printThe Syrian, Kurdish, Turkish realignment is not “a moment of geopolitical whiplash.” But rather, a return—we hope—to regional politics in the Middle East.
America thinks that it must and can be a decisive force for good in the Middle East. However, the region’s players march to their own drumbeat. Always have.
in fact, the move had been in the works for more than a year. Fearing U.S. abandonment, the Kurds opened a back channel to the Syrian government and the Russians in 2018, and those talks ramped up significantly in recent weeks, American, Kurdish and Russian officials told The Associated Press.
[Via AP]
In Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East 1789-1923, Efraim and Inari Karsh marshal prodigious scholarship to show that, “Twentieth-century Middle Eastern history is essentially the culmination of long-standing indigenous trends, passions, and patterns of behavior rather than an externally imposed dictate.” The trend continues.
Keep it regional. The Kurds are safest aligning with regional power players against Turkey.
* Image courtesy of VOA.
UPDATED (1/1/021): Bashar al-Assad is one wise Alawite traditionalist. But America’s foreign policy and Pentagon primitives are forever striving to remove him and install a less traditional, more democratic man of the people (namely an Islamist Jihadi).
Assad on neoliberalism:
The good doctor has spoken. pic.twitter.com/rwbRIhGEou
— Richard?Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) December 22, 2020