Middle East Trump makes way for Turkey operation against Kurds in Syria

Could we make the border next to Israel? They have seaports and are unlikely to screw them over.
That's about the best shot they'd have, but even then, being landlocked vastly increases costs for basic goods.

It would probably actually be more useful to both Israel and a hypothetical Kurdistan to try to carve off a chunk of southern Lebanon to give Kurdistan a port on the Med, and make it harder for Hezbollah to infiltrate Israel via a common border.

Looking at a map, the best bet for this would be Israel giving up a little of the Golan Heights to this Kurdistan, while helping take enough of southern Lebanon to give Kurdistan the port of Tyre. Unfortunately, most Kurdish areas are in northern Syrian and Iraq, so unless you basically forced Syria to give up all of it's western and southern areas that border Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel, the whole exercise is a non-starter.
 
That's about the best shot they'd have, but even then, being landlocked vastly increases costs for basic goods.

It would probably actually be more useful to both Israel and a hypothetical Kurdistan to try to carve off a chunk of southern Lebanon to give Kurdistan a port on the Med, and make it harder for Hezbollah to infiltrate Israel via a common border.

Looking at a map, the best bet for this would be Israel giving up a little of the Golan Heights to this Kurdistan, while helping take enough of southern Lebanon to give Kurdistan the port of Tyre. Unfortunately, most Kurdish areas are in northern Syrian and Iraq, so unless you basically forced Syria to give up all of it's western and southern areas that border Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel, the whole exercise is a non-starter.

Uh, it's pretty obvious that the most rational port for Kurdistan would be one in the central Cilician coast of Turkey.
 
Well it's been about thirty years since we last stabbed the Kurds in the back. It was probably overdue.

As for a war without end, that's not necessarily the case. The main idea would be that the United States can ensure that the Kurdish areas in Northeast Syria get some sort of federalization or other guarantees from the Government of Syria (and their Russian backers) so that Syria and Turkey can't gangbang them into oblivion as soon as the Americans leave. Plus it's not endless war like in Afghanistan, it's literally that ISIS has been defeated and now to buck up his election chances Trump wants to withdraw. This isn't Vietnam in 1972-75 or Aghanistan since 2001, this is the US apparently being 'afraid' of Turkey and withdrawing in the face of Turkish... I'm not even sure... have they invaded the Rojava? Skirmishes in Cicilia is one thing, but invading Rojava is another.

I mean keep in mind Turkey did have incursions into Northern Iraq during the 90's and 00's and while I'm sure irksome for the Turks and Iraqi Kurds, it wasn't something that doomed Iraqi Kurdistan or got the United States drawn into a shooting war with Turkey, which is apparently what is being assumed will happen here. It's either complete withdrawal and abandonment.... or shooting war with Turkey.

That doesn't quite scan with me.
 
The discussion of potential independent Kurdistan without looking at a map makes the issue seem simpler than it is, so here:
kurds_distribution_in_mid_east_lg.jpg

First of, one look at the map already explains why Turkey, islamist or kemalist, was in general opposed to the idea - look at how much land are they set to potentially lose with it.
Secondly, a Kurdistan with access to the sea would need to take a major bite out of Turkish land, it's not really feasible without that.
Thirdly, we all know what a political stinker the mere suggestion of mass resettlements is in our times, even as a solution to the nastiest lasting conflict situations. That's another one that can't really be dodged.
What are you going to do with all the non-Kurds in the new Kurdistan? Particularly the large amount of them in the expected coastal access section.
 
Population resettlement would be necessary. It actually solved all the conflict between Greece and Turkey; it works more effectively than anything else as a strategy, it was popular in the early 20th century for a reason. Does it offend modern morality? Yes, but then so does my entire argument.

Hatay might need to become a small independent state. It is heavily Arab instead of Turkish, though, so it could also be integrated into Syria if the Syrian government had been settled at the same time.
 
Uh, it's pretty obvious that the most rational port for Kurdistan would be one in the central Cilician coast of Turkey.
I was addressing his belief that being adjacent to Israel would mitigate the lack of sea access, and had not seen your post when I made mine.

The map you showed would be...more in line with traditionally Kurdish held areas, and I can understand the reasoning behind it. My idea was focused on the hypothetical of bordering Israel, which led to the idea of carving off a bit of Lebanon to give the Kurds Tyre.
 
Population resettlement would be necessary. It actually solved all the conflict between Greece and Turkey; it works more effectively than anything else as a strategy, it was popular in the early 20th century for a reason. Does it offend modern morality? Yes, but then so does my entire argument.
Yeah, and that's only the beginning of the problem. Then comes the practical one - who gets resettled to where, and how do we get the "where" to agree and provide passable housing, public services and sooner rather than later, job market there for all the resettled people.
And then there is the fact that knowing the region and populations involved, there will be a bunch of insurgencies (or worse, hybrid wars), possibly long lasting ones, acting on their respective group's unhappiness with the abovementioned details, while the whole idea is to give USA less peacekeeping work in the region, not more.
And last but not least, it kind of ties into the military and population happiness issues, it's no secret that there is a disturbing amount of amateurs of red color among influential Kurdish organisations, and they would most likely become major power players in the Kurdish state's politics. That does not bode well for it's economic prosperity, and in turn, military capabilities. Sure, they may have half decent organisation and loyal troops, but that only goes so far without money, so they won't be Israel 2.0, certainly not within foreseeable future.
Hatay might need to become a small independent state. It is heavily Arab instead of Turkish, though, so it could also be integrated into Syria if the Syrian government had been settled at the same time.
Arab or not, i seriously doubt they are even remotely interested in being ruled by Assad and/or paying for Syria's post war reconstruction and general "uplifting" of the bulk of Syria that was relatively poor even before the war. Even if the issue of the former is settled, the second one may get even worse in the process.
 
