Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.Without ever mentioning Palmerston‘s famous statement of realpolitik, George Friedman of Geopolitical Futures writes that the Kurds are not our “eternal ally” but in fact a case where, briefly with regard to ISIS, our interests and theirs coincided. Like the U.S. alliance with the Soviet Union during World War II, it was an ad hoc “marriage of convenience” between two actors which before and afterwards were near-enemies.
Friedman’s point, Turkey and the U.S. need each other, without particularly liking each other. Of the Long War Friedman writes:
After the 18 years of war, two things have become clear. The first is that the modest objective of disrupting terrorism has been achieved, and the second is that the ultimate goal of creating something approaching liberal democracies was never really possible.In other words, the Kurds and the U.S. were each opposed to ISIS for their own reasons and found it useful to aid each other. Now, under changed circumstances, the U.S. and Turkey once again have shared opponents and may, for a time, aid each other.
The world has changed greatly since 2001. China has emerged as a major power, and Russia has become more active. Iran, not Sunni jihadists, has become the main challenge in the Middle East and the structure of alliances needed to deal with this has changed radically since Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom.
There is (an) increasingly powerful faction in the United States that sees the Middle East as a secondary interest. In many instances, they include Iran in this. This faction sees China or Russia (or both) as the fundamental challenger to the U.S. Its members see the Middle East as a pointless diversion and a drain of American resources.
Given the shift in American strategy, three missions emerge. The first is the containment of China. The second is the containment of Russia. The third is the containment of Iran. (snip) In dealing with Russia, there are two interests. One is the North European Plain; the other is the Black Sea. Poland is the American ally in the north, Romania in the south. But the inclusion of Turkey in this framework would strengthen the anti-Russia framework. In addition, it would provide a significant counter to Iranian expansion.
At the moment, the issue is not al-Qaida but China and Russia, and Turkey is critical to the U.S. for Russia. (snip) So Trump’s actions on the Syrian border will result in President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Washington and, in due course, a realignment in the region between the global power and the regional power.
Friedman is a better practitioner of realpolitik than I, and his defense of Trump’s disengagement with the Kurds is relatively elegant. Let’s reserve judgment and see how it plays out.
