurds as the real
enemy, not ISIS, This is the reason why Turkey’s army, the TSK and the Turkish
intelligence agency Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı, or MİT, has been enabling ISIS. In fact,
the TSK and MİT have stepped up their assistance to ISIS since spring and angered
PKK commanders to the point that both Turkey and the PKK are gearing up for
renewed hostilities.
• The Erdoğan government made this decision from the viewpoint that Kurds are an
internal threat to the Turkish State, and ISIS is an external, foreign entity that can be
dealt with once the Kurdish (in Turkey and in Syria) impetus for independence is
extinguished. The evolving reality is that ISIS sentiment and support within Turkey
has become organic, with perhaps 10% Turkey's population identifying with ISIS.
The violent clashes in Turkey between Kurds, police and Islamists in recent days are
surface reflections of ISIS' inroads in Turkish society.
• The Erdoğan government has long been a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood;
this organic development is materially more dangerous to the Turkish State, but this
has yet to be fully appreciated within the current government.
• Kobanê Canton is athwart the lines of communication between the ISIS border
strongholds of Jarabulus to its west and Tel Abyad in the east. Along with creating a
contiguous region of control along the Turkish frontier, a tactical objective is
achieved: Efrîn, the western most Rojava canton will be isolated and thus become
easier for ISIS completely isolate and besiege.
• Efrîn Canton too is a refuge in northern Syria. This strategic psychology is a real
part of ISIS’ calculus. Do not oppose us. Surrender or die. You have no escape.
Terror is an integral aspect of ISIS' tactics, and refreshing this perception is a
strategic imperative.
• There is another ISIS imperative that is geostrategic. Once Kobanê is removed from
tactical consideration, Syria will for all practical purposes, be split in two from the
Turkish border south down the M-4 motorway and the Euphrates to Al Bukamal on
the Iraqi border, and actually down into Iraq’s Anbar province.
• If Turkey moves to establish a buffer zone along its frontier with Syria and northern
Iraq, it is likely that ISIS will withdraw to the south while retaining al Raqqa as its
defacto capital and springboard to northwest Syria. In this scenario ISIS will
consolidate further eastern Syria, including putting more effort into attacking al
Hasakah Governorate and Cizîrê Canton, with the Turkish buffer zone to the north
as an anvil to ISIS' hammer.
TURKEY’S OBJECTIVES
• Turkey wants to use the ISIS imbroglio to eliminate what it views as the PKK threat
to the Turkish State that exists in the form of the Rojava Cantons in North and
Northeast Syria. It would be hard to imagine the ISIS leadership not being aware of
intent.
• Position Turkey diplomatically, aligning itself with the United States and NATO while
delaying any military involvement with conditions that Turkey knows US will be slow
to respond to if at all. Turkey will avoid “walking the talk” as this would be in conflict
with its strategic objectives
• Allow ISIS to militarily degrade and or defeat YPG and by association, PKK fighters
in Syria who are helping to fight ISIS
• This is in preparation to creating a west to east anti-PKK, YPG, Rojava buffer zone
along the border east into Northern Iraq. The ‘buffer zone’ will be diplomatically
characterized as an anti-ISIS security area along Turkey’s Anatolian frontier with
Syria and Iraq.
• At the opportune time, possibly if and when Kobanê Canton falls to ISIS, and Efrin
Canton is besieged, Turkey will “activate” the issue of Sulaiman Shah’s Tomb south
of Kobanê and sweep south, possibly in a two-pronged attack that will evolve into a
pincer movement on the east-west M-4 axis. This movement will also place Turkish
forces between the ISIS strongholds of Jarabulus and Tal Abyad. This is one area
of operations where Turkey's TSK and ISIS may come into direct conflict
• The tactical intent will be to cordon off that portion of the Turkish-Syrian frontier
centered on Kobanê in preparation for establishing a thrust to the west and east
along the border region to diplomatically deny ISIS control of the region, but more
important, extirpate the presence of YPG and PKK along with the dismantling of
Efrin Canton, Kobanê Canton, and ultimately isolating, with another salient to its
west, Cizîre Canton (Jazeera, e.g., Qamishli).
• Turkey will carve out Syrian territory along the frontier to create refugee camps that
Syrian refugees in Turkey can be relocated to, by force if necessary.
