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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:20.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><a href="https://jhaines6a.wordpress.com/2015/12/27/meet-the-sultan-of-civil-war-by-pepe-escobar-sputnik-internationl/">Meet the Sultan of Civil War, by Pepe Escobar / Sputnik Internationl</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Posted on <a href="https://jhaines6a.wordpress.com/2015/12/27/meet-the-sultan-of-civil-war-by-pepe-escobar-sputnik-internationl/" title="9:43 am">December 27, 2015</a> by <a href="https://jhaines6a.wordpress.com/author/sallytallen/" title="View all posts by Jean">Jean</a> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><a href="http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20151224/1032265320/erdogan-sultan-civil-war.html">http://sputniknews.com/columnists/20151224/1032265320/erdogan-sultan-civil-war.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><a href="https://jhaines6a.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/1031028687-1.jpg"><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=640 height=346 id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.jpg@01D14168.D76A30C0" alt="Description: 1031028687-1"></span></a><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Since mid-December the Turkish President has been adamant that a blitzkrieg/”cleansing” op in Southeast Anatolia will only end with Kurdish militants associated with the PKK completely “annihilated.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><i><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>An array of towns – especially Cizre, Silopi and Nusaybin – is totally under siege, encircled by tanks and armored vehicles. Ankara’s tactics include the Ministry of Education text-messaging around 3,000 teachers forcing them to return to their hometowns for “on-the-job training.”</span></i></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><a href="http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151224/1032253200/turkey-pkk-clashes.html"><span style='color:#3366FF'>Violent Clashes in Northern Turkey Force Hundreds of Thousands to Evacuate Homes</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The Turkish Army is facing a very determined enemy; the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H) — a lightly weaponized PKK urban youth faction following PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, who still languishes in an island prison. In a few towns, the YDG-H is occupying whole neighborhoods, setting up barricades and declaring autonomy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>As Ocalan has been kept virtually incommunicado by Ankara for months now, the political vacuum has been occupied by Cemil Bayik, a no-nonsense PKK commander fully supportive of the YDG-H. Representatives from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) have also been forbidden by Ankara to meet with Ocalan.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Predictably, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu – he of the former “zero problems with our neighbors” doctrine – told the HDP to stay away from the conflagration, as they would be “playing with fire”. The HDP estimates that Ankara’s new offensive has created at least 200,000 internal refugees.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The bear shows its claws</span></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Erdogan’s renewed anti-Kurdish civil war predictably has not elicited even a peep from the EU – fresh from being extorted by the Sultan to the tune of 3 billion euros, which supposedly will be used to contain the refugee crisis unleashed by the Sultan himself when he decided to “release” the refugees from many a holding camp.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><i><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Yet this new civil war chapter offers a window of opportunity for a really serious power player – as Erdogan, foolishly, now fights on two fronts, internal (Kurds) and external (Moscow). Sooner or later Moscow’s support for the YPG Syrian Kurds may translate into decisive support for the PKK inside Turkey.</span></i></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><a href="http://sputniknews.com/world/20151224/1032237513/turkey-erdogan-eu.html"><span style='color:#3366FF'>How to Treat the Sick Man of Europe: Turkey a ‘Factor of Instability’</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Everyone remembers when the YPG, four months ago, was on the verge of making a move towards Jarablus – the last town under the control of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh on the Turkish/Syrian border and an essential hub to resupply Raqqa, the capital of the fake “Caliphate”.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>If the YPG conquered Jarablus, Raqqa would inevitably fall in no time. Thus Erdogan duly declared Jarablus a “red line”. Translation: PKK-linked Kurds would be fought to death by the Turkish Army.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Russian intel is carefully monitoring the chessboard, although Moscow has not yet made a move to unconditionally support the YPG-PKK — weaponizing included.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>But hardcore action is in the cards. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met Selahattin Demirtas, the leader of the Peoples’ Democracy Party, Turkey’s top Kurdish political party, in Moscow.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Demirtas says he can do what the Sultan can’t; restore the Russia-Turkey relationship.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>As much as this Turkey insider theme is open to contention, what matters mostly for Moscow is Syria; Russia insists the YPG must be at the negotiating table on the future of Syria as representatives of a legitimate opposition. Russia knows very well this may end up with a Kurdish autonomy scenario in northern Syria, which would imply freedom of movement for the PKK to cause trouble to Ankara.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><a href="http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151223/1032221843/absolute-nightmare-kurds-turkey.html"><span style='color:#3366FF'>‘Absolute Nightmare’: How Fatal Would Russia’s Alliance With Kurds Be for Turkey?</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>It does not hurt, meanwhile, to keep a good relationship with the People’s Democracy Party in Turkey, which keeps its distance from the PKK although both parties share quite a few goals and key supporters.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Even ruling AKP members in Turkey have realized that Erdogan’s civil war strategy leads to a dead end. So they are suggesting Erdogan talks to the People’s Democracy Party as a way to further sideline the PKK politically.