The Obama Administration told Kurdish forces in Syria to move back from their positions after they seized control of the ISIS-held Syrian town of Manbij. “We’ve made it absolutely clear [to the Kurdish forces that] they must move back across the river,” Vice President Joe Biden said during a visit to Turkey on Wednesday. “They cannot — will not — under any circumstance get American support if they do not keep that commitment.”
Biden’s stance is widely seen as an attempt to pacify Erdogan’s Turkey, alarmed by recent Kurdish gains against ISIS in Syria. Erdogan’s Turkey, after maintaining long tacit alliance with the Islamic State, has recently dispatched military troops into Syria — not to fight ISIS but to hold the line against Kurds. In contrast, Kurds of Syria and Iraq have proven themselves as the most reliable fighting force in war against the Islamic State.
The Associated Press reports:
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is calling on Syrian Kurdish forces to move back across the Euphrates River, telling them they will lose U.S. support if they don’t.Speaking at a press conference in Ankara on Wednesday, Biden says Kurdish forces “must move back across the Euphrates River.”He says “they cannot — will not — under any circumstance get American support if they do not keep that commitment.”Biden indirectly expressed support for the Turkish operation launched Wednesday to clear Islamic State militants from the town of Jarablus and deter Kurds from further expanding in northern Syria.
This wouldn’t be the first time that Obama administration will be casting its lot with an Islamist regime — at the cost of a reliable ally. President Obama came to the office in 2008 with the hope of improving U.S. relations with the Muslim world by offering an olive branch to Islamists across the Middle East.
The President placed great hopes in ‘moderate’ Islamists like Egypt’s Morsi, Iran’s Rouhani and Turkey’s Erdogan. If their friendship were to come at the cost of jeopardising ties with trusted allies, it was a price he was willing to pay. This explains the ill-advised nuclear deal with Iran at the cost of Israel’s safety and that of other regional allies’, or attempts to strong-arm India into compromising territorial sovereignty in the Muslim-majority Kashmir region to please Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Let us not forget that Turkey’s President Erdogan, who is now busy rounding up tens of thousands of his citizens following a failed coup, was once considered by Obama as a ‘role model for Muslim leaders’.
Despite Erdogan’s dubious track record, the Obama administration is pinning all hopes on Islamist-led Turkey in its war against ISIS — while side-lining Kurds, the only fighting force in the region capable of holding its ground against ISIS onslaughts. Emboldening Islamist despots like Erdogan is not a winning strategy in the war against Radical Islam.
Video: Turkish, U.S. forces launch operation in Syria; Biden calls for Kurds to halt advances:
[Cover image courtesy BBC, YouTube]
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