De-Afghanizing Syria
Once again it's enlightening to go back to what Kadri Gursel, writing for Turkish daily Milliyet, conceptualized already in 2013, when he defined the Turkish border from Hatay to Gaziantep as the Peshawar of the Middle East (shades of the 1980s Afghan jihad).
Syria won't be "de-Afghanized" if the jihad belt -- which includes the key stretch along the Turkish border -- is not re-conquered. There are only two candidates to accomplish the task: YPG Syrian Kurds and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). That's the guarantee of endless sleepless nights for the Sultan.
So the question now hinges on how close -- politically and militarily -- will be Moscow's support for the YPG-PKK.
Moscow does not exactly favor the birth of a Kurdistan as advocated by Israel and US neocons. The US-Israel axis privileges some very specific Kurds; the vastly corrupt Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, which also happens to entertain close relations with Ankara (the oil export angle). No one knows how a Syrian Kurdistan controlled by the YPG-PKK would fit into an already complex equation.
Ankara's red line though is much easier to detect: any Kurdistan qualifies as a red line.
Waiting for Pipelineistan
Erdogan, in desperation, is even flirting with Israel again. In this case, further Sultan burning may also be on the cards.
Israel's long game is an energy game: make sure it has access to non-stop, cheap Kurdish -- as in stolen from Baghdad -- oil flowing through the Kirkuk-Haifa pipeline. And in the long run Tel Aviv would love to bypass Ceyhan and replace it with Haifa as the top oil export terminal in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The "Kurdistan" Israel and US neocons really want, much more than a northern Syrian entity, is a northern Iraq colony, a vassal enclave run by the Barzani mob. That would imply no less than a war between Baghdad (supported by Tehran) and the KRG (supported by Washington and Tel Aviv). As apocalyptic scenarios go, this one at least is on hold.
Moscow, for the moment, prefers to focus on stripping Ankara naked in those convoluted Syrian peace negotiations, which, for all practical purposes, boil down to a US-Russia game.
And as much as Erdogan remains a Washington vassal and an "adversary" of Israel only in posture, now he cannot even be sure where the Obama administration stands.
Only a few weeks ago Obama requested him to deploy "30,000 (troops) to seal the border on the Turkish side." At the time, Team Obama was hopeful that Erdogan's troops would be able to clear and hold an area 98 km long and 30 km deep inside Syrian territory that would harbor Erdogan's famous "safe zone." Ankara would need just a mere pretext to invade -- and a little American air cover.
After the downing of the Su-24 and Russia's deployment of the S-400s, this plan is now six feet under.
From the point of view of the myriad "Assad must go" front, the name of the game now in Syria is "hold on to what you've got." Erdogan, as desperate as he may be, would have to accept his Jihadi Highway to retreat back across the Turkish border, and wait for the next window of wreaking havoc opportunity (which Russia will never open.)
Yet the long game that really matters, for all players involved, is predictably Pipelineistan. Who will control a great deal of the oil and gas across "Syraq," including the non-exploited wealth in the Kurdish areas; to where will it all flow; who sells it; and for what price.
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