IS SYRIA FAST-BECOMING TURKEY’S VIETNAM?
By Appo Jabarian
Executive Publisher/Managing Editor
USA Armenian Life Magazine
The Turkish-promoted so-called Arab Spring in Syria has backfired on
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey. Each passing day further
drags Turkey deeper into the quick-sands of Syria. And Mr. Erdogan
is not too happy about it.
In Egypt’s popular uprising, Turkey initially ignored the plight
of the Egyptian people, and sided with Dictator Pres. Hosni
Mubarak. Then Ankara switched sides. In Tunisia’s uprising Turkey
remained undecided. In Libya, Ankara’s fear of losing huge business
contracts with Qaddafi’s regime made PM Erdogan hesitant to take
sides with the Libyan people exposing Turkey to widespread criticism
and accusations of hypocrisy in the Arab media.
Then, nearly eighteen months ago, the so-called Arab Spring was
exported to Syria.
Hypnotized by success stories of the Arab Springs in North Africa,
and embarrassed by his own flip-flopping, Turkey’s Erdogan quickly
embraced a similar ‘spring’ in Syria.
He miscalculated by hoping that the Syrian people would turn against
their own government. So he turned against his ‘brother’ President
Bashar el-Assad, the ruler of Syria.
Only a few weeks ago Erdogan had boasted, in reference to the fighting
in the Syrian city of Aleppo, “I believe the Assad regime draws to
its end with each passing day.”
However Syria and its people surprised Turkey and her allies triggering
discord, frustration and severe in-fighting among the partners –
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, and among various opposition groups,
unleashing deeply-rooted panic with Mr. Erdogan. He became so desperate
to cover up his failure in Syria that he resorted to making false
claims that a Turkish-grounded Syrian civilian airplane passing
Turkey’s airspace contained “equipment and munitions sent for the
Syrian Defense Ministry from a Russian institution.”
Turkish international embarrassment over the Turkish Prime Minister’s
false claims reached a boiling point whenU.S., Russian and Syrian
officials refuted Turkish premier’s claims. Syrian Foreign Ministry
spokesperson said, Erdogan “continues to lie in order to justify his
government’s hostile attitude towards Syria.”
Compounding Mr. Erdogan’s problems is the fact that Turkey’s proteges –
the Syrian rebels have been suffering a chain of recent setbacks.
The message from Paris and London is that the French and British
killed in Syria were not agents on a secret mission but fanatics who
acted on their own initiative. This is obviously false because certain
of these jihadists were carrying communication instruments of NATO
specification, supplied by France and the United Kingdom. Whatever
the case, these events are marking the end of the Franco-British
involvement alongside the Free Syrian Army, while Damascusdiscreetly
exchanges its prisoners. A page has been turned, wrote Thierry Meyssan
of Voltaire Network.
“Though the initial defeats suffered by the jihadists could have been
attributed to a tactical error or to an incompetent commander, after
the sixth debacle another hypothesis must be considered: that NATO is
willingly sending these combatants to their deaths. … The jihadists
have been left to their own devices, without any real coordination.
They could be recruited by any number of actors, as the recent
assassination of the U.S. Ambassador in Libya confirms. As a result,
Washington wants to unload this risky and burdensome rabble or at
the very least reduce their number. The orders that NATO gives to the
jihadists are designed to expose them to fire by the Syrian Arab Army
which is eliminating them en masse,” underlined Meyssan.
“Under the circumstances, one can understand the frustration of Turkey
and the Wahhabist monarchies who at the request of the Alliance
invested in the secret war unreservedly, but who now must assume
alone the failure of the operation. Going for broke, Ankara threw
itself into a series of provocations designed to prevent NATO from
pulling out. Anything goes, from firing of Turkish artillery into
Syrian territory to pirating of a civil airline,” he concluded.
The more the Syrian rebels’ popularity in Aleppo sinks, the higher
Prime Minister Erdogan’s blood pressure rises.
“As Aleppo continues to deteriorate, many residents are losing patience
with an increasingly violent and unrecognizable opposition.
It isn’t just civilians who are tiring of the rebellion. Some who
have fought from the beginning have had their faith shaken as well,”
Western media reported.
“Arms supplies to Syrian rebels dry up amid rivalries and divisions.
In Aleppo there is still no sign of the heavy weapons for which the
rebels have pleaded and ammunition is running low,” stated another
news outlet.
In an effort to explain why Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has gone
hysterical over the defeats inflicted on the insurgents fighting
against the Syrian government, Press TV quoted a Washington-based
author and historian Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley who said on Saturday:
“Erdogan was told repeatedly by Obama in their private telephone
conversations that the Syrian government would collapse like a house
of cards and he could then emerge as the hero of that regime change.”
In an interview with Press TV, James Jatras, former US Senate Foreign
Policy analyst, talked about Turkey’s plans in Syria saying “it is
very unclear what Turkey’s ultimate goal is in this really reckless
dangerous and provocative behavior. We have seen not only a war of
words but acts of war in form of aiding the terrorists in Syria,
the stopping of this aircraft that was referred to earlier, the
dispatch of fighter planes to the border with Syria, the artillery
duel that is going on with Syria, it seems that Turkey is behaving in
a deliberately provocative and irresponsible way and no doubt it feels
it can do that because it has the backing of the United States and NATO
and is prepared to invoke Article Five of the North Atlantic Treaty
[NATO] if the Syrians respond. What is also troubling about this is
that everyone knows that this is very controversial inside Turkey,
that many Turkish citizens are opposed to Mr. Erdogan’s provocative
and dangerous policies. It is hard to see where this goes but it does
not look like it is going any place good.”
While Turkey is vying to become a regional superpower, Erdogan’s
appetite for hegemony in the Sunni world puts Turkey in a collision
course against Sunni Egyptian presidency and Saudi monarchy.
Additionally, the Turkish state feels overwhelmed by the economic,
political and possibly military fallout caused by its huge failure
in Syria. The alternative is to simply acknowledge defeat, close down
shop in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria and go home.
Otherwise Ankara faces the imminent danger of a Syrian brand of
Vietnam-style protracted war that wrecks havoc on the home front –
an insurmountable political liability no Turkish politician can afford.
http://www.armenianlife.com/2012/10/17/is-syria-fast-becoming-turkey%E2%80%99s-vietnam/