Erdogan Tears up US Turkish Policy. US Pullback from Syria In Flux…..
12 January 2019
12 January 2019
LATEST:
A US-led coalition spokesman reported just this morning that the process of the US military withdrawal from Syria has begun.
Residents near the border crossings said they had not seen any large-scale movements of US ground forces.
A Pentagon spokesman said later that the withdrawal taking place now is of military equipment not troops.
US National Security Adviser John Bolton was armed with a compromise proposal on instructions from President Donald Trump when he arrived in Ankara on Tuesday, January 8 - only to be roundly snubbed.
President Tayyip Erdogan refused to receive him and not only him but even General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff and James Jeffrey, Trump’s special adviser on Syria and the war on ISIS.[pictured below]
Two days earlier, Bolton had made what Erdogan called “a grave mistake” by insisting that the US troop withdrawal from Syria depended on a firm commitment from Turkey to fight ISIS and not attack the Kurds.
The security adviser ruled out “an arbitrary point for the withdrawal as President Obama did in Afghanistan. The timetable flows from policy decisions that need to be implemented,” he said.
The US compromise proposal is revealed here for the first time here.
It was to permit Turkish forces to remain in northern Syria and move around freely so long as they stayed out of the enclaves inhabited by Kurds or controlled by their YPG militia.
This ban applied also to the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). But Bolton was not able to deliver it.
While he, General Dunford and Jeffrey were on their way to the presidential office in Ankara, they were abruptly informed that, instead of the president, they would see the presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin.
And rather than communicating the US plan, they were forced to hear Erdogan’s dictates read out by his minion.
They were told in no uncertain terms that all the bases the US army was leaving must be handed over immediately to the Turkish army.
It was Erdogan’s intention, they were told, to assert control over all parts of north-eastern Syria.
In Ankara, therefore, Bolton experienced the loud crash of the painstaking strategy put together in the past five months by Jeffrey for the areas vacated by US troops to be handed over calmly on the strength of consensual US-Russian-Turkish-Syrian Kurdish understandings.
Intent also on preventing Russia from jumping the gun on these understandings and advancing prematurely on the bases formerly held by US forces, Washington gave the Turks the go-ahead for obstructive steps.
They also hoped to turn Ankara’s obsessive attention away from the hated Kurds.
This week saw the first consequences. On January 6, the Islamist coalition (Hay’at Tahrir a-Sham HTS),[pictured below] which Turkey backs with logistics and intelligence, seized the key town of Atareb in Aleppo province from a rival Syrian rebel group, at the end of a week-long campaign to seize north-western Syria.
This battled ended in the HTS gaining control of security in this provincial town while its subsidiary, the Syrian Salvation Government, took over the management of civilian, judicial and municipal functions.
By this operation, Ankara effectively ripped up the Russian-Turkish pact concluded last October for north-western Syria, whereby rebel factions including HTS moved their heavy weapons out of a 15-20km wide buffer zone encircling rebel-held Idlib, Syria’s largest province.
The HTS is now moving in on the entire north-west, targeting strategic infrastructure and grabbing control of the trade crossings and stretches of major highways. The Russians, who abstained from aerial attacks on the Aleppo region for some months, this week went back to air strikes for curtailing the Islamist group’s push into this area of Russian influence.
Washington has another major interest in keeping ties with Ankara on an even keel, namely, to stop the $2.5bn deal for Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defence missiles from going through.
Up until this week, the Turks stood firmly by the deal, promising to be the first member of NATO to integrate advanced Russian hardware in its armoury.
However, on Sunday, January 6, the first sign of hesitancy appeared in an announcement by Ismail Emir, head of Turkey’s Defence Industry, that a US technical team was due in Ankara in the coming weeks “to express specific concerns over the purchase, particularly with regard to the flight safety of the US F-35 aircraft.”
In the light of these concerns, he said, Turkey would use the Russian system as a “stand alone” equipment, without integrating it with other weaponry or radar systems.
“The system we will use will have its own radar, own threat-detection and own tracking system,” he said, describing “an architecture that won’t be integrated with other systems.”
Ismail Emir added that Turkey would introduce its own software and identification of the friend-or-foe system to the S-400s. “The Russians understand this, because it’s about the sovereignty of a country.”
Turkey has meanwhile also launched negotiations with the US for the sale of $3.5bn worth of US Patriot air defence systems.
But on Tuesday, all these considerations and actions abruptly collapsed when Erdogan decided to fob off with a lowly official the top US presidential advisers who came to Ankara for a scheduled meeting with him.
