Earlier last week, before the Donald trump ordered airstrikes on Syrian production sites for chemical weapons, a senior official of the Pentagon looked at his coffee and shook his head. “Do you remember what our parents us?” he asked. “You know, it was a cylinder, and you turned it and all the color in the end changed.” He thought for a moment. “Oh, Yes, the kaleidoscope” – he said. “That’s what it is”. He smiled and continued: “Well, that’s Syria.”
His analogy seems apt, except that one of the most important issues was lost in the colors of “kaleidoscope”, under-the-radar struggle between the armed forces of the United States in Europe, the European command of the U.S. armed forces and U.S. Central command, which is responsible for the middle East. On the question between the two looming cost and the possible consequences of CENTCOM marriage of convenience with the ypg militia (Kurdish self-defense units of the people) that the US is using to fight ISIS in Syria. The difficulty for US is that when the ONS is a battle-hardened cadres have notched a number of important victories over ISIS, including the latest in Manbij, a Syrian city on the Euphrates river, the militia arms of the Kurdistan workers ‘ party (PKK), deemed a terrorist group in the US, the EU and Turkey. PKK attacks have killed thousands of Turks since the movement was founded in 1978.
So, although Turkey has always looked askance in the United States-CCW partnership in Northern Syria, he was willing to tolerate it on the basis of American assurances that the marriage was one of convenience: it’s important, but brief—it was a “temporary, tactical and transactional.” This, it seems, is not so. For Turkey, a few high-ranking Pentagon officials and military officers say US-backed victory for CCW in Manbij (made possible thanks to the air cover provided by U.S. Central command) was the last straw for the government of Ankara. Why? “He put the Kurdish militants in spitting distance,” as a former senior officer described it to me, of the Turkish army in the Syrian town of Afrin, about 70 kilometers.
“United States-CCW Union was poisoned U.S.-Turkish relations,” – said last week a senior Turkish official ISP“, and You can’t just pass it on. So, you need a PAC to defeat ISIS, fine. Mission accomplished. So now, to do the OCE of Manbij. Good God, you’re digging trenches for these people.”
How much “poison” is American-Turkish relations? In fact, CENTCOM dependence on the ONS to carry the fight against ISIS (which includes 2000 American soldiers stationed in Syria) is so excited about Turkey that a lot of influential officers and their civilian counterparts in NATO recently warned Secretary of defense James Mattis that the United States supports OEF threatens their Union. This is especially bad because NATO faces off against a resurgent Russia is a much more formidable opponent, they claim that now ISIS has almost tamed. Among critics, General Curtis Scaparrotti, head of the European command and the Supreme commander of allied forces in Europe. While bespectacled Scaparrotti more like an Oxford Professor than a commander, he is one of the most respected officers in his Ministry. “I saw him in Iraq,” one of my colleagues says: “and he was cold as ice, as tough as they come. Struggle never bothered him. He just doesn’t give a shit”.
During a trip to Washington in March, Scaparrotti lost Mattis, to Express their concerns about the rising tensions in us-Turkish relations, fears that the European commander also expressed in a number of meetings with General Joseph Votel, a colleague as the head of CENTCOM. NATO partisans to assume that Scaparrotti Mattis said he was particularly Votel: Turkey signed the 2016 agreement with the EU that in exchange for closer ties with their Western European counterparts (just over $8 billion), is a Harbor of about 3 million Syrian refugees who left Syria. If Turkey believes that she began to ignore Scaparrotti, of course, suggested that these refugees would end up on the streets of Hamburg.
As the most important thing (as Scaparrotti also probably reminded Mattis), Turkey, leaning to Russia, agreeing to purchase two s-400 anti-aircraft missile batteries from Russia for $ 2.5 billion. The purchase went ahead, despite protests from the US that the batteries were not compatible with NATO systems, the signal from the Turkish government that the US is not the only weapon in the city. “No one benefits from US-Turkey rift than Russia,” Guerrilla NATO and Scaparrotti colleague says. “I think that SCAP made it clear that US-Turkey disagreement may well be the greatest political threat to the Alliance, as France withdrew from the military chain of command, in the ‘ 60s.” What Russia has invited Turkey is one of the most significant, albeit unintentionally, the results of the us-CCW relations, a former Syrian diplomat Bassam Baradandi adds. “Turkey wants its southern borders safe from terrorist organizations”, Sarabandi says: “Russia played well in this complex issue. Historically, Turkey was never a friend of either Russia or Iran, but Turkey’s distrust of U.S. actions and their Alliance with the YPG pushed them in this direction, no doubt.”
Perhaps it is important to note that the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated his dissatisfaction with the United States-CCW marriage, making it clear that some us officials are simply not welcome in Ankara, including Brett McGurk, the American special presidential envoy for the global coalition to defeat ISIS. “Erdogan hates McGurk,” a Turkish government official said TAS,“ and he doesn’t like Votel either. This is getting ugly”.
