THE ROVING
EYE What's goin' on at the
Turkish-Syrian border? By Pepe
Escobar
There is a video [1] that could be
loosely translated as "Terrorist Turkish border
opening fire on the Syrian side" that pretty
accurately sums up what's going on at the
ultra-volatile geopolitical hotspot of the moment.
The voice over says, "This is the
Syria-Turkey border, and this is an operation of
the Free Syrian Army [FSA] ... The Gate [that
would be the Syrian side of the border, housing
the Gate checkpoint] is going to be seized."
What this means is that Turkey is
sheltering the FSA right on the border, only a few
meters - and not kilometers - away from Syrian
territory. Way beyond hosting a North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) command and control
center in Iskenderun
for months now - a fact
already reported by Asia Times Online - Turkey has
now advanced right to the border, enabling a
back-and-forth by heavily weaponized
guerrillas/mercenaries to attack a sovereign
state.
Imagine a similar scenario
happening, say, at a Mexican-US border in Arizona
or Texas.
This can be seen as a very
peculiar Ankara interpretation of "safe havens"
and "humanitarian corridors" as outlined by what
can be seen as the prime blueprint for regime
change in Syria: a report [2] by the Saban Center
at the Brookings Institution, authored by the
usual cocktail of Israeli firsters and
Qatar-affiliated Middle East "experts".
So
expect to see this movie generating countless
sequels; the FSA attacking a Syrian border
checkpoint, killing soldiers and then retreating
under a hail of bullets, which will inevitably hit
a nearby Syrian refugee camp.
The border
escalation graphically illustrates the wider
scenario: civil war.
Turkish Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu - of the fabled "zero
problems with our neighbors" policy - had to
abruptly cut short his trip to China and return to
Turkey because of the border escalation. It would
be very enlightening to learn how the Beijing
leadership told him that Turkey's agent
provocateur gimmicks amount to playing with a ball
of fire.
The border escalation also proves
that NATO has less than zero interest in the
success of the ceasefire widely brandished as the
Kofi Annan plan (that's in fact a diluted version
of both the Russian and Chinese plans). Trouble
will escalate further - as suggested by a RT
report. [3]
Obviously, a sovereign
government - in this case Syria - had to demand
written guarantees that its weaponized opponents
would also abide by the Annan ceasefire.
The single-most important reason that they
won't - and they have already stressed so publicly
- is that not only the FSA and splinter guerrillas
will continue to be weaponized by Qatar and the
House of Saud, and sprinkled with Libyan "rebels"
flown into Syria; it's that two United Nations
Security Council permanent members - Britain and
France - also have their own special forces on the
ground, engaged in training, intel and combat
operations.
The trillion Turkish lira
question is whether Ankara will go one step beyond
and actually implement those "safe havens"; that
would amount to being directly involved in the
Syrian civil war, ie, a declaration of war against
Damascus. That's exactly what the FSA has been
begging the Turks to do. But even that would not
be enough to topple the Bashar al-Assad regime.
As for the Assad police state/military
apparatus, it just has to be wily enough not to be
provoked into an orgy of torture, summary
executions and artillery bombardment - the
necessary condition to maintain the key diplomatic
support of BRICS members Russia and China. Once
again, it's average Syrians, caught in the middle,
who will be the tragic losers.
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