The Turkish president, who is intent on dominating northern Syria while also clobbering the Kurds, may find he has bitten off more than he can chew.
After all, neither the Americans nor the Russians want to see Turkey ruling all northern Syria. Either or both may show him the whip.
Trump and Netanyahu Veer out of Sync on Iran……
12 January 2019
12 January 2019
The dispute ongoing in the White House over the timeline for the US military exit from Syria is weighing heavily on Preside Donald Trump’s relations with Middle East powers – especially Israel.
The president’s national security council and its head John Bolton are working hard to extend the timeline for implementing the president’s decision.
Bolton is thus putting his own standing in the White House on the line.
It is possible that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan had this in mind, when he snubbed Bolton by refusing to receive him on Monday, hoping to pin this “failure” on the visiting the security adviser and so cut short his career.
Bolton’s talks with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu were not particularly fruitful either, although they shared common ground on Syria.
However, the American visitor could not say for sure how far the Trump administration would back Israel’s operations against Iranian targets in Syria; nor could he offer a timeline for the US exit.
For now, Bolton said, it was being delayed until the Turkish military threat on the Syrian Kurds was resolved.
But an indefinite stay was not contemplated.
The main complicating factor now is the widening gap between President Trump and PM Netanyahu for the handling of the Iranian presence in Syria and Iraq.
For Netanyahu, evicting Iran’s presence from Syria is the crux of his military and diplomatic strategy.
Trump is at odds with this perception. He wants to keep the two campaigns separate.
The war on Iran should be conducted through economic and diplomatic measures for bringing the ayatollahs regime inside Iran under pressure and forced to return to the negotiating table, he believes.
Iran’s intervention in Syria, Iraq and other Middle East lands like Yemen should be set aside as part of America’s overall policy for those countries.
In a word, the US president does not believe that the campaign against Iran will be decided on the battlefields of Syria, Iraq or Yemen, and is against getting US armed forces involved in those faraway arenas.
In a word, the US president does not believe that the campaign against Iran will be decided on the battlefields of Syria, Iraq or Yemen, and is against getting US armed forces involved in those faraway arenas.
For him, the preferred option is to reach out for local understandings with Tehran, or even military cooperation in limited arenas, quite separately from the comprehensive push against the Islamic regime in Tehran.
Netanyahu is diametrically opposed to the Trump view, although, for obvious reasons, he never says so in public.
He sees grave peril rising on Israel’s doorstep which is embodied in Iran’s ongoing recruitment and training of tens of thousands of Shiite soldiers in Iraq and Syria – including even Syrian Sunni groups – under Tehran’s direct or indirect command.
Failing action by the US and Israel to crush this peril, Netanyahu believes that the wider contest against the regime in Tehran will not bring the results desired by the US president.
Reliable sources report that Trump-Netanyahu dissonance on Iran came to the fore in the first week of December over the IDF’s Northern Shield operation for destroying Hizballah’s cross-border tunnels.
This operation is incidentally still ongoing far from the news headlines, It was launched in consequence of – and the day after - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Netanyahu met in Brussels on December 3.[pictured above]
For Trump, this was a small-scale, localised operation.
He firmly resisted all Israel’s efforts to deal with the wider issue of the pact between Lebanese President Michel Aoun and Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah, although it meant that the Lebanese national army was in the pocket of Iran’s unfettered Lebanese proxy along with US-supplied arms, and that Beirut’s banks paid no penalties for helping Tehran beat US sanctions.
The prime minister’s assertion on January 3 - that the US would take care of the economic war on Tehran, leaving the military side to Israel - was frowned on by Trump.
He directed Bolton to ask Netanyahu to clarify exactly what he meant.
US and Russia Put Israel on the Spot: You’re on Your Own against Iran in Syria…..
12 January 2019
12 January 2019
Instead of being enhanced, Israel’s security situation vis-â-vis Iran in Syria took a steep downward turn in the two weekend conversations Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu held – first with Russian President Vladimir Putin on January 5 and then with visiting US national security adviser John Bolton on January 6.
As far as Putin was concerned, Moscow has done enough to keep Iranian forces away from the borders of Israel and Jordan and he could not say what more he could do without jeopardising Russian interests in Syria.
He refused to consider granting the Israeli air force more leeway for operating over Syria - even in close coordination with the Russian command on the spot.
The Russian president then went back to accusing the Israeli Air Force in the same vein as his defence ministry - namely, that Israel must stop using civilian flights as cover for its operations over Syria against the Russian and Syrian air defence batteries guarding key sites in Syria.
That accusation was first heard from Russian defence officials after Syrian missiles shot down the Russian IL-20 spy plane on September 1.
