10/23/14, "Why Kobani Must Be Saved," NY Times Editorial Board, 10/24 print ed.
"If
Kobani survives, it will have defied the odds. This embattled city on Syria's northern border with Turkey has been on the verge of falling for
weeks in the face of a brutal siege by Islamic State militants. But the
Syrian Kurds who call Kobani home continue to fight hard, and on Sunday
the United States made airdrops of weapons and other supplies to bolster them.
The
town, once dismissed as inconsequential by American commanders, has
become not only a focus of the American operation against the Islamic
State, known as ISIS, but also a test of the administration’s strategy,
which is based on airstrikes on ISIS-controlled areas in Syria and
reliance on local ground forces to defeat the militants. A major problem
is that the local ground forces are either unorganized, politically
divided or, as in the case of the Kobani Kurds, in danger of being
outgunned.
A
setback in Kobani would show the fragility of the American plan and
hand the Islamic State an important victory. Given Kobani’s location
next to Turkey, the town’s fall would put the Islamic State in a
position to cross the border and directly threaten a NATO ally, a move
that could force the alliance to come to Turkey’s defense.
The
big missing piece in the American operation is Turkey, whose reluctance
to assist Kobani’s Kurds highlights the enduring weaknesses in
America’s strategy. The decision to resupply the Kurds was a desperation
move; the Kurds were at risk and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, has refused to help despite repeated entreaties from
Washington.
Only on Monday, after the American airdrop, did Turkey say it would allow Iraqi Kurdish forces, the pesh merga, to cross Turkey into Kobani. So far, however, no reinforcements of forces have reached Kobani by way of Turkey and Mr. Erdogan made it clear on Thursday
that he is prepared to let only 200 pesh merga travel through his
country — hardly enough when the Islamic State reportedly has about
1,000 militants in the area.
Turkey
has been a troublesome NATO ally in the best of times. Matters have
been made worse by its insistence that Syria’s president, Bashar
al-Assad, is a bigger threat than the Islamic State and by its
complicated relationships with various Kurdish groups. Turkey has long
enabled the Islamic State, whose original objective was to overthrow the
Assad regime, by permitting militants, weapons and money to cross its
border into Syria.
Now
that the United States is leading the fight against the Islamic State,
Turkey says it will work with the Americans. Yet it balks at helping
Kurdish fighters in Kobani because it fears this would also strengthen
the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (or P.K.K.) inside Turkey. The P.K.K. has
been fighting a bitter, separatist war against the Turkish government
for three decades, though recently the two sides have engaged in peace
talks. It is hard to see what Mr. Erdogan gains by angering the
Americans or by angering the Kurds in Iraq, the one Kurdish group with
which Turkey has had good relations. Its refusal to assist also
jeopardizes the nascent peace talks with the P.K.K.
There
were many unknowns when President Obama began a premature and
ill-advised mission into Syria. The failure to secure the full
cooperation of an important ally leaves the success of the fight against
the Islamic State increasingly open to question."
"A version of this editorial appears in print on October 24, 2014, on page A26 of the New York edition."...
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10/24/14, "ISIS one of richest terror groups, earns $1 million a day selling oil," AFP via Hindustan Times