The shape of things to come, Syrian version

                                      A victim of the drone attack on a Homs academy. Photo source: SANA

 Conflict in Syria may deepen.  Although no one has claimed responsibility for this week's attack on the military academy in Homs, killing at least 90, the most logical candidate is Turkey, I think.  The attackers planned carefully and knew a lot about the academy: They struck it during a graduation exercise. Another logical possibility would be Iran.  But to plan such an attack in a few hours, so that it would coincide with Turkey’s effective declaration of war this week on the Syrian Democratic Forces, is too lucky to believe.  It might be good to know from where the drones flew.

If the attack was Turkish, then its most likely rationale is to pave the way for a ground invasion. The Syrian Army is already unpaid and demoralized, and wiping out its young officers would set it back for years. Ground invasions take months to set up, so one wonders cynically if Turkey rather welcomed the suicide killing as an excuse to get the ball rolling by taking out the Homs academy.  Indeed, note that Turkey attacked less than a week after its chief antagonist in the US Senate, Bob Menendez, was forced out as chair of the foreign affairs committee by a long-brewing corruption scandal.

Turkey’s partial invasions of northern Syria, going back to at least 2019, haven’t stopped violence in Turkey by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). So Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may believe that only a permanent buffer zone – something like 30 kilometers deep – could curtail the PKK, by denying the terrorists a safe harbor. That would be the ostensible reason for the invasion.  Of course, northeast Syria also has oilfields.

The question is how the Americans should respond. We already have the specter of one NATO ally shooting down a drone of another, and a ground invasion would almost certainly lead to clashes with US troops; about 900 are in eastern Syria.  I suppose that the Americans and the Turks would come to an advance understanding.  One possibility is that the Americans could withdraw on the agreement that the Turks after invading would contain ISIS. As a true-blue isolationist, former President Donald Trump would do that.  But I’m not sure that Biden would, because I see no strong reason why the Turks would bother to bottle up ISIS for long after they take over the oil fields. I think that the Americans and the Turks might agree to share power, with the Americans confining themselves to fighting ISIS.

Two questions remain. Who would govern Syria? I suppose that Syria President Bashar Assad, or his successor, would have to answer to Iran, Russia, and Turkey. Instant chaos.  The Americans and the Israelis would certainly encourage Turkey to block Iran.

And…what would happen to America’s faithful Kurdish allies, who spearheaded the fight against the Islamic State in Syria? Turkey wouldn’t permit them to stay. Its foreign minister designed assassinations of YPG leaders while heading the spy agency MIT. (As you know, despite American denials, Turkey regarded the YPG, the People’s Protection Units, as the Syrian counterpart of the PKK. A YPG leader ran the Syrian Democratic Forces for the Americans.) Perhaps the Americans could set them up in Kurdistan, but the Iraqis would object to any loss of sovereignty. I think that the Syrian Kurds have the most to lose in this saga. 

My two cents' worth, not discounted for Syrian hyperinflation. -- Leon Taylor, Baltimore, tayloralmaty@gmail.com