It was repeated on December 28, two days after Israeli warplanes flying over Lebanon hit three Iranian targets embedded in Syrian military basesaround Damascus.
The Russians claimed that this Israeli tactic endangered two civilian aircraft coming in to land in Beirut and Damascus.
Due to the all-consuming campaign in Israel for the April 9 election, the change in the Trump administration’s attitude as well as Moscow’s drew little notice.
National Security Adviser John Bolton told reporters in the aircraft bringing him to Israel that before the US withdraws from Syria, “it will make sure that the defence of Israel and our other friends in the region is absolutely assured and take care of those who fought with us against ISIS and other terrorist groups.”
But the language changed after Bolton sat down with Netanyahu on Sunday, January 6.
Addressing a joint press conference in Jerusalem, he said: “The US backs Israel’s right to self-defense. The Trump administration will continue to work with Israel to counter the continuing threat of Iran’s quest for deliverable nuclear weapons.”
Turning to the prime minister, Bolton added: “A nation’s ability to defend itself is the ultimate sovereignty. Any nation inside or outside the region who doubts US support for Israel’s ability to defend itself had better think again.”
What President Donald Trump’s security adviser was telling the Israeli government was that Israel can only count on US assistance if it acts in its own self-defence.
Trump himself laid out this policy on December 27 when he said: “Israel does a fine job of defending itself thanks to aid from the United States, and will be good after US troops leave Syria.”
He then said: “I spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, I told Bibi, you know we give Israel 4.5 billion dollars a year. And they are doing very well at defending themselves.”
Explicitly addressing the new situation, Netanyahu told a meeting of IDF special operations officers and security executives: “Whereas the US is running the economic war against Iran, Israel is left to take care of the military campaign.”
Reliable sources note that few Israelis picked up on the change of strategy enforced on Israel by the two powers and so no one asked if Israel is really capable of “defending itself” alone against Iran and the armed proxies Tehran is massing in Syria.
As we all know, Israel's God will need to step in and finish this battle once it begins. It cannot be too far away now either?
“None of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand”.[Daniel 12;10]
Trump Has Yet to Decide If the US Air Force Leaves Syria with the Troops……
12 January 2019
12 January 2019
A critical question was left unanswered when US National Security Adviser John Bolton flew out of Israel after his talks with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday January 7:
Will the US Air Force contingents in Syria be withdrawn along with the US troops?
Netanyahu asked Bolton whether the undertaking he had received from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during his visit to Israel last April was still in force.
It was agreed then that the US Air Force would grant Israeli air and/or other operations in Syria air cover if necessary, and Israel would reciprocate if American forces in Syria needed military back-up.
However, in the interim, President Donald Trump announced he was pulling US troops out of Syria, leaving Jerusalem uncertain as to whether the Pompeo-Netanyahu understanding still stood.
Netanyahu wanted to find out if an American air force presence would remain in the Syria arena after the pull-out.
But Bolton did not have the answer to that question, either because he was being cagey or honestly didn’t know.
Turkey shares Israel’s concerns on this score, but President Tayyip Erdogan [pictured above with Putin] waited for Bolton to arrive in Ankara the next day with General Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff and James Jeffrey, Trump’s special adviser on Syria and the war on ISIS.
As we mention above, he then refused to receive them. Erdogan insists on lumping the US-backed Syrian Kurdish militias in the same terrorist basket as ISIS and threatens to fight them both.
This approach is unacceptable to Washington.
If indeed US air force units are pulled out of Syria, Turkey will be forced to abandon air flights over the country for fear of being shot down by Russian warplanes or air defence missiles.
Israel, however, is committed to eliminating the Iranian military presence in Syria.
For five months, IDF warplanes circled around Syrian air space and directed its fire from Lebanese skies.
But at some point, it is realised in Washington and Moscow, Israel will have to go back to air strikes over Syria and take its chances against Russian air and missile responses.
Military and intelligence sources report that these decisions depend on another unknown quantity, which the Israelis put before Bolton in Jerusalem:
Are the Russians about to boost their Khmeimim Air Base near Latakia? Our sources report that the Americans sought an answer to this question by sending a US Navy Boeing P-8A Poseidon on a reconnaissance flight near Khmeimim on January 5.
The plane, which took off from the Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily, [pictured above] cruised some two hours near the Syrian coast at an altitude of 4,700 metres. It made several approaches to Khmeimim to pick up any signs of preparations for the intake of additional aircraft.
