Is anyone else out there as outraged as I am that the Kurds continue to fight with dogged determination vs. ISIL’s Jihadis while Obama’s anti-ISIL “coalition” continues to all but abandon them? The Kurds have been fighting to hold Kobane, a city in Syria that ISIL is attacking, even though they have received almost no help from Obama’s coalition vs. ISIL. The Kurds are the only meaningful “boots on the ground” vs. ISIL, but they have so far received no meaningful strategic help from anyone in Obama’s “coalition.” In spite of receiving no heavy weaponry to assist them, the Kurds in Kobane have held out for weeks vs. ISIL and have apparently halted the ISIL advance in that city, according to Fox News (first link). The Turkish parliament voted almost two weeks ago to join the “coalition” against ISIL (second link), but have so far yet to fire a single bullet at ISIL even though ISIL fighters are literally knocking on the Turkish border at Kobane.
I’m sure every reader has seen TV news stories showing the stark picture of rows of Turkish tanks parked uselessly on the Syrian-Turkish border at Kobane, refusing to engage the ISIL forces. They sit there inert even though ISIL Jihadis are killing the Kurdish fighters who are opposing them and Turkey’s parliament voted to have the Turkish military join the coalition vs. ISIL. The refusal of Turkish tanks to engage the ISIL enemy that is right in their gun sights projects to the world an image of the Turkish military being in a state of utter cowardice. I’m sure the Turkish military is not at all cowardly, so the order for them to act like cowards and back-stabbers has to come from the highest echelons of Turkey’s government. Why are Turkey’s politicians abandoning the Kurds, a fellow ally in the “coalition” vs. ISIL? I’ve read reports that seek to explain Turkey’s refusal to engage ISIL as a bargaining effort over a no-fly zone, or a desire to actually have Kobane fall to ISIL so an independent Kurdistan won’t stretch all the way into Syria at a later date. Whatever the reason, Turkey is covering itself with shame in the eyes of the entire world by having the Turkish military passively assist ISIL by refusing to engage ISIL’s Jihadis literally in the gun sights of Turkey’s tanks. Think what “aid and comfort” the Turks are giving to ISIL fighters who can see the Turkish tanks and also see the Turkish tank crews have no backbone (or orders) to engage them?
Turkey’s craven game is already costing them and could cost them far dearer in the future. The third link cites rising Kurdish anger over Turkey’s sell-out of the Kurdish fighters in Kobane. Violent protests have erupted in Kurdish regions of Turkey which have already killed 31 people, including at least three Turkish policemen. As one source in that link is cited, there is a danger of an “urban bloodbath (in Turkey)”…if Kobane falls. Large demonstrations have also taken place among Germany’s one million Kurds (fourth link), with one protest numbering 20,000 in Dusseldorf. I’m just a layman of course, but I think Turkey is making a mistake of historic proportions. They were close to having an amicable alliance with Kurdistan with Turkish oil pipeline companies set to make excellent money transporting oil from Kurdistan to world markets. This agreement would have ended the simmering PKK Kurdish attacks in Eastern Turkey. Both Turkey and Kurdistan could have benefited immensely from such an arrangement, and the historic Kurdish enmity vs. Turkey would have faded. Instead, by openly abandoning Kurdish fighters to death and very likely defeat in Kobane unless something is done quickly, Turkey risks having a civil war erupt within its borders and having its nation follow Libya, Iraq and Yemen into internal chaos.
So what is Obama’s “coalition” doing? So far none of them are sending any ground troops to fight ISIL, and ISIL will continue to be on the offensive until ground troops are sent. Airplanes can attack targets, but no airplane can hold territory. Only ground troops can do that. The only ground troops so far are the Kurdish Peshmerga, whom I deeply admire for their courage in fighting ISIL with only light weaponry. The USA promised to send heavy weaponry to the Kurds long ago and Germany promised heavy weapons would reach Kurdistan by the end of September. A reporter embedded with Kurdish forces said on a cable TV network that he has seen little or no American and German heavy weaponry yet. The Iraqi army has all but disintegrated, and it will be hard-pressed to hold Baghdad now that ISIL forces are within a few miles of Baghdad’s outskirts. Where will the Iraqi army flee to next? Basra? The Iraqi army would likely have turned tail and run already except for reports that Iran has sent some its forces to stiffen the spines of the Iraqi army. The fifth link reports that in late-August, an Iranian armored division entered Iraq and took up position northeast of Baghdad in case they are needed. That sounds impressive, but when you read the specifications of that division’s tanks and armored vehicles, they are obsolete and far inferior to the American-made ISIL tanks captured from Iraqi forces.