Yeah, and that's only the beginning of the problem. Then comes the practical one - who gets resettled to where, and how do we get the "where" to agree and provide passable housing, public services and sooner rather than later, job market there for all the resettled people.
And then there is the fact that knowing the region and populations involved, there will be a bunch of insurgencies (or worse, hybrid wars), possibly long lasting ones, acting on their respective group's unhappiness with the abovementioned details, while the whole idea is to give USA less peacekeeping work in the region, not more.
And last but not least, it kind of ties into the military and population happiness issues, it's no secret that there is a disturbing amount of amateurs of red color among influential Kurdish organisations, and they would most likely become major power players in the Kurdish state's politics. That does not bode well for it's economic prosperity, and in turn, military capabilities. Sure, they may have half decent organisation and loyal troops, but that only goes so far without money, so they won't be Israel 2.0, certainly not within foreseeable future.

Arab or not, i seriously doubt they are even remotely interested in being ruled by Assad and/or paying for Syria's post war reconstruction and general "uplifting" of the bulk of Syria that was relatively poor even before the war. Even if the issue of the former is settled, the second one may get even worse in the process. I don't really have a dispute with your qualifications about a Kurdish state, just the observation that it wouldn't be any worse than the far more futile effort we've put into Iraq.


Well, as a general rule, that isn't really a problem, in most of the developing world the small countries substantially outperform the larger ones.
 
Well, as a general rule, that isn't really a problem, in most of the developing world the small countries substantially outperform the larger ones.
Because that's usually correlated with much lesser degree of heterogenity, less multiculturalism of the most dysfunctional kind, and less resulting loyalty/organisation/corruption problems.
However, even if these problems may keep Syria and Iraq from causing too much trouble, 2 other of the long term threats that would be on Kurdistan's borders, Turkey (especially after losing the Kurds) and Iran, are not heavily affected by such problems.
 
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Kurdistan, as a nation state, is non viable because of all the competent threats surrounding it.

The armies of Turkey and Iran are not the Arab armies that tried to destroy Israel. Kurdistan would have no hope of standing on its own, and I have to question why America should bleed for a state that wouldn’t be that strategically important in comparison to Turkey.
 
What do people want us to do here, shoot at the Turks? They’re NATO allies, and strategically important. The Kurds are neither. Makes the political calculation rather simple to my mind.
I would basically be as inconvenient as I could while sticking to the terms of the NATO alliance. Basically I would put my stuff there and dare them to shoot first. I'd also do what I can to get Turkey kicked out of NATO, because we really shouldn't have a dictator-controlled country as part of our alliance.
 
I would basically be as inconvenient as I could while sticking to the terms of the NATO alliance. Basically I would put my stuff there and dare them to shoot first. I'd also do what I can to get Turkey kicked out of NATO, because we really shouldn't have a dictator-controlled country as part of our alliance.
Why not just scrap NATO and make separate alliances? Not as if most of them do anything anyway.
 
Well, it seems one of the ways Trump is hindering Turkey is air space restrictions as of a few hours ago. So if the Turks want to have a go at the Kurds, they won't be able to rely on air power to do it. That significantly alters the equation in an fighting.

It looks more and more like Trump isn't throwing the Kurds under the bus, but rather tilting equation so offensive operations against the SDF are likely to be more costly and difficult than Turkey is probably equipped for.
 
@StormEagle I don't think Turkler would actually stand against the United States if we demonstrated a willingness to change alliances according to our interests. Turkey may be a stronger country, but at the moment it's far less reliable than a Kurdistan would be, because it's acted contrary to US interests both vis-a-vis Syria and Russia.
 
It looks more and more like Trump isn't throwing the Kurds under the bus, but rather tilting equation so offensive operations against the SDF are likely to be more costly and difficult than Turkey is probably equipped for.
Turkey will use the various ''pro-democracy rebels'' from Afrin and Idlib enclaves as ground troops, supported by Turkish artillery, to bleed Kurds white in the border areas, just like they did during Afrin offensive. Lack of air power would hurt, but since it would be mostly Arab rebels dying, it wouldn't matter much to the Turks.
 
@StormEagle I don't think Turkler would actually stand against the United States if we demonstrated a willingness to change alliances according to our interests. Turkey may be a stronger country, but at the moment it's far less reliable than a Kurdistan would be, because it's acted contrary to US interests both vis-a-vis Syria and Russia.

Would potentially driving Turkey into the Russian camp be all that good an idea?
 
Turkey is not really in any camp. Erdogan has delusions of grandeour and will trade favors with anyone who can aid him in his grand dream of returning Turkey to former glory, but will not commit himself to any camp as that could be seen as submission. It might have something to do with being kicked in the balls by horse, years ago.
 

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