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>That may be too little, too late; Demirtas has been stressing that autonomy is the way for the whole of Southeast Anatolia – in contrast to what is characterized as Ankara’s dictatorship.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><i><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>So now Russia is able to add pressure against the Sultan on two separate fronts; support for autonomy in Anatolia, and support for a Syrian Kurd-controlled northern Syria.</span></i></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>De-Afghanizing Syria</span></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Once again it’s enlightening to go back to what Kadri Gursel, writing for Turkish daily Milliyet, conceptualized already in 2013, when he defined the Turkish border from Hatay to Gaziantep as the Peshawar of the Middle East (shades of the 1980s Afghan jihad).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><a href="http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151223/1032225468/turkey-kurds-clashes-syria.html"><span style='color:#3366FF'>Why ‘Turkey Can Easily Become a New Syria’</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Turkey continues to be “Pakistanized”; that is the neo-Ottoman version of a “Kalashnikov culture”. Meanwhile, in Syria, Russia and the “4+1” coalition (with Syria, Iran, Iraq plus Hezbollah) are doing their best to staunch ‘Lebanonization’ (ethnic and sectarian polarization); ‘Somalization’ (collapse of the state); and ‘Afghanization’ (jihadi power).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Syria won’t be “de-Afghanized” if the jihad belt – which includes the key stretch along the Turkish border — is not re-conquered. There are only two candidates to accomplish the task: YPG Syrian Kurds and the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). That’s the guarantee of endless sleepless nights for the Sultan.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>So the question now hinges on how close — politically and militarily – will be Moscow’s support for the YPG-PKK.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Moscow does not exactly favors the birth of a Kurdistan as advocated by Israel and US neocons. The US-Israel axis privileges some very specific Kurds; the vastly corrupt Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, which also happen to entertain close relations with Ankara (the oil export angle). No one knows how a Syrian Kurdistan controlled by the YPG-PKK would fit into an already complex equation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Ankara’s red line though is much easier to detect: any Kurdistan qualifies as a red line. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Waiting for Pipelineistan</span></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><i><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Erdogan, in desperation, is even flirting with Israel again. In this case, further Sultan burning may also be on the cards.</span></i></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Israel’s long game is an energy game: make sure it has access to non-stop, cheap Kurdish – as in stolen from Baghdad — oil flowing through the Kirkuk-Haifa pipeline. And in the long run Tel Aviv would love to bypass Ceyhan and replace it with Haifa as the top oil export terminal in the Eastern Mediterranean.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><a href="http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151215/1031770483/irreconcilable-contradictions-turkey-sponsor-terrorism-israel.html"><span style='color:#3366FF'>Irreconcilable Contradictions: ‘Turkey is Number One Sponsor of Terrorism, Israel is Number One Victim’</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Israel has easily bribed the noxious KRG mafia – and slimy Israeli operators have been involved for years in buying totally undocumented Kurdish oil, which may have been mixed along the way with stolen Iraqi/Syrian Daesh oil. Everyone familiar with the KRG knows how the Israelis on the ground are fronted by US and UK oil companies. The bottom line is startling: bribed-to-death Iraqi Kurds are selling discounted oil virtually stolen from Baghdad — which developed the wells and built the pipelines — to a country Iraq refuses to do business with.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>The “Kurdistan” Israel and US neocons really want, much more than a northern Syrian entity, is a northern Iraq colony, a vassal enclave run by the Barzani mob. That would imply no less than a war between Baghdad (supported by Tehran) and the KRG (supported by Washington and Tel Aviv). As apocalyptic scenarios go, this one at least is on hold.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Moscow, for the moment, prefers to focus on stripping Ankara naked in those convoluted Syrian peace negotiations, which, for all practical purposes, boil down to a US-Russia game.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>And as much as Erdogan remains a Washington vassal and an “adversary” of Israel only in posture, now he cannot even be sure where the Obama administration stands.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>Only a few weeks ago Obama requested him to deploy “30,000 (troops) to seal the border on the Turkish side”. At the time, Team Obama was hopeful that Erdogan’s troops would be able to clear and hold an area 98 km long and 30 km deep inside Syrian territory that would harbor Erdogan’s famous “safe zone”. Ankara would need just a mere pretext to invade — and a little American air cover.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>After the downing of the Su-24 and Russia’s deployment of the S-400s, this plan is now six feet under.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'>From the point of view of the myriad “Assad must go” front, the name of the game now in Syria is “hold on to what you’ve got”. Erdogan, as desperate as he may be, would have to accept his Jihadi Highway to retreat back across the Turkish border, and wait for the next window of wreaking havoc opportunity (which Russia will never open.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><i><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:red'>Yet the long game that really matters, for all players involved, is predictably Pipelineistan. Who will control a great deal of the oil and gas across “Syraq”, including the non-exploited wealth in the Kurdish areas; to where will it all flow; who sells it; and for what price.</span></i></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";color:red'>It’s a waiting game that the Sultan plans to fill with – what else – an anti-Kurdish civil war. </span></b><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>