Operation " Olive Branch "! Has he got a sense of humour? Doubt it.
In 2014, Obama's Vice President Joe Biden told a Harvard gathering that Erdogan was backing ISIS with "Hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of arms." The basis of this accusation was intelligence indicating that the Sultan's son and son in law were smuggling into Turkey from Syria oil and other commodities looted by ISIS. The payback, minus fat commissions, was bucks and bangs. Commenting, Anatoly Antonov, Russia's deputy defence minister, said " What a marvelous family business! "
Now, apart from trousering millions, were there other motives for Erdogan's backing of ISIS? Seems there were two. Firstly, as an Islamist busy unpicking Ataturk' secular legacy, he has sympathy for ISIS. OK, they throw homos of high rises and crucify dissidents but for God's sake give them a break; they are just good thorough going Muslims! Secondly, and most importantly, the Sultan is driven by his pathological hatred of the Kurds and their separatist aspirations.
The Kurds and others with US support were taking on ISIS. So help ISIS and you bleed the Kurds. The Sultan's problem here was that the YPG Kurds, who treat men and women equally and have highly able all women fighting brigades, these Kurds were doing rather well against ISIS. In fact they were/are, as recognised by the US, the only effective military force in both Syria and Iraq.
In the early stages of the siege by ISIS of Kurd held Kobani, September 2014, Erdogan was gleefully predicting that it would fall in days. He was bitterly disappointed when the town held out heroically for four months and ISIS was finally driven off. Kobani was the beginning of the end for ISIS. The Kurds, their allies and the US went on to crush the nutters in Mosul, Raqqa and everywhere else. One of the results of this was the firming up of a socialistic Kurdish statelet along the Turkish/Syrian border. It is this entity that ISIS friend Erdogan has attacked and wants to destroy.
Good luck Sultan! It was easy to squat on Ataturk's gifts and jail all your journalists, wig makers and political opponents. Attempting, however, to take down the Kurds who almost single-handedly finished ISIS is not just nasty it is extremely foolhardy.
