What will Turkey do and what will US do?

Written by Nasser Kandil,

The Turks were almost end their celebration of the end of Astana Conference by devoting the legitimacy of the factions which affiliate to them as a partner in the Syrian political process till Al Nusra front started to snatch these factions one after the other, so the cost paid by the Turks in Aleppo for Astana’s process was in vain. Today they are in the worst situation compared if they accepted two years ago the classification of Al Nusra as terrorism and lifting the coverage off it, and if they gave the choice to the factions affiliated to them between Ankara and Al Nusra, however they have gambled on playing with bets hoping that Al Nusra and the factions would win in the war of Aleppo, and thus they would insert it into their project publically, while if they lost, they would negotiate on its cost. Now they have lost the capital with which they sat on the table of bets and started to borrow from the lenders in order to find what can face-saving, after they witnessed with Al Nusra what has happened to them with ISIS which started as Turkish powerful card that threatened the world under the slogan of either ISIS or Al Nusra, ISIS has hit in Turkey and the Turkish army, but it was unable at the gates of Al Bab city for three months, so it found itself in a great challenge after the invasion of Al Nusra of the areas of the Turkish factions.

Therefore, the Turks have to accept the reality of the loss and the serious positioning in the war on Al Nusra and ISIS , and the humility in accepting that the Kurdish formations are more serious and bold in confronting ISIS and Al Nusra from the groups which were bred from the Wahhabi Muslim Brotherhood thought, and which are unable to fight the groups which are older in that thought, so they have to accept the Kurdish formations as opposition armed factions that integrate in the political process, although these formations  maybe the only groups which still carry weapons among the opposition, and to accept the fact that the fight against ISIS and Al Nusra with Syrians will not be useful only if they are affiliated in an alliance with the Syrian army and under its banner, furthermore they have to accept that the ceiling of what the American can do is what he did in Al Raqqa against ISIS despite the fiery cover which presented by the Americans, and that the secret of the victory of the Syrian army and the allies is not the Russian air cover which becomes important when there is a ground force in the field that can reap the outcomes of the fiery cover, otherwise the Russian aircraft becomes as the US aircraft.

The new US President Donald Trump is no less confused regarding the Syrian scene despite the clarity of his desire to avoid the continuation of the wars and the bets of the administration of the Former President Barack Obama, so he announced his decision of forming a safe zone under the slogan of finding solution for the displacement crisis and addressing the Europeans that he is a guarantor of solutions, and that the title of the safe zone is old but now it is renewed, so Turkey which is  the owner of the original idea which its center is the embargo of the aircraft of the Syrian army from approaching from an area that is settled for the armed opposition and considered good for accommodating the Syrian refugees instead of heading to Turkey and across it to Europe felt with satisfaction toward this decision. And because the immediate question is what will Trump who refuses to get involved in a war with Russia and Syria do, knowing that Obama who was ready for half of an involvement was not able to do so?

The answer came after hours from Washington about the clarification of Trump’s decision by calling his ministers to study the idea and how to implement it in addition to its costs and consequences. The answer is known, the safe zone in the formula which we heard repeatedly is a war project and an involvement in a war that does not stop at the borders, so the one who does not want to involve in a war has to redefine the safe zone as areas that are far from the fighting areas and close to the Syrian borders with the neighboring countries and can be reached safely by the returned refugees, moreover the UN organizations can serve them, so the way to set it up as huge cities that accommodate hundreds of thousands of the returnees or the newly displaced is the coordination with the Syrian government and the neighboring countries, in addition to the presence of fund in order to finance the needs of its forming and its services, and providing security control for it that prevents its turning into a shelter for the militants by units of local police that are related to the Syrian state, and  be tolerate with the identities of the opponents as long as there is no weapons, this safe zone will be  sponsored by a partnership of international organizations in guarantees and aids. This is a project that Trump can adopt as a prelude to search it with Russia in preparation for an understanding with the Syrian state without the complexities of Obama, and a way to go to the Security Council through a decision accepted by the Syrian state, and thus it will be as a beginning for US Syrian dialogue to cooperate in ending the crisis and the war in Syria according to a bilateral of a political solution and a war on terrorism

The margins of the maneuvers got narrow.

Translated by Lina Shehadeh,