• ISIS forces will likely fall back mostly to al Raqqa, and in the Syria theatre focus on
further consolidation of it lines of communication south to Deir ez-Zor as well as
begin pressing al Hasakah and Cizîre Canton with renewed vigor.
• It is unlikely Turkey will press ISIS as it retreats to the east and south, consolidating
a smaller state, with the intent to hold al Raqqa as capital and springboard for the
future. Again, Turkey will do little to impede this adjustment. At the same time,
Turkey will increase its diplomatic efforts to have its “allies” establish No Fly Zones
in the western part of Syria. The United States and NATO value Turkey remaining in
the Atlantic Alliance, and will not criticize Turkey openly. Were Turkey to distance
itself from NATO membership, or possibly even leave the organization, the regional
strategic rebalancing would be almost instantaneous.
• That the US is quietly displeased with Turkey, and has been for some time, is
indicated by the increased US intelligence effort directed at Turkey in recent years
as doubts about that country’s foreign policy and the AKP approach to
consolidating power increased.
• Kobanê has taken on the symbolic weight of measuring United States’ resolve and
purpose. While Washington has talked primarily of defeating ISIS and made the
distinction of saying it seeks a political settlement with the Assad regime, the reality
of perception, yes, perception has been ignored. Syrians, Turks, ISIS, in fact
everyone who has a stake in this metastasizing conflict is watching and
commenting. This regional conflict is being shaped before the eyes of the region
and world and will impact how the actors, all the actors form their opinion of what
are the parameters and adjust their strategies and tactics accordingly.
• How both potential allies and enemies view the United States will be in some
measure determined at Kobanê. Even by inaction the United States was shaping
this important perception and not grasping how important this is. It, this power to
shape perceptions, should have been anticipated and used as an instrument of
conflict. Conflict is NEVER simply about “Boots and Bombs”. Perhaps the White
House has begun grasping the importance of "intangibles" such as shaping.
• Washington is late in seeing this significance and only recently senses the strategic
importance in its efforts to gain credibility with opposition forces within Syria. For
whatever reason, the White House has chosen to overlook increasing collaboration
between FSA units and Kurds in northern Syria.
• Despite this oversight, the possibility remains as the United States discovers that
the only dependable and organized force against ISIS are the YPG/YPJ and their
allies and the only secure base to operate from is Rojava, that support for the above
will quietly develop. If so, the US may coordinate with the YPG from its tactical
operations center near Erbil Airport, something that will be welcomed by the PUK
and Gorran, but not necessarily by the KDP.
• The moderate Free Syrian Army units who lack an unquestioned unified chain of
command along with Arabs, Syriacs, Turkmen, Chaldeans, Yezedis, who fight
alongside the YPG could possibly be integrated with the YPG/YPJ into what would
become a unified New Syrian Army with a unquestioned chain of command. Even
amongst some FSA commanders, the need for a unified army is starting to become
clear and that the strategic change and perceptual shaping needed is not simply
gaining more matériel support from the US and its allies, but forging a New Syrian
Army with a truly unified command structure. In the Rojava Cantons recent
rapprochement between the YPG and some FSA units, along with the continued
slide in the influence of the SNC will factor into such possible developments.
Saleh Muslim, the YPG/J, and the Rojava Cantons need to refocus and realize that
integrating further with other Syrians in both military and civil administration will
both strengthen the opposition’s cause And deflect Turkey’s self-serving
machinations.
• Any effective army must begin with a clear doctrine of what it is about and what is
its mission. Without this shared ethos, the army remains a collection of individuals.
One such start could be this:
I am a Soldier of the New Syrian Army.
I am a Warrior and a member of a team.
I serve the people of Syria, and I live the values of
A Free Syria where all people are equal.
I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.
I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough.
I train to be proficient in my warrior tasks.
I am a professional in my duties.
I am a servant and guardian of Syria
And I stand ready, prepared to protect
All the Syrian People because
I am a New Syrian Army Soldier.
While the White House may be reluctant to go down this path, evidence is mounting that the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs under General Martin Dempsey is coming to recognizing this strategic reality. Again, the Turkish dilemma is a major factor in any movement in this direction, and also is moving upstream against President
Obama's desire to limit the US' involvement in the Syrian Conflict.