warmongering or operation desert stormy

Though we are just four months into 2018 and we don’t have comparable figures for comparison from the UK and France, as opposed to the fifteen-thousand Syrian migrants fleeing their war-torn country that the US helped resettle in 2016, this year the US has only welcomed eleven.
It strikes me as beyond cruel insult in this proxy war that millions are caught in the middle of to condemn the killing of civilians and respond by raining down death and destruction yet offer those trying to escape the violence little to no support or recourse—not to mention arming opposing regional factions and increasing sectarian strife. Targeting sites linked to the Assad regime’s chemical weapons programme, military facilities were avoided to prevent the possibility of collateral damage to Russian assets. Twice the amount of missiles were used in this mission compared to last April’s response to a chemical weapons attack. Some two thousand American troops are stationed in opposition Kurdish-controlled northern Syria—for good measure. This stunt also happens to coincide with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s former boss who was fired by Trump publishing a rather damning bombshell account of his dealings with Trump and under the direction of the independent counsel, the FBI has raided the offices of one of Trump’s lawyers, possibly securing irreconvertibly incriminating evidence of wrong-doing behind the campaign and the election.

agent orange

Breaking with the long-standing tradition that the first foreign visit of a US president is either to neighbouring Canada or Mexico, and amidst the milieu of garnering the displeasure with Turkey over the decision to arm Kurdish rebels in Syria—though despots can always find common-ground, especially when goons can be dispatched to rough up the rabble—I wonder if Dear Leader might not consider foregoing his visit to the Middle East and Italy.
Dear Leader could blame anyone he cares to or make up any excuse and I feel the world might give him a pass for sparing us all the embarrassment and diplomatic damage. The audacious hectoring of presuming to usher in peace in the region (by means of a speech on religious tolerance delivered to audience in a primarily Islamic country excluded from the proposed travel ban due to private business interests) and the rather pushy demand for an audience with the Pope was already edging away from the bounds of normalcy, but now the stakes are much higher—having demonstrated how the regime is willing to risk alienating both political and religious leaders with poor messaging that betrays a fundamental and profound ignorance of statecraft and diplomacy. The partner state’s intelligence that was ill-advisedly boasted about to Russia is likely one of entourage’s whistle-stops. The world has already seen quite enough of Dear Leader’s abominable tantrums and nothing constructive could conceivable come of this excursion.

sınırı

Whilst arguably an improvement to the mine-field that formerly separated Turkey from Syria (an arrangement drawn up by our old ombudsmen friends Sykes and Picot from the vanquished Ottoman Empire), the world seemed to take far less exception with the wall now half completed that effectively cordons off the war-torn region than with Dear Leader’s imaginary one. Once the nine hundred kilometre long border is secure, the wall will be the world’s second longest structure, second only to the Great Wall of China. The circumstances are very different on each frontier but it’s strange how both dictators couch the threats from the barbarians at the gate with the same language and from the characterisations, one would think neighbours could be easily transposed.

asia-minor or turkish delight

The middle of next month (16 May 2016) marks the centenary of the signing secret pact known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement that carved up the Middle East in an arbitrary fashion, drawing the modern borders of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Palestine. Covert negotiations went on for the previous five months, in anticipation of the defeat of the Ottoman Empire by the Triple Entente, Britain, France and the assenting third party, Imperial Russia, but pivotal battles of the Great War were yet to be fought.
The outcome on the fields of Amiens, Ancre, Marne and Megiddo did not negatively diminish the apportioned claims of the UK for Jordan, Palestine and strategic points along the Mediterranean and for France, the Levant, represented by the eponymous ambassadors—however, Imperial Russia, who had been promised Constantinople, the straits of the Bosporus and Armenia (but consulted in matters as much as the Arabs or the Persians were) lost their territory due to the intervening destabilising of the Bolshevik Revolution that transpired in November of the following year. This forfeiture allowed the other powers to proceed with a second wave of colonialism and though the resulting architecture has fuelled overwhelming sectarian strife but did also engender a framework of protections, tolerance for minorities in the region. This imperfect and shaky geopolitical architecture endured as a legacy for nearly a century and though the formal lines in the sand still exist, what precious little about the Agreement that was sheltering and steadying was dismantled with violence and prejudice by the Cosplay Caliphate. The Agreement only came to light thanks to a leak from the Bolshevik brokers to the newspaper Pravda, in retaliation for having their claim denied, and later picked up by the Manchester Guardian. The revelation led to massive uprisings in the Middle East as World War I itself drew to a close, which was countered with damage-control measures that were not more flattering than the secret partitioning , the buzzards circling, to begin with.

zeugma or void-fraction

Stars and Stripes’ article reporting on the border that Turkey shares with the Levant is described with the same characteristic fright as many outlets are reserving for the situation at the US border with Mexico. Western officials are very concerned about this NATO march’s ability to secure a border designated as porous, as it has been used as a point of entry (and egress) for militants to join in arms the insurrection against the governments of Syria and Iraq. The border itself is described as a thousand kilometer expanse of rugged wilderness—with a few population centres straddling the shallow basin of the River Euphrates that marks the boundary. This area at the crossroads of several trade routes has held a pivotal position and hosted a variety of people throughout history, and one of those population centres is the ancient city of Gaziantep, which has over a million residents from all sorts of backgrounds and confessions and also hosts an outpost of the US military and a missile battery.

In antiquity, Gaziantep (Antep) was also the site at Zeugma (literally a yoke, as in a yoked ox) of the famed bridge of boats that spanned the river. Crossing here allows certain elements to enter the Mideast without detection, and according to some estimates, ten-thousand foreign volunteers have defected in this way. With an aside of humility, NATO leaders seem to be slowly recognising that sectarian strife is not a matter to be settled by Western meddling, though staunching the current of insurgents and materiel is important. That hint of humbleness becomes a bit more feigned in the next breath, with criticisms volleyed at the Turkish government for tolerating “jihadists” and generally provoking unrest in Syria. Tensions between Turkey and Syria presently stem from Turkey’s European aspirations, secular government and NATO-membership (which it once invoked against Syrian aggressions, threatening the bring the wrath of the whole organisation down on its neighbour) but the discord has older roots—significantly, Syrian rancor over the self-annexation of the Republic of Hatay (from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) coinciding with the outbreak of WWII. The former sanjak seceded from French occupied Syria, proclaimed independence and voted to accede to Turkey, because of a greater ethnic kinship to that country. That vignette is told with a similar parallel construction to another current event. The concern, which is slowly garnering more attention as the border region is surreptitiously fortified and drones are on the beat, is over the so-called “returnees,” the veterans (gazi) of these battles coming back via the same route to Europe. Regardless of success or failure in establishing a Caliphate, Western leaders fear that the violence will spread, coming home to roost. What do you think? Has NATO been too neglectful of this front and possible breach?