This data is critical for Washington as well as Jerusalem, because if Moscow is enlarging its air strength in Syria, this would point to a decision to take advantage of the exit of US forces as an opportunity to bring to a halt Israel’s air operations over Syria and to evict the Turkish military units which have taken up position in northern Syria.
The problem is that the data the Poseidon brought back was ambivalent and insufficient for determining Russia’s intentions.
In these circumstances, the question of whether to leave or withdraw the US air force presence from Syria bounces back onto the head of President Trump.
Developing…...
US Plans to Start Launching Air Operations in Syria from Three Iraqi Bases…..
12 January 2018
12 January 2018
The US military has told Iraqi army units and Shiite militias to quickly remove themselves from the strategic K1 Kaiwan Air Base in Kirkuk, asAmerican troops begin arriving from Syria and the western Iraqi province of Anbar.
K1 was used by the US army between its 2003 invasion of Iraq up until 2014, when the Kurdish Peshmerga took over.
However, three years later, the Iraqi army and Shiite militias overran the oil-city of Kirkuk and took the base where they have been stationed ever since.
On January 7, Nouri Hama-Ali, the Peshmerga commander of Pirde, near Kirkuk, said that the US command had asked Iraqi forces to leave K1 in order to bring in more troops and convert it into “a large military base.”
Reliable sources report that the possible redeployment of some US troops exiting Syria to the Kirkuk air base came up in talks US National Security Adviser John Bolton held in Jerusalem this week and was communicated by senior US officers and officials to heads of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.
Bolton indicated that the US air force may continue to operate in Syria from three Iraqi bases: Tallil Air Base at Nasiriyah [see map above] in the south, Ayn al-Assad in Anbar and K1.
However, officials who heard him speak said that he sounded as though the plan was in its preliminary stage and had not developed fully from general ideas bandied about in administration circles regarding America’s post-withdrawal activities in Syria.
Questions not yet addressed included which American command centre would manage those air units, how much authority it would have and whether the Baghdad government had agreed to the US launching a major air force campaign in Syria from Iraqi soil.
American officials suspect that when on December 30, Syrian President Bashar Assad suddenly authorised Iraqi forces to attack ISIS targets in Syria without waiting for permission from Damascus, he was acting on advice from Russia for pre-empting an American plan to mount operations in Syria from bases in Iraq.
This question brought US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on hisunannounced trip to Baghdad on Wednesday, January 9. The object of his meeting with Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi was to procure permissionto use the three bases for US aerial operations in Syria.
Pope Francis Continues to Promote Globalism…………….
12 January 2019
12 January 2019
It is quite clear from the favourable coverage received by Pope Francis from the liberal media, as opposed to the mostly negative press experienced by his more conservative predecessor, Benedict XVI, that he is an important player in the push for their agenda.
A powerful demonstration of how Francis advances that agenda is this pope’s support for globalist organisations, and his animosity toward anything that smacks of “nationalism.”
On Monday, Francis delivered his “state of the world” address to an audience that included diplomats from various nations, and he took the occasion to condemn nationalism and populism, and recent efforts to curb migration.
Nationalism is defined by globalists, not as the maintenance of nations, with sovereignty over their own affairs, but as a dangerous and racist position that inevitably leads to wars and dictators.
The spectre of Adolf Hitler is routinely trotted out as the perfect example of a “nationalist.”
Rather than respecting the sovereignty of nations, globalists see the nation-state as a relic of a by-gone age in which people took pride in their nation.
Instead of patriotism, these internationalists desire to see the reduction of national sovereignty, and the increased power of globalist organisations such as the United Nations, the European Union, the World Trade Organisation, and various multilateral trade deals.
Francis has clearly cast his lot with those who favour globalist structures.
In his speech he lamented that these internationalist structures “are experiencing a period of difficulty, with the resurgence of nationalistic tendencies.”
The pope spoke for an hour, and praised the efforts of the post-World War I League of Nations, but said it ultimately proved unable to contain the what he called the nationalist and populist movements that he argues caused World War II.
“The reappearance of these impulses today is progressively weakening the multilateral system,” Francis said.
Among the issues touched upon in his address were migration, nuclear weapons, and global warming.
He praised the Global Compact on Migration, adopted by the UN in Morocco last year, which essentially declared a “right” for migrants to move into any nation they wish.
The United States boycotted that meeting, and has rejected its declaration, and has been joined by several other nations, including Hungary, Italy, and Poland.
To the pope, less national sovereignty and more multilateralism is the solution to most of the problems of the world — or at least what he considers problems.
This pope has become a media star, pushing far left agendas, ignoring the latest evidence of global cooling, and the horrendous invasion of Europe by Islamorapist hordes.
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