This week's incursion was the first time since November that Turkish aircraft had crossed into Syrian territory. The Reuters report added: "Turkey had made the case more strongly to Washington over the past few months, had patched up relations with Russia, and had removed some of the Turkish commanders from their posts after finding they were involved in the coup attempt, paving the way for the operation to go ahead, the [Turkish] official said."
This raises the testing question: is wily Erdogan playing both the Americans and Russians to pull off what has been Ankara's long-held objective, namely to set up "safe zones" inside Syria?
Following the failed coup in Turkey on July 15, Erdogan surprised many analysts by offering a sudden rapprochement with Moscow, while also playing up accusations against Washington that it may have had some hand in the coup attempt. In a seeming stand-off with his American ally, Erdogan also began seeking a rapprochement with Iran and even issued overtures for a detente with the Syrian government after years of labeling President Assad a "butcher" who had to surrender power.
In recent weeks, Erdogan has called for a new "anti-terror front" involving Russia and Iran, as well as the US.
Russia and Iran appeared to welcome Turkey's seeming change of priorities, away from pushing regime change in Syria and instead focusing on combating terrorist brigades. Last week's bombing atrocity in Turkey's southern city of Gaziantep in which 54 people were killed allegedly by jihadists was invoked by Ankara as a tipping point for its military action in Syria this week. Again, that sequence tends to bolster Erdogan's claim of taking on the terrorists.
Given Washington's back foot over Erdogan's insinuations that it had somehow colluded in the failed coup, and given the Turkish president's conciliatory overtures to Moscow, Tehran and Damascus, it would appear that Ankara is capitalizing on the geopolitical flux in order to prosecute its abiding interests in Syria -- to carve out territories that it or its proxies can control.
In short, Erdogan is trying to blindside all the players.
The next question is: what is Ankara seeking to gain?
The notion that Erdogan is serious about defeating terrorism in Syria has to be taken with a pinch of salt. His regime and Turkish military intelligence have been crucial sponsors and facilitators for a myriad of terrorist militias, including the so-called Free Syrian Army, Turkmen and the more overtly Al Qaeda-linked jihadists. They are all part of the covert war for regime change in Syria that Turkey has fomented since 2011 along with the US, Britain, France and regional partners like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel.
The jihadists displaced this week from Jarablus, like the brigades displaced earlier this month from Manbij, seem to have disappeared. But to where?
The bigger picture here is that Syrian, Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah forces have over the past year inflicted massive defeats on the foreign-backed regime-change proxies. The momentous battle underway in Aleppo is a harbinger of a terminal defeat for the regime-change covert war.
For Turkey, setting up safe havens north of Aleppo is a vital way to regroup and retool the jihadist mercenaries. Which tends to give the real meaning to this "operation shield."
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