Indian Defence Review

Syria’s Border with Turkey 

Damascus and Ankara, which share a long, porous border, have for most part had a troubled relationship owing to a variety of factors, such as territorial claims and counterclaims. Both countries claim the territory covering Hatay Province annexed by Turkey in 1939. Water resources, particularly the dispute relating to the south-eastern Anatolla project, have also been an irritant. Military skirmishes, including shooting down of each other’s aircraft, have taken place from time to time. Ever since the civil war in Syria, refugees in large numbers have taken sanctuary in the border areas. Turkey has dispatched arms and fighters to rebel groups, such as Jabhat al Nusra, who have put up a stiff resistance against the Bashar al Assad regime. Many extremists who have infiltrated from other countries to fight in Syrian rebel strongholds could never have got access there without Turkey being complicit in the mission. However, currently taking stock of atrocities being committed by the Islamic State, Turkey has decided to scrupulously prevent the entry of anti-Syrian rebels – this has been done in conjunction with countries such as France, which have also cracked down on people going to Syria to aid the rebels there.

Turkey has stepped up its detentions of suspected foreign fighters and their deportation. Syria’s support to Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a party which has functioned counter to Turkey’s national interests, has also irked Ankara. The PKK has been declared a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the European Union. Many of the Turkish Kurds are fighting in Iraq against the Islamic State. In a lighter vein, one Iraqi Kurd has said he thanks the Islamic State for consolidating the Turks and, in turn, reaffirming their stand for a sovereign state. Following the Arab Spring, Turkey has suspended diplomatic contact with Syria. As a strong ally of the United States, Turkey should ensure that its policy initiatives never go against US interests – the US does not have a fail-safe policy to ensure this. During the Cold War years, the shared concern was the threat from the USSR.

The US has already covertly assisted the Assad regime by providing the intelligence details about the exact location of jihadi areas bordering Iraq and Syria through the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), i.e., the German intelligence service which has facilitated Syrian air and artillery attacks on rebel targets.

The Western-backed Free Syrian Army is very weak and marginalised as against the motivated jihadi groups like Jabhat al Nusra, Ahrar al Sham and the Islamic Front. It was a grave misconception for the US to assume that strengthening ‘moderate’ anti-Assad groups would help Western interests. In the civil war in Syria, the line dividing the socalled moderates from the hard-core jihadists is virtually non-existent. The Islamic State to the extent it counters Assad in Syria is perceived to be helpful to the US and Turkey. However, the same Islamic State is harmful to US interests in Iraq. The US seems to have realised this mistake rather late. It is this realisation which is prompting it to target the Islamic State strongholds in Syria.

Initially, Mr. Nechivan Barzan, the prime minister of Kurdistan Autonomous Region, had minced no words in stating, ‘Kurdish Peshmerga forces will not help the Iraqi army to retake the city of Mosul from militant jihadis.’ He also called on Iraqi Sunni Arabs to assert their autonomy.

Kurds Offer Deterrent

However, the Kurds did eventually offer bitter resistance to the ISIS and were able to retrieve large parts of territory where the Iraqi army had earlier offered a meek surrender. So much so that they retook complete control of Iraq’s largest hydroelectric project –Mosul Dam, after ousting the ISIS fighters. This dam supplies water and electricity to northern Iraq, and there had been fears that ISIS militants could bombard it to flood areas downstream. Ground forces, supported by US air strikes, prevented this from happening. Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd and till recently Iraq’s foreign minister, has said the Peshmerga troops had encountered fierce resistance in the battle for the dam. Had this feat not been achieved, a flooddestroyed Iraq would have rendered the ISIS march to Baghdad much easier.10 Of course, much of Iraq would also have been starved of power supplies.

Interestingly enough, the West Asian dynamics will undergo dramatic changes with an independent Kurdistan formed. Take the contiguous nations: Turkey in the north will definitely not like a mass exodus of Iraqi Kurds to team up with its own Kurds and multiply the prevailing chaos on its borders and thereby plausibly imperil its membership of the European Union. Fortunately, thus far, this does not appear to be happening.

Over 70 per cent of the $12 billion trade between Iraq and Turkey is through the Kurdish region. There are some 1,500 Turkish companies engaged in bilateral trade. In theory, Ankara supports the Kurdistan government. Israel would be rendered more secure since the Kurdish region would provide it a buffer.

How elements in Syria impact Iraq

The view that the ISIS could never have spread its tentacles as far as the interiors of Iraq if its bases in Syria had been contained in good time has some merit. But there is hardly any merit in the widely prevailing US view that had the US imposed a no-fly zone over Syria in 2011, the moderate anti-Assad elements would by themselves have been so strong as not to have yielded any space to Sunni extremists, such as the ISIS. Other groups, such as the Jabhat al Nusra, were hardly a match to the ISIS besides being rivals of sorts. A no-fly zone in 2011 would not have been either a sound military response or a sound diplomatic one. Says a military expert Anthony Cordsman, ‘For a no fly zone to succeed it has to be at least serious enough that Assad can not fly fighters or helicopters without losing them, or, without losing the bases from which they operate.’ But at that time, there was no certainty relating to the above. The fear, on the other hand, was the likely losses to the US.