In fact, just how “ugly” the relationship began to quickly become a subject of public debate. During his March visit, Scaparrotti appeared before the Senate armed services Committee to testify about the challenges facing his team. While most group members focused on Russia and the problems of cyber war, Senator of Virginia, Tim Kane researched US-Turkish dust-up, hinting that it may be time for the United States to weaken their ties to the CCW. Scaparrotti did not agree, while soft-pedaling controversy on the issue that he had with Votel and CENTCOM. “Where we want to be in a year, two years and five years?” he asked. “Close NATO ally, as Turkey, we know that we want to maintain and strengthen our relationship. So this is a long term goal and if we look at the long-term goal, he can start to talk about what we’re doing today in relation to NATO.” The senior officer with whom I spoke, was ready interpreter, “what Scaparrotti says that real marriage is only between USA and Turkey. OEF is just a fling”.
But to convince James Mattis, that it is difficult, in part because Scaparrotti is in the minority. Every defense Minister surrounds himself with people he can count on and who he listens to. But Mattis almost all of them had experience in the middle East—and in the General staff. He is Mattis (former commander of CENTCOM), Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Joseph Dunford (who served with matthis in Iraq), Director of the joint staff Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie, Jr. (a marine who served in Afghanistan and Iraq), a retired rear Admiral Kevin M. Sweeney (former CENTCOM Director), rear Admiral Craig S. Faller (a Mattis adviser and the commander of the Navy during both the Afghan and Iraqi war), and the current commander commander General Joseph Votel, a former commander of us special operations command (“trigger puller”, as he told me of currently serving staff). Votel is the most ardent supporter of CCW any of them, and because he’s the combatant commander, his support has weight.
“It is characterized by strengthening of vassalage,” a senior officer with whom I spoke explained. “All these guys were together, and trust each other. And, you know, this is how it works. The U.S. Central command in the middle East as a client and European command the European and Turkish customers. But if you look at Mattis and the people around him, well, you know, it’s CENTCOM. So Scaparrotti is a concern, and it needs to be. We don’t want to sit for nearly 30 years reading historic works with titles like ‘who lost Turkey?’”
Even someone as careful in his public statements, as Admiral James Stavridis, who once held command Scaparrotti and now Dean of the Fletcher school at tufts University, a cause for concern. While he waves from the “who lost Turkey” wording as “a trope that moves around the Internet,” he told me in email correspondence that “it would be a mistake of epic proportions to allow Turkey to transatlantic drift out of Orbit”—the repetition of the warning for Scaparrotti Mattis in March. But Scaparrotti, Staviridis slowly rolling their disagreement. “This is a distinction without a difference,” a senior officer and partisan of NATO, with whom we spoke, says. “Drifting out of NATO, Stavridis means to leave. He worries like no other”.
Concerns about Turkey, perhaps a surprise at the White house, given the almost daily crisis on Russia-gate investigation, but they should not be. The President extended exchanges with Turkish President Tayyip Erodogan twice in the last three weeks. While the White house has refused to disclose details of these conversations, a Turkish official with whom we spoke, told TAS that in both of the conversations (March 23 and again on April 11), Erdogan stressed three growing concerns it that America is temporary “transaction” support OEF becomes constant. This same official noted that, in his opinion, it is not a coincidence that trump has put forward the idea of withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria (“I want to leave,” he said. “I want to bring our troops home”)—an assumption that is not good with the guerrillas of the Central command at the Pentagon. On 3 April, the same day trump issued his let’s-make a statement, Joseph Votel, and brett McGurk appeared at the U.S. Institute of peace, arguing that the US had to stop. “The most difficult thing, I think, before us,” Votel“ and that stabilizing these regions, consolidate our achievements, to return to their homes. There is a military role in this,” he kept saying. “Of course, in the phase of stabilization.”
The appearance Votel was unbearable for those who are worried about NATO’s future, and for those who are concerned that the endless conflicts in the region is draining the defense budget much needed funds to restore the combat capability of the armed forces of the United States. For them, the group, which now includes a greater number of the most senior and influential officers, “stabilization” is not only a synonym for “nation-building”, is the strong support of a mission that threatens the future of NATO, an institution that has guaranteed peace in Europe for three generations.
“It’s not worth it” – a senior military commander, who spoke to the ODE concludes. “In addition to everything else, it puts us on the wrong side of the political equation. This whole story about how the enemy of my enemy is my friend-this is some nonsense. The enemy of my enemy is now to make the enemy our friend. I don’t know who we think we’re fooling, but it’s definitely not Turkey. And it’s not the American people, too.”
Mark Perry is a foreign policy analyst, contributing editor to the American conservative, and author of the Pentagon wars (2017).
Sourse: theamericanconservative.com
