Loading ...LUOGNO HAS SOME IMPORTANT ANALYSIS ON THE SITUATION WITH TURKEY AND SYRIA ( AND THE US AND NATO) (AND ISRAEL AND IRAN ) ( AND RUSSIA )
Pretty wild shit going on apparently…makes me dizzy trying to figure all the moving parts
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While we are all, rightfully, worried about what’s going on in Ukraine, those sneaky Russians are shoring up their situation on the south shores of the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean.
As reported last week the meetings between Russia, Turkiye, and Syria took place between the Defense Ministers. This is a good use of Sergei Shoigu, the Russian Defense Minister, since he’s not in charge of the operation in Ukraine and hasn’t been since October.
Shoigu, I’m sure, has been preparing for this meeting for months, laying the groundwork for talks between Turkiye and Syria that are long overdue.
As Alex Mercouris pointed out in a recent Duran video, Turkiye’s president Erdogan set three steps for a resolution of the conflict between it and Syria. This meeting of the Defense Ministers is the 2nd of them.
The Foreign Ministers are now clear to meet. Presumably, after that, Erdogan and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will meet with the Russians as negotiator to hammer out an official end to Turkiye’s involvement in the Syrian War which began more than a decade ago.
Without Turkiye’s involvement in Syria, the Neocons’ goal of strangling Russia on gas imports to Europe never happens. Erdogan had to be bribed with a massive land grab to go along with this.
And when he didn’t do enough to start a war with Russia n November 2015 afterTurkiye supposedly shot down a Russian SU-24, he was rewarded with a coup attempt against him led by the CIA and US military out of the Incerlik airbase.
This was the beginning of the end of Turkiye’s relationship with NATO and the US.
Every year since then Erdogan has acted in his interest, creating leverage on the ground by taking territory in Syria, making outrageous claims against the Eastern Mediterranean, while playing the West and Russia for chumps on NATO expansion, refugee policy, and his help in Nagorno-Karabakh.
I’ve even come to the conclusion that his repeated violations of Greek airspace, something that no one else does in the world, is likely part of his whole “Crazy Sultan” schtick to keep people on edge.
As I’ve said many times Erdogan plays both sides, dropping a white or black stone on the Go board when it suits his agenda.
And his agenda today is nearly complete, an independent yet still pivotal Turkiye.
So, against that backdrop his making nice with Syria is a bombshell that the West shouldn’t be surprised about since Erdogan has been throwing wrenches into their works since the beginning of the Ukraine War in February.
But the timing of this is the most inconvenient for the US/UK neocons who are clearly ramping up a 2023 regime change operation against Putin in Russia.
With Erdogan facing stiff opposition in the polls, hyperinflation and unrest at home and an election later this year, ending the war in Syria had to be tops on his to-do list for 2023.
Without Turkiye’s backing in Idlib, the rebels there won’t survive in the long run. Erdogan will ratchet up his attacks on the SDF Kurds in the east backed by the US and it leaves Israel in a more tenuous position as well.
Because the recent reports of US troops coming under intense missile attacks in Deir Ezzor where they are protecting the stealing of Syrian oil are a signpost that both Syria and Iran have had their shackles taken off by Putin in confronting the US in Syria.
In light of Angela Merkel’s admission of the Minsk Accords being a ruse to arm Ukraine, I don’t think you need further proof that Putin now has his legal ducks in a row to take the fight directly to the US, knowing that conflict is inevitable.
Think of it this way. Before Merkel’s admission, the West was able to credibly compose the narrative that Putin unjustly invaded Ukraine. And that meant publicly it would be easy for his new allies to stab him in the back if Russia faltered on the battlefield or their proxies like Syria.
Now, with that narrative blown up (not for the normies but for the Heads of State of the Global South) Putin is justified to no longer play footsie with the US through proxies.
He just sold Iran dozens of SU-35s. This was another implicit redline he crossed to keep the US placated. As long as Iran had a joke of an air force Putin could maintain at least cordial relations with Israel. But, now all of that is out the window.
Iran is selling Russia drones to wipe out the Ukrainian army and Russia is sending Iran SU-35s to end the threat of Israel doing any more long-range bombing runs in Iran.
The old stalemates are gone.
Given everything that’s happening is it any wonder that the newly-resurrected Bibi Netanyahu in Israel has stepped up the bombings of the Damascus Airport, apparently now shutting it down? Are we surprised that he is really sabre-rattling against Iran?
The point is that Putin had to hold out hope for diplomacy and not cross a line until the US/EU came clean, otherwise the fragile coalition he’s formed to combat the West could collapse.
In this respect, Merkel did him a favor. She also did Davos the favor of framing the US for all the troubles now.
Now he’s crossing them all and Erdogan is following along
Remember, also, Erdogan’s very troubled relationship with Merkel over the migrant issues and EU accession. The EU dangled that in front of him for years while he threatened to flood Europe with more migrants.
That standoff broke down a couple of years ago and now Erdogan has to allow the Syrians and the Lebanese a path to going home, if only to unburden the Turkish economy and social fabric.
So, Erdogan has always known Merkel to be a duplicitous negotiator. She’s exactly as Mercouris has described her in the past, someone juggling all of these balls with the intent of maintaining the status quo. That status quo was buying time for the Davos agenda to mature. That’s all it was.
I’ve always maintained that Putin and his staff utilize parallel-aggression to counter the neocons’ implacable commitment to being on offense. They push in one theater, he pushes in another equally.
And what’s interesting here is that at some point the whole ‘Putin is the aggressor’ narrative will collapse in normie space when the stakes get high enough because the West isn’t committed to why Ukraine or Syria is our fight.
These deals were never really sealed.
It means that Syria will shoot down an Israeli F-16 at some point and Israel will have to take it. Or it will provoke Bibi to do something so rash that no one will be able to spin it in his favor.
Davos is hanging Israel out to dry at the UN, driving the Neocons apoplectic.
Either way, what Putin has done here, with Erdogan’s help, is turn the entire power dynamic of aggression on its head. Now, the Russians can allow Syria and Iran to ‘defend themselves’ while keeping his hands mostly clean there.
Now the real ‘bluff calling’ phase of this situation begins. Now, we’ll see how long “Biden” will keep troops in Syria, stealing oil and enforcing sanctions that Turkiye will make redundant in a few weeks?
Expect regime change operations in Turkiye this fall. Expect stepped-up Israeli aggression against both Syria and Iran until such time as Iran’s IRGC air force is strong enough to defend itself.
The timer is ticking on all of the conflicts in this region: Syria, Iraq, Yemen.
And the key to it all was always getting Erdogan to flip them all on their heads by helping expose the mendacity of this generation of ‘leaders’ in the West.
Its not chess. as Luongo observes. Its the game of Go. And the collective West are losing.