Turkey’s offering Washington a fig leaf of cooperation against the Islamic State, but it’s turning all its firepower against the most effective anti-ISIS fighters in the region — the Kurds.
Last year it was reported that the Islamic State captured Syrian fighter planes.
“The Iranian threat” has become such a truism in American politics that we’ve completely lost sight of Washington’s own record.
Or, to put it another way, the Islamic State succeeds because it breaks all the rules of insurgency.
Donald Trump’s not-so-veiled racism, crude economic populism, and male bravado make him the closest thing the U.S. has to an authentic European-style fascist.
The United States has tacit, if not official, congressional approval for its war on the Islamic State.
There may be a responsible way to fight the Islamic State, but the U.S. will have to leave its boots in the closet and the drones in the hangar.
Under the guise of fighting ISIS, Turkey’s president is re-igniting a bloody war with the Kurds for his own political purposes.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel appear constitutionally incapable of prioritizing the Islamic State as a threat.
In their latest deal to fight ISIS, Washington and Turkey are treating the Middle East’s largest stateless minority like pawns. That’s a huge mistake.