After innumerable failed schemes to train rebels to overthrow the Syrian government (and then training more rebels to take on the rebels they had previously trained who went over to ISIS and al-Qaeda), the US appears to be on the verge of launching yet another regime-change rebel training operation. According to the Wall Street Journal, the US is considering adopting a Turkey-originated plan to create an Arab fighting force in northern Syria to seal up the border and — more importantly — to counter the increasing influence and power of Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the area.
Once considered proxy US boots on the ground, the YPG has always been feared and loathed by the Turks. Now, they may become victims of their own success if the new plan is implemented. The new US-created group would be tasked with limiting Kurdish advances in northern Syria which would in turn appease the Turks, who have long been more worried about the Kurds than ISIS.
The Kurds will no doubt be bitter if the US throws them under the bus after so recently being favored by Washington, but such treatment of US friends is nothing new. As RPI advisor John Laughland once wrote about US foreign policy:
…it is better to be an enemy of the Americans than their friend. If you are their enemy, they might try to buy you; but if you are their friend they will definitely sell you.
US turning on the Kurds in favor of a new Sunni (likely jihadist) force would have another effect that leads one to believe it is more likely to come about: it would directly challenge any emerging Russian/Kurd cooperation in the area. The Kurds have expressed an openness to cooperation with Russia, which particularly after November’s Turk shoot-down of the Russian plane could cause fits in Ankara.
Whatever the result, this move just demonstrates the absolute paralysis of US foreign policy. When after nearly five years a policy has not only not succeeded but has utterly and completely failed, leaving nothing but destruction and radical Islam in its wake, Washington’s last desperate move is to…try the same thing all over again!
