Who is the supreme profiteer of the Russia-Turkey drama? No question: it\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s the Empire of Chaos. A desperate Ankara increasingly depends on NATO\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s embrace.<\/p>\n
In the crucial Pipelineistan arena, the Turkish Stream project has been suspended (but not canceled). Eurasia integration \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the key 21st century project for both China and Russia \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c is severely hampered.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, what passes for the Obama administration\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093strategy\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d is more slippery than a Japanese eel. US Think Tank land interprets it as an \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093effort\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d to \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093de-conflict the battlefield\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d even as the main NATO planks acting in Syria (US, UK, France, Germany, plus Turkey) gear up for an alleged \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093large offensive\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d against Islamic State (ISIS). \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Alleged\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d because the whole op involves prime shadow play. And \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093de-conflict\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d could rather mean \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093re-conflict.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n
It\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s no wonder President Putin interpreted Sultan Erdogan\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s downing of the Russian Su-24 as supremely illogical. Reasons, of course, include the Russian Air Force\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s pounding of the Turkmen \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c Ankara\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s fifth column in northern Syria. And the relentless Russian assault on the stolen Syrian oil racket, which involves collusion between some pretty prominent Turkish figures and ISIS.<\/p>\n
It gets even more illogical when we look at the crucial energy sphere. Ankara depends at a rate of 27 percent on oil, and 35 percent on natural gas. Last year, Turkey bought 55 percent of its natural gas from Russia, and 18 percent from Iran.<\/p>\n
Because of its manifold infrastructure problems, Iran simply won\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7t be a strong competitor to Gazprom for supplying natural gas to Turkey \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c and Europe \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c anytime soon. Assuming it will be restarted in the future, Turkish Stream would be a very good deal for both Turkey and central and southern Europ\u0569\u0083\u0539..<\/p>\n
The current shadow play \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c which includes the deployment of US Special Forces to northern Syria \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c opens the possibility that Turks and Americans are about to launch a major offensive to expel Islamic State from the crucial Jarabulus crossroads. Erdogan\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s pretext is well known: to block by any means the attempt by YPG Syrian Kurds to unite their three cantons in northern Syria. In this corridor, Erdogan wants to install a dodgy, hazy bunch of Turkmen \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c his proxies \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c mixed with unspecified Sunni \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093moderate rebels,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d keeping all lines of communication (and smuggling) with Turkey open.<\/p>\n
Syrian Kurds, on the other hand, want to get there first. With American air support. And with Russian air support. This is one of the few things Team Obama and the Kremlin do agree on in Syria \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c to the absolute despair of the Sultan. The inside word from Ankara is that Turkey would be ready for a ground push on Jarabulus but only under American cover. Quite absurd, considering Washington and Ankara hardly are looking for the same endgame.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, discussing Syria in Moscow, US Secretary of State John Kerry was forced to agree, on the record, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093the Syrian people,\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d via elections, must themselves decide the future of Assad. So even the Obama administration now seems to convey the impression \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Assad must go\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d may be six feet under.<\/p>\n
Not so fast. Shadow play firmly remains part of the equation. After all, the famous Top Ten Terrorist List now being haggled upon by all players must be approved by\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u00bb Turkey and Saudi Arabia, who continue to weaponize all manner of desert snakes, as long as they hiss \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Assad must go.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n
Into this snake pit crawls the joke of the holiday season; the 34-nation, Riyadh-led anti-terrorism coalition \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093from all over the Islamic world.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d The perpetrator of the war on Yemen, Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman, even pledged this hazy new racket to \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093stop the flow of funds\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d to terrorists. As if the House of Saud would decapitate their own, indigenous wacko imams and pious, wealthy \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093financiers.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d<\/p>\n
This \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093coalition\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d inbuilt in the already existing, US-led, monstrously ineffectual Coalition of the Dodgy Opportunists (CDO) is undiluted spin. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have done absolutely nothing against ISIS since summer. They\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7d rather merrily bomb Yemen. Their \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093armies\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d are mercenary-infested. No mercenaries, no Saudi army. Pakistan and Egypt do have armies, but they are consumed by dire local problems and would not relocate troops to the \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Syraq\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d quagmire even if bribed by a mountain of petrodollars.<\/p>\n
With this spin, concocted by their savvy Edelman lobbyists, Riyadh believes it can change the subject from how it\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s trying hard to break up Syria.<\/p>\n
A breakdown of Syria\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s population, including the masses of refugees, would yield something like 14 percent Alawite Shi\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7ites, 5 percent Christians, 3 percent Druze, 1 percent twelver Shi\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7ites, 10 percent Kurds \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c the absolute majority leftist – and around 40 percent Sunnis, mostly secular and many of them leftists, not to mention comfortably linked to the Damascus and Aleppo business elite, that is, accommodated with the government for generations.<\/p>\n
Riyadh\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c and Ankara\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s – belief that a small bunch of Salafi-jihadist, from whatever persuasion, would be able to disrupt such a complex balance, not to mention rule a whole nation, does defy any logical explanation.<\/p>\n
So everything now hinges on the break for the border. Syrian Kurds have been loudly announcing something along the lines that \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093Real Kurds go to Jarabulus.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d Jarabulus is, in a nutshell, Turkey\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s last stand in Syria (the Russian Air Force has all but exterminated the Turkmen fight column in northern Latakia).<\/p>\n
Imagine a Kurdish unification corridor \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c running from Afrin to the rest of Rojava. This means Turkey cut off from Syria; crucially, the end of the Jihadi Highway; the end of Turkish secret services offering lavish logistical support for Daesh, from Big Macs to holidays in Turkey; the end of the Syrian stolen oil Daesh Highway. Not to mention the YPG \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c allied with the PKK \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0080\u009c controlling a semi-autonomous province with the status of a proto-state.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake: the Sultan will go no holds barred to prevent it. ISIS was never an \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093existential threat\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d to Ankara. On the contrary; it was always a very useful indirect \u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u056a\u0093ally.\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0539\u009d Ankara will continue to plug the myth that the road to Daesh\u0569\u00a7\u0549\u0082-\u0549\u0084\u00a7s defeat goes through Assad regime change.<\/p>\n
Russia exposed the bluff. Yet the lame duck Obama administration is still uncertain; should we use Erdogan even as he recklessly tries to pit NATO directly against Russia? Or should we dump him? The answer lies in who, and how, wins the break for the border.<\/p>\n
rt.com<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia Times Online. Born in Brazil, he’s been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9\/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of “Globalistan” (2007), “Red Zone Blues” (2007), “Obama does Globalistan” (2009) and “Empire of Chaos” (2014), all published by Nimble Books. His latest book is “2030”, also by Nimble Books, out in December 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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