Ground Deployment Stuff
So the US is at least partially withdrawing from Qamishli and the Russians are moving in. There are reports of TFSA incursion to surround not only Manbij/Kobanî and to cut off the administrative capital of Ayn Issa from the rest. I’m afraid to look in on Idlib, and Tal Tamer would be moving into that territory if it wasn’t so strategic and therefore important to understand. It’s still bad there with fierce Turkish incursion; many contend that it’s at least in part because of the minority groups in the area:
Frankly, given the lack of international response this far, it makes dark brutal sense to try to drive away the Christians that still have the potential to be a PR disaster in the US. Unless they disappear; I don’t know if Erdogan cares about how it to where they disappear, but he’s shown a fondness for whacking dispossessed peoples. Maybe he thinks they give the Kurds in Turkey hope? I dunno.
Stick Diplomacy
And then the United States Special Representative for Syria Engagement and the Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIL James Jeffery is popping off. Again. Which surprises the shit out of me.
This is just weird.
I mean, it really surprised me after the memo thing—for a refresher, he wrote the internal memo obtained by the NYTimes that an official called “lengthy and harsh” as it took the Trump administration outside he woodshed, verbally anyway:
PBS: Senior U.S. envoy in Syria highly critical of troop withdrawal, memo shows
He sounds pretty serious though:
In fact, I feel a bit dumb here because I had assumed he’s been axed or thrown off a balcony or something.
But this is a big deal because he’s Dept. of State. He doesn’t just sound serious, he sounds like the Pentagon.
Very interesting developments, both on the ground and in the whole geopolitical thing.
Rojava to Rock 