Why The US Needs To Focus On Assad As Much As ISIS
Commentary Magazine Max Boot, Commentary Magazine Oct. 16, 2014, 3:04 PM
An ISIS militant (left) and Syria's President Bashar al-Assad [Twitter/Eric Gaillard/Reuters/Amanda Macias/Business Insider].
American officials are in high dudgeon about Turkey’s inaction to prevent the imminent fall of Kobani, a Kurdish-populated town in northern Syria, to the black-clad fanatics of ISIS. Given that Kobani is right across the border with Turkey, Ankara could presumably save the town simply by rolling its army across the frontier. But this President Erdogan refuses to do, even as ISIS edges closer to the center of town.
Why isn’t he doing more? Partly it’s because he doesn’t want to collaborate with the Syrian version of the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group which has battled the Turkish state for years. But partly it’s also because he doesn’t think there is any point in intervening against ISIS as long as President Obama isn’t willing to attack the root cause of the Syrian civil war–the Bashar Assad regime.
Erdogan deserves all the opprobrium he is getting for his inaction but, as the Washington Post editorialists astutely note, the U.S. doesn’t have the high moral ground here.
The U.S., they write, “is poorly placed to pass judgment, having stood aside for more than three years while 200,000 Syrians died, most at the hands of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Another 3 million have become refugees, including 1 million who have alighted in Turkey — which, adjusting for population, would be the equivalent for the United States of more than 4 million Mexicans streaming across the border.”
Moreover, the Obama administration is still refusing to create a no-fly zone over Syria as Erdogan and the moderate Syrian opposition are urging. This American failure is allowing Assad to take advantage of the anti-ISIS campaign the U.S. is conducting to focus his attacks on western parts of Syria which are held by the moderate opposition.
Instead of pointing fingers at Erdogan, American policymakers would be better advised to act on his advice to stop Assad as well as ISIS.
More from Commentary Magazine:
* Reform Conservatism: The Future of the Republican Party?
* Selective Memory and the CIA
* Historical Memory and the Rosenbergs
* Euros Bet on Obama Appeasing Iran
* NY Times Partially Vindicates Bush on WMD This article originally appeared at Commentary Magazine.
Copyright 2014. Follow Commentary Magazine on Twitter.
Read more: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/10/13/turkey-kobani-and-american-excuses/#ixzz3GLOgvE32
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