Washington and Ankara to Moscow:  No coverage for the battles with the Syrian army

Written by Nasser Kandil,

The Meeting at the level of the Chiefs of Staff of the pivotal US, Russian, and the Turkish armies in the Syrian war provides an opportunity to ask questions about the future which will be drawn by this meeting, which is supposed that it is the highest level of the tripartite communication among the countries which their consensus on the engagement rules is enough to change the image of the war and its course. There is no force that has the ability to disable what their understanding will lead to. Russia is crucial in its work within its understanding with Syria and Iran. While from the outside of Turkey and America there are no international or regional players from the same party who are able to change the general destination of the war as it is drawn by the American and the Turkish along with the Saudi and the Israeli.

The previous events of collision were neglected either for the lower levels as on the day of the US bombardment of the Syrian sites in Deir Al Zour, or to score points and draw the consequences including the risk of escalation, as when Turkey dropped the Russian fighter. Therefore the risk of Turkish-Kurdish collision in Manbej would have one of two ways if it was not granted the appropriate opportunity to change the engagement rules, and thus drawing strategies, this is done by the commanders of the armies. As in the  Russian-US meeting contrary to the doctrine of Pentagon and the CIA which was announced against the President Donald Trump to deal with Russia as an enemy that the communication with it required the resignation of a figure as important as the Advisor of the National Security. So it is US-Russian meeting imposed by the developments on America by accepting the change in the governing rules of the military relation with Russia in the Syrian war. The type of the meeting, its including strategies, and its stemming from the equation of the impossibility of the Turkish-Kurdish cooperation provided by the events of Manbej required drawing new war rules.

The Russian task was specific; it is the axioms required by every strategy; identifying the enemy, the ambiguous directions, and resolving the roles of those who assembled for treating the forces classified as friend in a non-embarrassing way, but without driving the war outside its course in favor of the privacy’s accounts which must be considered. The meeting has resolved classifying ISIS and Al Nusra as enemy unlike the Syrian army, it resolved considering the factions which have the opposition banner among those whose their relation with Al Nusra front is confused, moreover it has resolved considering the allies of the Syrian army in the war on ISIS and Al Nusra as friends even if this announcement was not desirable, because it is embarrassing. Therefore,  they are not mentioned by their names in the military fighting maps, but the Syrian army is mentioned on its behalf and on the behalf of its allies, but most importantly is to consider the fight against the Syrian army outside any coverage by those who are assembled.

This change imposed by the need to activate the war on ISIS in Raqqa by America with the inability to assemble the Kurds and the Turks in one bank on one hand, and the progress of the Syrian army to have control over the engagement lines toward Raqqa on the other hand does not abolish that the gray US position toward the formulas of the political settlement in Syria is continuous, even if it paves the way for the US-Syrian normalization at several levels. This new event does not mean the US commitment to become a friend of Iran or Hezbollah or an opponent to Israel. America will not change and will not alter its general policies regarding what is related to Israel, but like the way of the speech of Jeffry Feltman two days ago “ In Lebanon it is not allowed that Hezbollah has weapons, but we do admit that it is not a factor for the destabilization in it”.

Washington and Ankara will seek to fund, arm, and equip the armed groups, and to convince Saudi Arabia to do so, but this time under the ceiling of reserving a bigger seat in the war on Al Nusra in the northern of Syria and on ISIS and Al Nusra in its southern and middle, and if necessary to coordinate with the Syrian army in Turkish-Kurdish collaboration, provided that the Kurds and the Arab groups trained by America accelerate the requirements of the war in the northern of Syria against ISIS, and if necessary to have a direct Kurdish coordination with the Syrian army, and there is no objection  to have US Russian coordination that covers this battle and defines the cooperation framework with the Syrian army and its allies in the field.

This change may form shocking reading to some people if they remain thinking that the dynamism of the war stems from a reading that considers every talk about US or Turkish shift a kind of falling into deception, and which considers that the campaign led by Washington is characterized with malice and the support, without reading the effect of the subsequent inability of the capacitates of that campaign, as when the destroyer USS avoided the Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz. The inability and the narrow choices drove the American to the fields which he does not want to reach. The equation of ISIS’s defeat is a challenge set up by the administration of Trump to win its internal battles with external victory. It becomes a challenge to Pentagon as a concerned party to achieve that goal, if its achievement was possible individually it is good, otherwise to find the suitable ways to make alliances. The White House will not interfere to turn the scale of a choice to another, but the facts impose themselves, either to wage a war as the war of Iraq which the Pentagon refused to involve in it, or a change in the alliances that recognize the facts in their lower limit, where the Pentagon knows how to deal with such Antalya Meeting and its items.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,