The Pentagon believed a no-fly zone over Syria would be more dangerous for US pilots than the one launched against Libya. Said Dick Cheney, ‘Syria has a fairly sophisticated anti-air capability, sophisticated ground to air missiles.’ Besides, there was also no real provocation from Syria, unlike the one from Qaddafi. Bashar al Assad was not bombing his cities with jets from the air.

Diplomatically, the US was isolated, there being no Arab League resolution, or even one from the UN Security Council, endorsing such a move. Furthermore, Russia and China were against Western intervention.11

The US could not have done better than to have taken on board the Russian suggestion that there are ways and means of pressurising Syria to abandon its chemical weapons. It was not easy. After all, Syria’s chemical attack on the rebel stronghold of eastern Ghoula had taken a toll of 1,500 lives. However, as per the latest information, the US officials have confirmed that the Syrian government’s chemical weapons cache has been successfully destroyed. But a new threat has emerged; it is suspected that the Islamic State has taken control of small chemical stockpiles. 12

If this information is credible, the implications could be catastrophic. There are reports that the ISIS has stolen radioactive isotopes from Mosul University. While a chemical agent can’t be made from them, they could be used to make a dirty bomb.13

Syria has already got unsettled by the ISIS (since the latter was proactive in Syria long before it entered Iraq). The latest Islamic State attack on an airbase in Raqqa province, which witnessed the mass executions of 250 Syrian soldiers trying to flee before being caught, presents a frightening scenario and should trigger an immediate US-coalition air strike, preferably with Syrian help.

Any action which the US and its coalition partners take in Syria must, at least, have its tacit support. Damascus has warned Washington against any unilateral action in Syria. As for Jordan, it is an unorthodox modern Islamic State and has never been a threat either to Israel or the West, and unfortunately, if the ISIS spreads its tentacles in Jordan, it will strike a devastating blow to Israel. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are major sponsors of the ISIS and would like the imminent fall of the present Shiadominated Baghdad regime unless the US can persuade these nations to alter their strategic calculations factoring in Iraq’s political changes. In fact, this is exactly what the US should do.

Iran is in a position to clear up the mess in Iraq, but the riders it will put on the US for such help will be too pricey for the US, even though US secretary of state John Kerry has not ruled out help from Iran. How far would Tel Aviv like Iran’s interference in Iraq is a moot point to ponder.

Conclusion 

From Israeli viewpoint, the Kurds are regarded as moderate secular Muslims who have, over the centuries, been victims of Arab chauvinism. Tel Aviv firmly believes that an independent Kurdistan will not be an obstacle for Jewish self-determination. Interestingly, the Kurds, who have had trade relations with Israel since 1960, have just commenced oil exports. Israeli president Shimon Peres has told President Obama, ‘The Kurds have de facto created their own state, which is democratic, one of the signs of democracy is granting of equality to women.’

Since Israel is surrounded by unfriendly neighbours, a Greater Kurdistan offers a strategic buffer to Tel Aviv, and Kurds being a more benign version of Sunnis, an independent Kurd nation augers well for Israel.

As has been the experience from nations which have witnessed the Arab Spring, no US-dictated ‘democratic framework’ will fit the bill in any of the troubled areas the US has much to answer for the present crisis in Lebanon, where Palestinian groups such as Jund al Sham and Fateh al Islam are a threat to state security. It has been found that members of these outfits are functioning in sync with Jabhat al Nusra and the ISIS, in effect destroying the composite character of Lebanon, which is home to Shias, Sunnis Alawites and Druz besides a host of orthodox Christians. US strategic interests lie in consolidating the secular forces; the same palliative would work wonders for Syria.14

Currently, opinion in Saudi Arabia is divided on the merits of a US led Nato intervention in Syria and Iraq to counter the ISIS. King Abdullah Ibn Abdilaziz of Saudi Arabia has warned that jihadists could target the US and Europe if leaders across the globe do not react to growing terrorist threats, the implication being a recommendation for military intervention. Saudis countering their king’s views are fearful because of the revolt against Abdullah al Aziz by the Wahhabist Ikhwan (not the one from the Muslim Brotherhood).15

The Saudi Arabian king’s statement is a positive development. If Qatar can also be persuaded to fall in line, a powerful initiative to curtail the flow of arms and funds could be put in place. At the same time, Tehran’s security has to be ensured, but definitely never at the cost of Israel or even Palestine. In the broad matrix of divergent vested interests, the US has to play a balancing role with a farsighted view. It is indeed a tall order, but there are no easy options.

Will the US and Iraq bury the Hatchet?

The Obama administration has for the first time, a few days back, indicated that it is willing to enter into discussions with Iran over the present crisis in Iraq but has stressed that any contact between the two adversaries would be informal. An earlier suggestion by the US secretary of state John Kerry that military collaboration was a possibility was subsequently rejected. It was made clear that any contact between the two countries would be limited to informal discussions that would take place on the margins of the nuclear talks in Vienna. However, Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani has not ruled out working with the US against the ISIS.

It may be recalled that in 2011, Iran cooperated with the US in Afghanistan by arming and supporting the Northern Alliance. This partnership was crucial in the defeat of Taliban by the US and its allies.

Britain has already intensified its security and initiated measures to prevent people from travelling to Iraq and Syria to fight alongside the ISIS. British Islamic clerics have condemned the ISIS barbarism. These measures, though praiseworthy, are slightly delayed.16