THE ROVING
EYE Syria and Turkey's phantom
war Pepe Escobar
Once
upon a time, not too long ago, Turkish Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was the prime proponent
of a foreign policy dubbed "zero problems with our
neighbors" - derided by many in the West as
"new-Ottomanism".
The North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) meets this Tuesday in
Brussels not only to craft its response to a
Turkish F-4 Phantom jet shot being down by Syria's
anti-aircraft artillery but to seal what sort of
"new Ottomanism" is emerging from what actually
turned into a "big problem with one of our
neighbors" policy.
Davutoglu insists the
F-4 was shot in international air space - although
conceding it had briefly entered Syrian air space.
Contradicting Syria's official explanation, he
said the jet was
clearly marked as
Turkish; was on a "training flight" to test
Turkey's "national radar system"; and most of all
had "no covert mission related to Syria".
Previously, Syrian Foreign Ministry
spokesman Jihad Makdissi had stressed this was an
"accident, not an attack". According to Makdissi,
"an unidentified object entered our air space and
unfortunately as a result it was brought down. It
was understood only later that it was a Turkish
plane."
Davutoglu, in a Turkish media
blitzkrieg, as reported by Today's Zaman,
reiterated this was a "solo flight"; the jet was
"unarmed"; there was no warning before it was shot
down; and as for Syria trying to connect the "not
ill-intentioned violation" of its airspace to the
shooting of the F-4, that was "irrelevant".
Violation of another country's air space,
trying to avoid its defenses by flying at low
altitude, is as normal to Davutoglu as a sheesh
kebab for lunch; "There were many violations of
Syrian air space by other countries before. But
Syria shot down our unarmed plane."
But
then the foreign minister started deviating (or
not) from the script. He stressed, "No matter how
the downed Turkish jet saga unfolds, we will
always stand by [the] Syrian people". And this;
"We will always stand by Syrian people until the
advent of a democratic regime there." Forget about
the F-4 Phantom; the "Syrian people" may sleep
soundly because the heart of the matter remains
regime change.
Everything else is
irrelevant NATO will consider Turkey's
case under Article Four of its charter - which
allows consultations whenever "the territorial
integrity, political independence or security of
any of the parties is threatened". We're not - yet
- at Article Five, which is all about armed
response. But we could be, depending how NATO
interprets Turkey's assertion that the F-4 Phantom
was "hit 13 miles off the Syrian coast, in
international air space".
So according to
Davutoglu's story the F-4 was briefly deviated to
Syrian airspace by some irresistible force
(Thor?); soon realized its mistake; left in a
hurry; but then was shot down. By the way, it was
not a "solo flight"; witnesses told Turkish TV
they saw two low-flying fighter jets speed by in
the direction of Syrian waters, but only one
return.
As predictably as England being
kicked out of Euro 2012, the usual European
warmongering poodles of the William Hague kind
have already stepped in, blaming Syria because
Turkey violated Syrian airspace. Yet there's no
evidence - so far - that Ankara warned the Syrian
government and military they would be conducting
some sort of reconnaissance very close to a by now
very explosive border.
Whether the F-4 (or
the pair of F-4s) was armed or not is, to quote
Davutoglu, "irrelevant"; try telling the Pentagon,
for instance, that an unknown, low-flying,
fast-moving, unidentified object entering your air
space is not a threat. If this was a military
reconnaissance mission, as Davutoglu himself
argues, the F-4 had to be armed.
And
imagine if this was a Syrian jet flying over
Turkish or Israeli territory.
Burn,
Anatolia, burn Ankara will certainly ask
Damascus for a formal apology and payment of
reparations. Tehran - which until virtually
yesterday, that is, before the Syrian uprising,
was part of an Ankara-Damascus-Tehran axis - is
calling for cool heads to prevail.
As much
as professional warmongers are encouraging a Gulf
of Tonkin remix, that remains pure folly. Still,
Asia Times Online has learned from a local source
about "frantic" movement at NATO's sprawling
Incirlik base in Turkey for days.
Everyone
knows - but nobody talks about - NATO's command
and control center in Iskenderun, in Turkey's
Hatay province, near the Syrian border, set up
months ago to organize, train and weaponize the
motley crew known as the Free Syrian Army.
Everyone knows Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the CIA are
advising and weaponizing these Syrian NATOGCC
"rebels" with essential Turkish help in the
logistics/safe haven front.
Everyone knows
Washington will settle for nothing less than
regime change in Syria - to the benefit of a
pliable, sub-imperial puppet (certainly not an
Islamist). Everyone knows every provocation
advances the not so hidden agenda of an all-out
NATOGCC attack on Syria without a UN Security
Council resolution, bypassing both Russia and
China.
If "neo-Ottomanism" persists with
its regime change obsession in Syria - to a large
extent tied to the Turkish dream of finding a
solution to the Kurdish "problem" - it had better
start evaluating how Damascus could shower the
Kurdish PKK with funds and logistics so they may
unleash hell in Turkish Anatolia.
No doubt
this will get much uglier. But in Wag the
Dog terms - and that's what this is all about
- no one knows for sure; is Turkey trying to wag
the NATO dog into a war, or is it the other way
around?
He may be reached at
pepeasia@yahoo.com (Copyright 2012 Asia Times
Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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