Turkey adds to mire in Middle East

The Middle East has a well-deserved reputation for being a quagmire for conflicts. It’s a region of ancient peoples, cultures, enmities, religious rivalries and rich resources where it’s too often easier to start a fight than get out of one.

Fighting forces become proxies for the regional powers trying to inflict damage on each other. Overseas armies get sucked in and stay for years. Extremist groups aren’t eliminated — they just melt into hiding and wait. Political solutions are hard to come by and civilians suffer.

Saudi Arabia is bogged down in Yemen, battling rebel fighters backed by its great rival Iran. Iraq’s Government is dealing with serious unrest in which dozens of people have died, 17 years after the US invasion. The question of what to do with Isis prisoners and their families after the territorial end of the caliphate in Iraq and Syria has been unresolved for months, with various countries unwilling to take back their foreign fighters.

Russia has used the long-festering Syria conflict to become the major regional powerbroker. After intervening years ago to successfully prop up Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, Russian President Vladimir Putin drew Iran and Turkey into his influential political orbit during the civil war.

Now Turkey has fatefully launched an operation to target the Kurdish People’s Protection Forces (YPG), after being given the green light by US President Donald Trump. US troops pulled back from two spots in Syria near the Turkish border but there are still nearly 20 other US positions in the area.

It’s a complicated tangle. The YPG has been America’s ally in battling Isis. Turkey is a Nato member and the US stores nuclear weapons at the country’s Incirlik Airbase. Ankara sees the YPG as a terrorist group, linked to its foe, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Turkey wants to carve out a 30km zone along its border and resettle Syrian refugees there. The Kurdish-controlled area happens to contain most of Syria’s oil and gas resources. For its part, the YPG — stripped of US protection — could be forced to reach a deal with the Syrian regime and Russia to survive.

The Turkish move has outraged both Democrats and Republicans in the US Congress as the YPGdominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has helped the US control a large area of Syria and Isis prisoners. Critics accuse the Trump Administration of abandoning the Kurds to slaughter.

What is most likely to occur here is a new round of escalation in an area of Syria that was relatively calm. The Turkish operation could cause widespread civilian deaths and displacement, give Isis a major boost, draw in Syrian regime forces, and spur a local insurgency against the Turkish forces.

The incursion could backfire against Turkey, bringing conflict down on its army and back to its own home territory. There could be no easy way out.