They won't even let the allies operate on their soil,
I was going to say that they just reached a deal to let the allies launch air strikes from their soil. That's what Susan Rice said yesterday. But now I just saw that Turkey has denied this, so I don't know what's going on there.
No. Obviously, there are multitude of reasons, many of which we would consider bad. For example, they committed to helping forces opposed to Assad, and now don't want to do Assad's dirty work for him.
The point is, the whole thing's kind of a mess. Turkey getting engaged in a war along its border wouldn't necessarily just be limited to this one village. Why? Because this whole thing seems to involve the allies lurching from one crisis to the next. The western powers say that they'll do air strikes, but rely on forces within Iraq and Syria to fight on the ground. Then when a single Kurdish village on the Turkish border is threatened, they ask why Turkey isn't sending in ground forces. Umm….since when were they abandoning the idea of just letting the forces within Iraq and Syria be the boots on the ground? Then you've got
France talking about wanting to set up a humanitarian corridor, with the US showing reluctance. It doesn't sound like all the allies are on the same page.
So yeah, I wish Turkey would act too, but I can't really single them out for particular blame when none of the other allies is volunteering ground troops of their own.
Out of curiosity, are you suggesting that the US also commit combat troops to Syria, or would you stick with the Obama line of air power only?