What have the air forces of the “coalition” vs. ISIL been doing? France had a couple warplanes drop some bombs but they haven’t been heard from since. I suppose they are too busy sipping Cabernet and munching cheese to care any longer. The British have flown a few symbolic strikes vs. ISIL in Iraq, but nothing that matters much. Apparently, they fly to their targets in Iraq from an airfield in Cyprus, which means they have to fly practically over Kobane on the way to less-pressing targets. The British air force seems far too afraid to attack ISIL targets attacking Kobane. Perhaps helping Kurds in Kobane interfered with their mandatory afternoon teatime break. Australia weeks ago sent a few airplanes to the Persian Gulf and a couple of them actually dropped a bomb or two I heard. Saudi, UAE and Jordanian warplanes flew a few missions early in the air war, but have rarely been heard from since. Has Germany helped? Forget it! The US Air Force has launched a drizzle of occasional and widely-scattered attacks vs. ISIL, but no strategic bombing of ISIL has yet been done under Field Marshal Obama. The US Air Force has not contributed meaningfully to the strategic defense of Kobane yet. This effectively gives ISIL a virtual free pass to continue their advance. I watch CNN, Fox News and Al Jazeera America in following the “war” vs. ISIL, and the American retired generals interviewed on those networks have been damning in their commentaries about Obama’s air campaign. I watched a retired General McInerney state that Obama’s sending five strikes to the Kobane region was almost useless, but 1,000 strikes would have gotten the job done. A General Jack Keane (Retired) stated that “our level of effort in airstrikes is inadequate,” and the former Commandant of the US Marine Corps bluntly stated that the air attacks didn’t have a “snowball’s chance in hell” of succeeding (leave it to a Marine to tell the stark truth!). These men make sense. Has Obama purged all the fighting generals with backbones from the military? Are we left only with politically correct generals on active duty? My conclusion? Obama’s coalition is a farce and the “war against ISIL” is also a farce. When you read in the media that a coalition warplane attacked an ISIL “fighting position,” it may only have bombed four Jihadis firing AK-47s. Why didn’t it target ISIL’s tanks and artillery pieces?
The Kurds must be feeling rather abandoned by now by the US, by NATO, and by their fellow Sunni Muslim nations of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc. Have any of these “allies” sent so much as one artillery piece or tank to help the Kurds defend against ISIL attacks? The Kurds must be starting to look around for some new serious allies. An article in the Asia Times discusses this very likelihood (see sixth link). It examines the possibility of whether the Kurds would be better off allying themselves with either Iran or Israel vs. ISIL. The article indicates that the case for the Kurds embracing Iran is a stronger case than allying themselves with Israel. However, the article forgets one major possibility. If Israel were to openly acknowledge being a major nuclear military power and offer a “nuclear umbrella” over Kurdistan as an ally vs. ISIL and any other enemy, the Kurds might leap at the opportunity. Indeed, the Egyptians might also be part of that alliance as Egypt and Israel are de facto allies already. If Egypt joined that alliance, the Saudis and Jordanians would tag along too, I think. If these nations all allied together in a new Mideast alliance with an Israeli “nuclear umbrella” over all these nations, it would be a potent player on the world scene. The big losers would be the USA, Iran and Turkey.
I’m not predicting this will happen, but am simply raising this as a possibility. The Mideast is in a state of extreme flux right now, and new alliances could easily emerge as nations and clans try to position themselves for survival. The final alignment of nations will inevitably be harmonious with what is prophesied in Ezekiel 38, but the local details could get very messy. They already are.
- http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/10/12/triple-suicide-bombing-in-iraq-kills-26-kurds/
- http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/09/30/turkey-set-to-use-force-against-isil/16496555/
- http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/10/11/turkey-syria-islamic-state/17049539/
- http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/more-than-20-000-kurds-protest-in-march-against-isis-in-germany-1.2050069
- http://www.worldtribune.com/2014/08/26/kurds-say-iran-sent-combat-units-tanks-northern-iraq/
- http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-02-300914.html
