Turkey’s Risky Syrian Game
By Tassos Symeonides (RIEAS Academic Advisor)
Turkey’s
muscle flexing vis-a-vis Syria provides the newest fuse for the
perennially unstable Middle East. While the Syrians rushed to offer a
rare apology to Ankara over an errant mortar round that killed five
Turkish civilians near the common border, the Turks quickly retaliated
with an artillery barrage against Syrian military targets deep into its
neighbor’s territory.
Now the Turkish parliament has authorized the administration of PM Erdogan to launch cross-border military action if need arises. Erdogan is treating this license as both a threat against the beleaguered Syrian leader Bashar Assad and further tangible proof that he, and not the generals, is calling the domestic and foreign shots.
Now the Turkish parliament has authorized the administration of PM Erdogan to launch cross-border military action if need arises. Erdogan is treating this license as both a threat against the beleaguered Syrian leader Bashar Assad and further tangible proof that he, and not the generals, is calling the domestic and foreign shots.
The Syrian case carries all the usual
convoluted and explosive elements of a Middle East sectarian conflict.
Assad, an Alawite, is confronted by Sunni rebels who maintain friendly
contacts with the simmering Sunni rebellion in Iraq. At the same time,
the powerful Hizb’allah terror organization that dominates Lebanon’s
domestic socio-political balance has chosen the Assad side and is
reported sending fighters and supplies to help Damascus.
Aside from above locus, Israel and
Jordan are having their own security concerns because of the Syrian
conflagration and would loath to see a foreign intervention in Syria
that does not agree with their strategic interests.
Meantime, Erdogan (a Sunni) sees the
Syrian conflict as a unique opportunity to increase Turkey’s influence
in the region and raise Turkey to a command position capable of
realizing strategic goals that were simply unattainable in the past.
The Turkish PM feels particularly
emboldened these days as his continuing conflict with the army
establishment has tilted in his favor and more generals have landed in
jail. But, at the same time, he needs to tread carefully as the Assad
government has withdrawn its forces from most of the Turkish-Syrian
border, thus allowing the Syrian-based Kurds, who continue their
perennial bloody confrontation with Turkey, a literal free hand in
meeting a possible Turkish incursion with considerable force.
Furthermore, the Turks need to take into
serious account Iran’s full support for the tottering Assad. Iranian
“advisers” are reported directing many of the Syrian regime’s military
actions and supplying the Syrian military forces with arms and other
material.
The Iranian presence is a potential
bombshell that would almost certainly go off in case of a Turkish
military action — something that would immediately mobilize Israel,
already tense about the Syrian situation and Iran’s role in it, not to
mention Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Responding to sporadic errant
Syrian shelling in the Golan Heights, Israel staged a surprise
mobilization exercise last month that brought thousands of troops to the
Golan Heights to maneuver and use live fire during the drill.
Turkey’s war dance is also raising
concerns in NATO capitals. Theoretically, Turkey, in case of another
border incident, may invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty that stipulates
that any NATO member coming under attack has the liberty to call upon
all other members for help. (This is the same infamous Article 5 that
NATO has refused to recognize as having application in the case of
Turkey threatening war in the Aegean against Greece).
Erdogan and his deceivingly amiable
foreign minister Davutoglou have pursued a proactive policy of expanding
Turkey’s influence in regional affairs, something that is now
jeopardized both by the so-called Arab Spring and the Syrian civil war.
Assad hasn’t collapsed as quickly as the other Arab dictators and that
has thrown a spanner into the innards of Turkish plans. For all the
disappointment this development has brought to the Erdogan-Davoutoglou
duo both these Turkish leaders realize that choosing the intervention
card can trigger a wider war with incalculable impact on Syria and
Turkey, not to mention the rest of the region.
Where is Greece standing in all of this?
Unfortunately, Athens, caught in the maelstrom of its own
socio-economic catastrophe, has simply no diplomatic or any other reach
and has been reduced to a mere spectator of Turkey’s Syrian sabre
rattling and bold maneuvering. If experience is any yardstick, the Greek
leaders will resort to the usual grandiloquent press releases calling
for peace, observance of international law, etc, and will keep their
fingers crossed in the hope that Turkey fumbles in this latest strategic
play — because any Turkish “victory” in Syria could almost
automatically increase Turkish pressure on Greek sovereignty in the
Aegean.
Source: rieas.gr
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