The Financial Times headline and lead sentence says it all: “Syria’s new government ready to run Isis detainee camps, Turkish minister says. Hakan Fidan meets Abu Mohammad al-Jolani and says Donald Trump will back Turkey over Kurdish forces.”
I believe that is indeed the deal that is being negotiated and I suspect that it does have Trump’s blessing - assumed if not actually stated, and Turkey is expected to ensure that Syria keeps ISIS under control, even if the prison camps are allowed to wither away over time.
I presume that Israel is watching all of this very closely, but, assuming that Ankara can keep Damascus in line vis-a-vis Israel, I don’t expect Jerusalem to complain. The “only” losers would seem to be the Kurds and they do not have much of a constituency outside of the immediate area.
Assuming that this “solution” continues to guide events, I see a diminishment in open conflict in Syria that involves us and a strengthening of what I consider to be contrarian, if not outright radical, Islamist thought. I credit Turkish President Erdogan with being superbly attuned to the realities of soft power in the region, even as I am uncomfortable with his objectives. This reflects my own difficulty in accepting the dramatic change in Turkey’s role in the world during my lifetime. I knew Ataturk’s Turkey and find Erdogan’s Turkey less compatible with my thinking.
Our emerging policy toward Syria is part of the process of accepting contrarian (radical) Islamist thought and, while unquestionably necessary, that is going to further complicate the resolution of every one of the issues facing humanity. Given the number of people in the world aligned with some form of Islamist thinking, this process is going to be extraordinarily difficult and time consuming.
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