​New dynamics in Syria and Turko-American relationship

TURKEY - In Brief 20 Dec 2018 by Atilla Yesilada

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The agenda is moving at a speed faster than light for me to write the Big Picture piece I’ve been yearning for. Anyway, there is no Big Picture left anymore, Trump has smashed everything into bits and pieces. His sudden and unannounced decision to pull US troops out of Syria, while still subject to hectic debate with the national security hierarchy and allies, completely reshuffles the Syrian War and Turkey’s position within it. While Turkey appears free to slap around Syrian Kurds at will, it is not that simple. Moreover, new glitches develop each day in the Turko-American relationship.I stick to my assessment that Turkish political risk premium is doomed to rise gradually until end-March elections. What happens in Syria when GI Joes leave? Let me go on record with a brave prediction that Trump will be persuaded by saner minds in his administration and the Congress that if the true enemy is Iran, abandoning Syria and the PYD-YPG Kurdish ally is the silliest thing to do. However, I don’t theorize on gut feelings and conduct the rest of this treatise as if Pentagon will be out of Syria in 60-100 days, as announced. Turkey is now ostensibly free to move into North East Syria to disrupt Syrian Kurdish state building and occupy key towns to break the contagious PKK supply line stretching from Qandil Mountains to Manbij, West of Euphrates. Unlike in Afrin, where pulling back was the right thing to do, Kurds will defend their homelands valiantly, but in the absence of any air defense and heavy armor, and given the fact that they barely have a majority in the areas they control (Arabs and Turkmenis probably outnumber them), at the end Turkish Forces ought to prevail. As a cou...