With Gaddhafi gone the Lidless Eye of NATO turns to its next target, Syria, for a repeat of the successful model that was applied in Libya. But the plan for Syria has a flaw in that it depends on Turkey. But attacks by Kurds can press Turkey to abandon the plan.
Alastair Crooke explains the plans that have been made to engineer the downfall of Assad and Syria's fall into post-revolutionary hell. The main actors behind this plot:
In operational terms, Feltman and his team coordinate, Qatar hosts the "war room", the "news room" and holds the purse strings, Paris and Doha lead on pushing the Transitional Council model, whilst Bandar and Turkey jointly manage the Sunni theater in-country, both armed and unarmed.
For details please read Crooke's piece. It is quite good and makes sense.
There are two weak points in these plans. Crooke only points out that control of the Salafi's, as is shows in Libya, is difficult and there are others then Prince Bandar in the house of Saud, that may have very different ideas on how to use them.
Another weak point in the plan is the role of Turkey and the role of the Kurds. Turkey's prime minister Erdogan supported some Syrian opposition folks to set up their National Transitional Council in Turkey. But the Syrian Kurds were not amused when they were not included.
The killing of the Kurdish activist Mashaal Tammo in Syria was not followed, as the plans provided, by the Kurdish main parties joining the insurgency against Assad. They smelled the rat and did not blame him for that death.
Then Erdogan was suddenly confronted with a big attack by 100 fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on his military at the Iraqi border. He responded with a division size invasion of North Iraq.
I do not believe that the two issues, Turkey plotting against Syria and the Kurdish attacks in south-eastern Turkey are unrelated. As I wrote back in August:
Some people hope for the Turks to get involved in Syria. Forget about it. Syria, Iraq and Iran have, like Turkey, partly Kurdish population. If they want to pressure Turkey to stay away from an intervention in Syria they only need to unleash some of the Kurdish rebels into east Turkey.
The countries with Kurdish populations, Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria, have always used the various Kurdish groups to challenge their respective neighbors when they found it necessary or convenient to do so.
After recently damaging the relations with Iran by accepting a NATO anti-missile radar on Turkish ground and by plotting against Syria, Erdogan now had to again sue for piece:
Turkey is seeking Iran's support for its fight against Kurdish rebels, as thousands of troops press ahead with an air and ground offensive against militants in northern Iraq for a third day.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in Ankara on Friday to discuss closer cooperation against the separatist rebels, who have also attacked Iran in the past.
The Iranians will, of course, support Turkey against the Kurds. Provided, as they will have quietly requested, that Turkey leaves its hands off their Syrian ally. That Turkey has now given in to Iranian demands is visible in its public rejection of the U.S. allegations of an Iranian plot against the Saudi ambassador in Washington. This even after having been shown evidence by U.S. emissaries.
That lets me believe that Turkey has now accepted that a conflict with Syria (and Iran) is not in its interest.
Turkey leaving the revolutionary club takes a big and necessary piece out of the plan: A safe base like Benghazi inside Turkey from where the revolutionaries could jump off their attack on Syria under NATO air cover. One wonders how the plotters will adapt their plans to that.