Obama may arm Kurds against Turkey’s wishes
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is weighing a military plan to directly arm Syrian Kurdish fighters combating the Islamic State, a major policy shift that could speed up the offensive against the terrorist group but also sharply escalate tensions between Turkey and the United States.
The plan has been under discussion at a moment when President Obama has directed aides to examine all proposals that could accelerate the fight against the Islamic State. Obama has told aides that he wants an offensive well under way before he leaves office that is aimed at routing the Islamic State from Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital in northern Syria.
Deciding whether to arm the Syrian Kurds is a difficult decision for Obama, who is caught in the middle trying to balance the territorial and political ambitions of Turkey and the Syrian Kurds, two warring U.S. allies that Washington needs to combat the Is lamic insurgency.
Directly providing weapons for the first time to the Syrian Kurds, whom U.S. commanders view as their most effective ground partner against the Islamic State, would help build momentum for the assault on Raqqa. But arming them would also aggravate Obama’s already tense relations with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The United States and Turkey sharply disagree over Syria’s Kurdish militias, which Turkey sees as its main enemy in Syria.
The plan calls for providing the Syrian Kurds with small arms and ammunition, and some other supplies, for specific missions, but no heavy weapons such as antitank or antiaircraft weapons.
In the past two years, the Pentagon has provided small arms, ammunition and other supplies to a group acceptable to Turkey — the Syrian Arabs, a minority in the Kurdish-dominated umbrella group that is fighting the Islamic State.
Many analysts say the Pentagon’s support to the Syrian Arabs is basically cover for aid to the Syrian Kurds, but arming the Kurds directly would still be a significant shift.