Bleeding on a Jet Plane
To say that tensions in Syria have been rough over the past 16 months is an understatement. Relations between Syria and Turkey have strained as well, since Turkey has declared itself on the side of the "Syrian people" rather than the Syrian government. 30,000 refugees have come into Turkey, including high ranking military officials defecting to Turkey. In the past week, a general, two colonels and other high ranking officers defected shortly after a lieutenant colonel and other pilots defected to Jordan. The lieutenant colonel took a 25 million dollar MiG-21 with him when he defected (for further happy ending, their families all made it out as well). So, many of the upper ranks of the Syrian military have been defecting to Turkey, which has made things even worse for relations between the two countries. So, to make matters worse, Syria shot down a Turkish jet in border waters. And Turkey claims Syria fired at a second Turkish jet, which is bound to piss any country off. To make this even worse for Syria, Turkey has asked for a NATO consultation under Article 4, which is the provision in the NATO charter that says if a country has its sovereignty or political existence threatened, it can convene the other NATO countries for possible military aid. Military aid, actionable under Article 5 of the NATO charter, has only been granted once before: America asked for it in the wake of the September 11 attacks in dealing with Afghanistan and the Taliban. The council is meeting in about 10 hours (give or take) in Brussels, NATO military headquarters. Given how the US feels about Syria right now, how NATO was formed to repel Soviet aggression and how Russia feels about Syria, this gets all the more tricky. Yes, it is possible that NATO will declare open season on Syria. Or at least, that has to be on the mind of guys running Syria.
Syria has of course disputed Turkey's version of events. According to both sides, a Turkish F-4 Phantom strayed into Syrian airspace over the Mediterranean while testing Turkish radar emplacements. Turkey claims the jet was in international waters, after being in Syrian airspace, when Syria shot it down. Syria claims it shot the plane down with artillery. . .which would be called a nice shot given the standard cruising altitude of an F-4. The pilots of the original F-4 have not been recovered yet, which is odd considering the plane was shot down on Friday, and Turkey claims a SAR (search and rescue) plane was shot at by Syria. That's a major violation of all kinds of understandings of international protocol, especially by two countries who are not currently engaged in hostilities. Syria has of course denied those turns of events, but it may not matter. Syria's credibility is pretty much in the crapper these days. Especially with the key members of NATO, the US and the UK. That said, the US is probably not anxious to start another ground war in the Middle East, especially not during an election year, and the UK is not likely to start anything either. However, this WOULD free up all kinds of funds and rules about what kind of things can be done in theater and what kind of assistance can be given to the rebels. For example, airstrikes, which worked well in Libya recently. This has the added bonus of having a neighbor country who could actually help rebuild who is actually friendly to American interests AND respected in the Middle East as a secular, Muslim nation.
Except Turkey is not so simple as that. Yes, Turkey is a modernized, Muslim and officially secular nation, but they recently have had a recent turn to the right and a slightly more Muslim identity. The President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are both members of the Justice and Development Party. In Turkish, it's known at the AK Parti, with "ak" being the Turkish word for "white" or "clean". They were both members of two previous parties that were publicly identified as Muslim, which led to them being banned in Turkey. Turkey has specific laws about political parties not being religious in nature, that's how concerned they have been for the past 90 years about being too Muslim. One of the reforms Gul and Erdogan enacted was to remove the ban on women wearing headscarves at universities. Yes, they were THAT worried about religion defining the country they actually banned some public displays of it. Despite this, they are still seen as having a Muslim identity an being a leader in the Muslim world. Traditionally, Egypt and Turkey have been leaders of that part of the world, with Turkey representing forward facing European-leaning interests and Egypt representing the struggle between traditionalism and modernism. Now that Egypt is in some state change (no one knows how far along yet), this leaves Turkey as the one who has to sort some things out. And now Syria is making an enemy of Turkey.
Not that Syria is in great shape either. Right now, the only things propping them up are Iran and the current US/Russia nastiness. Syria has been doing a good job playing two great powers off each other, including getting weapons and helicopter shipments from Russia. Of course, if NATO officially intervenes, that could mean more aggressive tracking of those ships, including possible interdicting. Syria is also trying to deal with an insurgent movement that doesn't have the good sense to die and lie down to be slaughtered by machine guns. The government is getting no traction out of the "it's all the fault of terrorists" line, even if it is technically true. After all, if the non-governmental thugs are running around killing people and destroying things, then it is the fault of terrorists. It just leaves out the idea that the terrorists were paid for, trained by and supported the government. Syria just re-shuffled its cabinet, but that's fooling exactly no one. The Assad regime is just that, a regime run by one family for the past few decades. There have been plenty of atrocities committee by government forces, either para-military or military, that have resulted in dozens of deaths each. Syria can't quite clamp it down, which does not speak well to their military might. Taking on a country like Turkey, which has a serious military, would be foolish. Taking on Turkey when it has the backing of NATO is little short of suicidal. Taking on a country like Turkey with NATO backing and having a domestic insurgency going on is possibly the craziest thing since Kim Jong-Il. Taking on a country like Turkey with NATO backing and having a domestic insurgency going on but having the military support of Russia is almost the start of World War I.
