Just when you think Syria’s civil war couldn’t get any worse, it does. Turkey and Russia are racing to a direct conventional conflict. Indeed, the two powers are already engaged in one.
Ever since Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed to deploy hundreds of Turkish soldiers to Syria’s Idlib province in 2018 to enforce a de-escalation zone in the area, Turkey has been vulnerable. The Turks had been lucky until this month, when Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and the Russian air force launched a military offensive to retake the last major center of opposition control.
Turkish troops, at times working in coordination with the anti-Assad opposition on operations, have had bull’s-eyes painted on their backs ever since. Now, 21 Turkish soldiers have been killed in the violence this month — and that was before Russian aircraft dropped bombs on a Turkish observation post on Thursday, killing dozens of troops. (The Turkish government blamed the Assad regime, not Russia, for the strike.) The casualty numbers could be higher as developments proceed.
Erdogan has put Turkey into a box. The wannabe-sultan has invested a lot of resources into Idlib, partly because he doesn’t want another million Syrian refugees pouring into his country and partly because he sees Syria as within Turkey’s sphere of influence. But with the casualties mounting, it looks like he has made the wrong bet.
The worse the violence becomes, the more likely Erdogan will approach the United States and NATO for assistance. The Turks already requested Patriot missile deployments at the Turkish-Syrian border, which were denied given Turkey’s purchase of a Russian air-defense system last year. Turkey’s declaration that it will no longer stop Syrian refugees from traveling to Europe is probably an attempt to blackmail NATO into helping Erdogan dig Turkey out of a hole he dug himself.
Washington should tell Turkey in no uncertain terms to bug off. It is on its own.
This sort of response will cause outrage among the scholars, analysts, and former diplomats who sing NATO’s praises after every breath. And yes, Turkey is indeed a NATO member state. Yet the Turks have been altogether unhelpful ever since the civil war in Syria broke out nine years ago, moving in directions that are at cross-purposes with the alliance as a whole.
I’m not just talking about the Turkish invasion of northeast Syria, but also Turkey’s decision very early on to turn a blind eye to extremists who were using Turkish soil as a transit route into Syria. Only when Turkish civilians started dying from suicide bombings did Erdogan start caring about the Islamic State’s activities.
As horrible as Assad is — and he is indeed a horrible, putrid human being and one of the world’s biggest war criminals — it’s simply a fact that the Syrian dictator will almost certainly eventually capture Idlib. It may take a few weeks, a few months, or maybe even a year, but the balance of power on the ground weighs heavily in Assad’s favor. The armed opposition, dominated by extremists, doesn’t have the power, in men, weapons, material, or allies, to hold off indefinitely. It’s not a question of if, but when, Assad and the Russians will declare victory.
If Erdogan were smart, he would get his soldiers out of the line of fire. But in the event Erdogan chooses his customary recklessness and doubles down, he should go into his latest adventure knowing in advance that the U.S. will not be coming to his rescue. The best approach for Washington is to stay as far away from this conflict as possible.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
