A skimpy breakthrough

Today’s announcement of an agreement between Turkey and the US on a “safe zone” inside northeastern Syria is being described as a breakthrough. But skimpy would also be accurate:

From August 5-7, 2019, U.S. and Turkish military delegations met at the Turkish Ministry of Defense to discuss plans to coordinate the establishment of a safe zone in northern Syria.

The delegations agreed on the following:

a) the rapid implementation of initial measures to address Turkey’s security concerns;

b) to stand-up a joint operations center in Turkey as soon as possible in order to coordinate and manage the establishment of the safe zone together;

c) that the safe zone shall become a peace corridor, and every effort shall be made so that displaced Syrians can return to their country.

It is not clear what this really means. At the least, it suggests President Erdogan will not risk a unilateral Turkish intervention inside Syria, with the attendant risk of clashes that injure or kill American troops. That is no small thing.

But it is not clear whether the months of quarreling over how wide the “safe zone” should be and how it will be protected and managed have ended. It sounds more like the issues have been delegated to a joint operations center. No harm in that if it succeeds, but why should it if higher level officials are still at odds? Particularly important is the question of who will be in charge: Turkey, the US, or some sort of consortium? Turkish/American cooperation at Manbij, just on the other side of the Eurphrates from the proposed safe zone, has not been easy, not to mention the bigger issues (F35s, Russian air defenses, Gulen) roiling he relationship between Washington and Ankara.

The third point–the safe zone or peace corridor–is enormously problematic. Will Ankara, under pressure from Turks to reduce the gigantic refugee population, be forcing people back into Syria to populate that area? How will the Kurds who live there–and have their own armed forces–react to Arab returnees, many of whom may never have lived in the now supposedly safe zone? How will security be maintained? How will people who move there be fed, sheltered, clothed, and provided with health care? How will the territory be governed? Under what laws? What will happen with the Kurdish-led governing institutions already established in that area?

The history of safe zones is spotty. Sometimes, as in northern Iraq in the 1990s, they have been successful. Iraqi Kurdistan grew to maturity under a no-fly zone that protected it from Saddam Hussein. At other times they have been unsuccessful: witness the safe zones in Bosnia that suffered attacks from Serb forces that led to the NATO military intervention there.

In Syria, the odds are not good. The Americans have only about a thousand troops left in the northeast. President Trump is not going to want to increase their number. So the safe zone will be under the protection mainly of Turkish and Turkey-allied forces that are hostile to the governing authorities the Kurds have established there. The Kurds reciprocate: they are hostile to Turkey, where their PKK confreres have been in violent rebellion for decades. The Islamic State, while not holding territory in northeast Syria, is still present and conducting terrorist attacks. It will of course seek to aggravate any frictions between Kurds and Arabs as well as Kurds and Turks, which shouldn’t be difficult.

So yes, a breakthrough of sorts but still a skimpy one that will require a great deal of time, manpower, money, and effort to merit the “peace corridor” label. At this point, it is just as likely it will make that appellation the subject of future derision.