So, Syria shooting down a Turkish jet might be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Or it might turn out to be little short of nothing if all of this gets negotiated to a settlement. It could also lead to NATO and Russia playing proxies off each other in Syria. The US has already been sending covert styles of support, such as training people how to use cameras and hack past internet blocks so the story of what is going on in Syria can get out to the world. If we actually start inserting groups like Green Berets to train rebels in how to do guerrilla tactics properly, it will get even worse. The Brits will ship in the SAS and others and the rebels will go from being holding their own to doing real damage to an enemy that would be pushed to do worse. Luckily, Russia doesn't have the SpecOps projection NATO does, that is, Spetznaz forces are not going to be deployed to a country that is not directly attacking Russia; they've classically been more trained on defense and securing taken territory. Again, airstrikes against key targets are even more likely and damaging to Syrian morale. Damascus might get turned into a bouncing pile of rubble by the time it's all over, but doubtless the Syrian rebels would have destroyed any serious government buildings and military installations Bastille style. Foreign intervention just gets the fight done faster.
And getting it over with faster might be the best outcome of all.
So it is written, so do I see it.
Syria has of course disputed Turkey's version of events. According to both sides, a Turkish F-4 Phantom strayed into Syrian airspace over the Mediterranean while testing Turkish radar emplacements. Turkey claims the jet was in international waters, after being in Syrian airspace, when Syria shot it down. Syria claims it shot the plane down with artillery. . .which would be called a nice shot given the standard cruising altitude of an F-4. The pilots of the original F-4 have not been recovered yet, which is odd considering the plane was shot down on Friday, and Turkey claims a SAR (search and rescue) plane was shot at by Syria. That's a major violation of all kinds of understandings of international protocol, especially by two countries who are not currently engaged in hostilities. Syria has of course denied those turns of events, but it may not matter. Syria's credibility is pretty much in the crapper these days. Especially with the key members of NATO, the US and the UK. That said, the US is probably not anxious to start another ground war in the Middle East, especially not during an election year, and the UK is not likely to start anything either. However, this WOULD free up all kinds of funds and rules about what kind of things can be done in theater and what kind of assistance can be given to the rebels. For example, airstrikes, which worked well in Libya recently. This has the added bonus of having a neighbor country who could actually help rebuild who is actually friendly to American interests AND respected in the Middle East as a secular, Muslim nation.
Except Turkey is not so simple as that. Yes, Turkey is a modernized, Muslim and officially secular nation, but they recently have had a recent turn to the right and a slightly more Muslim identity. The President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are both members of the Justice and Development Party. In Turkish, it's known at the AK Parti, with "ak" being the Turkish word for "white" or "clean". They were both members of two previous parties that were publicly identified as Muslim, which led to them being banned in Turkey. Turkey has specific laws about political parties not being religious in nature, that's how concerned they have been for the past 90 years about being too Muslim. One of the reforms Gul and Erdogan enacted was to remove the ban on women wearing headscarves at universities. Yes, they were THAT worried about religion defining the country they actually banned some public displays of it. Despite this, they are still seen as having a Muslim identity an being a leader in the Muslim world. Traditionally, Egypt and Turkey have been leaders of that part of the world, with Turkey representing forward facing European-leaning interests and Egypt representing the struggle between traditionalism and modernism. Now that Egypt is in some state change (no one knows how far along yet), this leaves Turkey as the one who has to sort some things out. And now Syria is making an enemy of Turkey.
Not that Syria is in great shape either. Right now, the only things propping them up are Iran and the current US/Russia nastiness. Syria has been doing a good job playing two great powers off each other, including getting weapons and helicopter shipments from Russia. Of course, if NATO officially intervenes, that could mean more aggressive tracking of those ships, including possible interdicting. Syria is also trying to deal with an insurgent movement that doesn't have the good sense to die and lie down to be slaughtered by machine guns. The government is getting no traction out of the "it's all the fault of terrorists" line, even if it is technically true. After all, if the non-governmental thugs are running around killing people and destroying things, then it is the fault of terrorists. It just leaves out the idea that the terrorists were paid for, trained by and supported the government. Syria just re-shuffled its cabinet, but that's fooling exactly no one. The Assad regime is just that, a regime run by one family for the past few decades. There have been plenty of atrocities committee by government forces, either para-military or military, that have resulted in dozens of deaths each. Syria can't quite clamp it down, which does not speak well to their military might. Taking on a country like Turkey, which has a serious military, would be foolish. Taking on Turkey when it has the backing of NATO is little short of suicidal. Taking on a country like Turkey with NATO backing and having a domestic insurgency going on is possibly the craziest thing since Kim Jong-Il. Taking on a country like Turkey with NATO backing and having a domestic insurgency going on but having the military support of Russia is almost the start of World War I.
So, Syria shooting down a Turkish jet might be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Or it might turn out to be little short of nothing if all of this gets negotiated to a settlement. It could also lead to NATO and Russia playing proxies off each other in Syria. The US has already been sending covert styles of support, such as training people how to use cameras and hack past internet blocks so the story of what is going on in Syria can get out to the world. If we actually start inserting groups like Green Berets to train rebels in how to do guerrilla tactics properly, it will get even worse. The Brits will ship in the SAS and others and the rebels will go from being holding their own to doing real damage to an enemy that would be pushed to do worse. Luckily, Russia doesn't have the SpecOps projection NATO does, that is, Spetznaz forces are not going to be deployed to a country that is not directly attacking Russia; they've classically been more trained on defense and securing taken territory. Again, airstrikes against key targets are even more likely and damaging to Syrian morale. Damascus might get turned into a bouncing pile of rubble by the time it's all over, but doubtless the Syrian rebels would have destroyed any serious government buildings and military installations Bastille style. Foreign intervention just gets the fight done faster.
And getting it over with faster might be the best outcome of all.
So it is written, so do I see it.