Erdogan's paranoia that Russia may cut off gas supplies to Turkey after the downing of the Su-24 -- something that Gazprom simply won't do -- has led Ankara, in desperation, to force Baghdad, mob-style, to "accept" a Qatar gas pipeline crossing Iraqi, not Syrian territory.
Needless to add, this far-fetched scheme is an absolute no-go for Baghdad, which is part of the "4+1" alliance. Moreover, expect Iran -- and Russia -- to go no holds barred exploiting divisions among the notoriously divisive Kurds to bomb Erdogan's elaborate plans.
Erdogan's bottom line is quite something; he is aiming for no less than an Iraqi "Sunnistan" -- jointly managed by the ultra-corrupt KRG and assorted Sunnis, but under Turkish security arrangements. As if Washington and Tel-Aviv would let him get away with that.
The fact is that at least for the moment, while his game in Syria may be going down the drain, Erdogan has decided to change the subject and turbo-charge his strategy for breaking up Iraq.
And that brings up the question, once again, of how Daesh was able last year to conquer Mosul -- the second city in Iraq -- without a fight. And this after their notorious convoy of gleaming white Toyotas crossing the desert from Syria to Iraq managed to evade detection by the most sophisticated satellite surveillance system in the history of the Universe.
Regarding the mystery, persistent intel rumblings across the Middle East and among the "4+1" coalition are bound to turn into a volcano.
According to the rumblings, the official -- Pentagon -- narrative that the Iraqi Army supposed to fight Islamic State in Mosul last year got scared and simply ran away is a myth.
As we know, the Iraqi Army, trained by the Pentagon, left behind a wealth of tanks and heavy weapons duly captured by IS. And IS couldn't be luckier in collecting this almighty "gift."
The new narrative rules that the Pentagon deliberately "instructed" the Iraqi Army to run away, as a sort of tactical retreat, leaving behind all that fabulous hardware.
So what we have here is the Pentagon fully protected by plausible deniability.
And Islamic State duly weaponized as a proxy/regime change army in Syria. A perfect chaos-provoking tool aligned with the strategic objective of the "Empire of Chaos" in Syria. Which, by the way, does include, in the absence of full regime change, the formation of a "Sunnistan" in Syria as well.
Oh, but the Pentagon would never engage in such practices, would they?
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