The courageous fight of the Kurds against ISIS in defending their city of Kobani against weeks of ISIL attacks continues to inspire many viewers around the world. It is amazing how determined they have been in fighting the ISIL terrorists with little or no help from the outside world. The USA has helped with tactical airstrikes, but so far the USA has done nothing to make any strategic efforts against ISIL. It is as if Obama can’t decide whether to really fight ISIL or not. In the first link, one geopolitical expert is cited as saying the surrounding “coalition” nations aren’t going to make any major effort against ISIL “until they see we [the USA] are in it to win.” The lack of any strategic air bombings of ISIL and the refusal to send any US “boots on the ground” so far are convincing many nations that the Obama administration is not in this fight to win it. Obama apparently still has no real strategy re: ISIL.
The Kurds have apparently decided that the fight at Kobani is their “Alamo” (a term Americans will understand), and their defense of Kobani is a “last stand” in which they are in a “true fight to the death” (second link). The Kurdish defenders are showing the same dogged determination displayed by the British when they held out alone vs. Hitler’s Nazi forces in the Battle of Britain. I think the Kurdish defenders have surprised everyone that they are still alive and defending the city! I think Turkey expected them to fall long ago, and the Obama administration likely did as well. The spirit and grit of the Kurdish defenders may have finally embarrassed the US into launching more air strikes against ISIL positions in/around Kobane, and there is a report that the USA has finally airdropped weapons and supplies to the Kurdish defenders via C-130 cargo planes (third link). I also saw this reported on cable-TV news. Some late reports are stating that the US has dropped anti-tank weaponry to the Kurdish defenders. If so, this is vitally needed by the Kurdish defenders and it is a long-overdue step. The obvious question is, of course, are the Kurdish defenders able to operate the anti-tank weapons right away or were there some US special forces or volunteer private contractors airdropped with the supplies who know how to immediately put those weapons to good use?
The role of Turkey looks ever more bizarre and suspicious. Their parliament voted long ago to join the coalition vs. ISIL, but they have done nothing but impede the fight against ISIL. Turkey has not allowed the USA to use its large NATO base at Incirlik, Turkey to fight ISIL, and Turkey has refused to send in its large military force to engage ISIL’s terrorists. The spectacle of Turkey’s tanks and armed forces just inertly watching the fighting in Kobani is sending a message to all the world that Turkey is a very unreliable ally, and that Turkey’s word is no good. Turkey was just up for a UN Security Council seat, but their nation was excluded from the seat (fourth link). Personally, I think Turkey’s apparent duplicity or cowardice in not fighting the ISIL forces arrayed right on their border was a big factor why the world refused to give Turkey a seat on the UN Security Council. In a classic example of horrible timing, the Turkish government did something so outlandish that one has to wonder how such a thing could have happened. After watching ISIL terrorists attack Kurdish defenders for weeks and doing nothing, Turkey’s air force finally launched some attack missions…against Kurdish forces (fifth link)! They did not attack the Kurdish defenders, but attacked Kurds in southeast Turkey where Kurdish PKK fighters have long been engaged with battles vs. Turkish national forces. Still, the spectacle of Turkey attacking Kurds anywhere when the world is waiting to see who will help the Kurds in Kobani is horribly ill timed on Turkey’s part. Turkey’s attacks on Kurds at a time when they are supposed to be helping Kurds fighting ISIL (as part of the “coalition,” remember?) has infuriated the Kurds and “marks the end of the peace process” between the Kurds and Turkey (fifth link). Turkey has really “blown it” in my view. Before the ISIL war broke out, Turkey was shipping Kurdish oil to world markets, Turkish companies were making oil deals with Kurdish firms and it appeared the Kurds and Turkey were headed toward a major rapprochement in which the PKK insurgency with Turkey would end. Turkey has killed that possibility, it seems.
ISIL still seems to be well financed, and it has long been reported that ISIL oil shipments are making it to world markets via Turkish intermediaries. The sixth link and seventh link report that ISIL oil is being sold or transported through Turkey to Syria, European nations and other global locations. The Syrian connection seems especially bizarre, but in the Mideast, bizarre things can and do occur. If European nations are secretly receiving ISIL oil shipments, they are being hypocrites to be sure, but are likely doing so to boost oil stocks before winter sets in and a Russian gas shut-off over the Ukrainian crisis could freeze them out. One of the final two links reports that ISIL is dumping oil on global markets at $40/barrel, which could explain why global oil prices have been plummeting when the wars in the oil-rich Mideast should be expected to boost oil prices.
The Mideast continues in bizarre and constantly changing states of ferment. One can get dizzy trying to figure out why the Obama administration isn’t doing anything except the bare minimum to engage ISIL and why Turkey has yet to do anything to prove itself faithful to what its parliament voted to do. Turkey has also been the location via which ISIL’s foreign fighters have been smuggled into Syria to join ISIL’s ranks. I cannot understand why Turkey is persisting in such a self-defeating policy of being ISIL’s passive partner instead of joining the war against ISIL. For weeks, the world has watched those rows of Turkish tanks doing nothing on the Turkish-Syrian border while Kurds valiantly fight the ISIL terrorists. I don’t think Turkey’s leaders realize how damaging the continuing scene of Turkish tanks refusing to engage ISIL forces attacking Kobani really is to the world’s nations. Turkey’s leaders don’t have to admit that Turkey is ISIL’s passive and silent partner. The scenes of Turkish tanks refusing for weeks to do combat with ISIL forces are shouting that message to the world.
Biblically, we are still watching the Mideast to see how the alignment of nations in that region will finally unfold in regards to the prophecy of Ezekiel 38:2-6 regarding the Gog-Magog alliance and the rival alliance led by the modern nations of the ten tribes of Israel. We know Iran will be in the Gog-Magog alliance, but many other nations are not mentioned in that prophecy. It is possible, even likely, that Iraq will never be put back together as a nation and that there will finally be an independent Kurdistan. Turkey doesn’t want that outcome, but Turkey’s feckless actions may actually bring that to pass.
- http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx
- http://usatoday.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx
- http://politibrew.com/politics/1199-u-s-finally-drops-arms-ammo-and-supplies-to-kurds-in-kobani
- http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-29654003
- http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/10/14/turkey-attack-on-kurdish-pkk-base-jeopardizes-peace/17273761/
- http://thehigherlearning.com/2014/09/22/isis-is-making-nearly-100-million-per-month-selling-oil-whos-buying-it/
- http://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/eu-members-purchased-oil-from-isil-official/
