You Can't Have It All Ways!

Unlike this country where the President wants things his way or no way Turkey's Erdogan has played it differently. He really wants to be the new Caliph with Turkey as the center of the Caliphate. Like us, he prefers to let others do his fighting while playing both sides.

Where we once thought of him as a suspect ally he has proven to be a turncoat by disallowing coalition forces, such as they are, from using his air bases and turning a blind eye toward those crossing his borders to join IS.

I suspect he wants to let IS fight his war than he'll take care of IS in lieu of joining forces with them. Good luck.

He's at war in a lesser sense with the Kurds because they want their own country and in my opinion should have it.  On his eastern border, however, their territory is in Syria so he lets his tanks sit on his side of the border while the Kurds fight desperately against IS for the survival of Kobani.

Further west Kurdish territory is partially in Turkey, partially in Iraq and partially in

Iran so he is taking advantage of the chaos to bomb those Kurds while they too are fighting IS. The poor Kurds are surrounded by hostiles, yet they remain democratic and pro western.  Unfortunately they're finding that allegiance has gained them nothing.

No arms as promised.  No support from the Turks and sporadic air support from the coalition.

So now what?  The Kurds are mad.  Really mad and beginning to rebel against the Turks. That puts them in an even more tenuous position because I'll bet it will effect our promise to provide them with more appropriate arms.  Will Turkey crumble?  Probably not but they'll be forced into some kind of armed conflict to quell the angry Turks leaving al Assad in Syria even freer reign than he already has.

Now back to IS.  While the media is focusing on Kobani IS is inching ever closer to Baghdad. We've been assured that Baghdad won't fall.  The Iraqi forces won't allow it yet two outlying bases and the accompanying arms have fallen to IS in the past few days.  Suicide bombings within the city limits are on the increase.

Will Baghdad fall?  Have we kept Ebola out of the U.S.? If it does Erdogan can forget his ambitions, IS will reign for at least a time then we'll turn our attention to a nuclear Iran.

This is why when one goes to war the goal should be to win.  Unequivocally. You can't have it all ways.