Middle East

Syria and Turkey - the NATO realities

The situation in northern Syria is in complete disarray, and changing by the hour. If you could take a snapshot of what is going on, it would have all the makings of confusing international geopolitical suspense movie.

Just a few days ago, the United States and its in-name-only NATO ally Turkey had arrived at an uneasy status quo in which military forces of the two countries were conducting combined patrols along the Syrian-Turkish border. The patrols were in essence a confidence-building measure by which the U.S.-allied, trained, and equipped Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) attempted to convince the Turks that they were not a terrorist organization, and that they posed no territorial (or other) threat to Turkey. The Turks were gathering intelligence on the best attack axes.

The SDF is composed of mostly Syrian Kurds from the militia known as the People's Protection Unit - known more commonly by the Kurdish initials YPG - along with some Arab, Assyrian/Syriac, Armenian, and other militias. Turkish press accounts aside, these fighters were the key ground combat unit that removed the scourge of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) from its territorial holdings in the country.