Air strikes alone will fail to stop Isis
Britain has joined a war against Islamic State (Isis) within a political framework that guarantees frustration if not failure. The House of Commons was rightly wary of another open-ended foreign intervention in Iraq, Syria or anywhere else. But, while MPs are conscious that Britain is entering a minefield, they were much less good at identifying where the mines are and what, if anything, can be done about them. As in 2003, the US and Britain are plugging themselves into a series of inter-related conflicts in Iraq and Syria in which the main players have very different agendas from what they pretend.
Take the current Isis offensive against the Kurdish enclave of Kobane in northern Syria on the border with Turkey, where 300,000 Kurds are squeezed into a smaller and smaller enclave as they battle better armed Isis fighters. Some 200,000 Syrian Kurds have already fled across the Turkish border. Here, if anywhere, the US could have deployed its airpower to attack the advancing militants. It was US air strikes that helped to save the Iraqi Kurdish capital Erbil in August so why not do the same for Kobane?
Strangely, until yesterday the US was using its airpower everywhere in Syria except Kobane where Isis has launched its most serious offensive since US air attacks on Syria began. It has seized 64 villages, using tanks and artillery barrages from guns captured from the Iraqi and Syrian armies. Why the American reticence? It appears to be motivated by a wish not to offend Turkey which never cared for the semi-independent Kurdish cantons, home to many of Syria's 2.5 million-strong Kurdish minority, that have grown up across its southern border since 2011.
Its actions are strong evidence that Ankara can see the advantages of using Isis against the Kurds. Reporters on the ground on the Turkish side of the border say that Isis militants still found it easy last week to cross backwards and forwards, unlike Turkish Kurds wanting to fight Isis. An observer in Turkey asks the question: "Why Isis fighters are still being taken across the border into Turkey to be treated in hospital for their combat wounds, when medical staff treating non-violent but injured protesters in Gezi Square are put on trial for 'assisting terrorism'?"
For all Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's statements at the UN in New York that he opposes Isis, the militants receive a degree of toleration from the Turkish state. This was graphically illustrated by pictures on successive days last week of police treatment of two demonstrations in Istiklal Caddesi in the heart of Istanbul. The first shows pro-Isis demonstrators holding a long white banner untroubled by the police. The second picture shows a group in the same street the following day protesting at the imposition of religious education who are being beaten by police in full riot gear.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/air-strikes-alone-will-fail-to-stop-isis-9759913.html
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