Turkey's Dysfunctional Compulsion

"Kobani has become an international symbol that embodies the way the world has reacted to the Arab Spring over the past few years."
"When the U.S. left here a couple of years ago it left a vacuum where Islamic State has tried to fill the void and become the new monster because the regional powers, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia, have had no interest in nation-building. Paying the price have been communities such as Kobani."
"There are all these fires everywhere and none of the stakeholders effectively talk to each other."
"People are trying to intervene but they are paralyzed because there is no co-ordination.""Dlawer Ala'Aideen, president, Middle East Research Institute, Irbil, Iraq

"The likely fall of Kobani may mark an irrevocable breach between Turks and Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iraq."
Patrick Cockburn, Middle East Expert Independent newspaper, Britain

In this image shot with an extreme telephoto lens and through haze from the outskirts of Suruc at the Turkey-Syria border, Turkish forces armoured vehicles patrol the border as a black banner with white writing is seen atop of a building at the eastern side of the town of Kobani, Syria (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

For an expert on the Middle East that last statement must rank as the classic understatement. Turkey, which has recently signed a peace agreement with Turkish Kurds -- and through it finding quiet reigning since then rather than the violent agitation that has prevailed for over a half-Century as Turkey's fourteen-million Kurds insist they have a right for greater autonomy, much less a region carved out for them taking a bit of geography of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran for a nation of their very own -- has left the Kurds now with good reason to bitterly return to armed conflict with Turkey.

Turkish authorities under order of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a dourly committed Islamist who has turned the country away from Kamal Attaturk's brand of Euro-centered secularist governance, genially allowed ISIS and other Islamist groups associated with Al-Qaeda entry over its border into Syria, in the hope that their battle against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would succeed in removing him from power. In the process spinning Syria into chaotic free-for-all as each Islamist group then turned on the other for ultimate conquest.

In the end, though it wasn't quite the end, and President al-Assad remains capable of destroying the little that is left of his country and uninterruptedly continues barrel-bombing his Sunni citizens, it was the Iraqi Sunni Islamists now calling themselves the Islamic State that succeeded in placing themselves first on the hierarchy of malevolent murderers in the name of an Islamic caliphate. And Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi its caliph to whom all must bow down in awe and veneration.

Now strenuously denying aid given to the murderous Islamists, Mr. Erdogan took wild umbrage at the revelation already in the public realm, publicly and candidly divulged by U.S. Vice-President Biden that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar had all trained and armed the Sunni Islamist militias associated with al-Qaeda. A statement that was neither politically or diplomatically expedient, but the truth nonetheless. Arab and Muslim autocrats are not fond of truth, however. And Turkey, despite the pressure it squirms under to make an effort, any effort, to aid the Kurds battling to secure Kobani, will do no such thing.

The border between Turkey and Syria that was friendly and open to Islamist Sunni jihadis, is now slammed close to the deliverance of food, medical aid, weaponry, or Kurdish militia volunteers anxious to cross over to aid their Syrian Kurdish brethren, before Kobani falls, leaving a wide corridor in place completely dominated by the Islamic State militias. Clearly, Turkey is not concerned that it will have on its direct border thousands of ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State warriors to threaten its peace and stability.

And that might be for one of two reasons; either that it fears and detests the aspirations of the Turkish Kurds to the degree that harming their future coordination and cooperation with Syrian Kurds is top of mind and a first concern over the future concern that Islamic State will eventually turn on its Turkish enablers -- or, alternately, that Turkey is assured through a mutually agreeable pact with Islamic State that neither will make any effort to disturb the other from achieving their individual goals.

Ankara's inaction in the face of a ferocious onslaught by the Islamic State on the Kurdish defence of Kobani on its border will ensure that there will never again be any measure of quasi-amicable relations between Turks and their Kurdish population. But, evidently this is of little moment to Mr. Erdogan at the moment, weighed against his white-hot hatred of the Syrian regime; an odd little peculiarity given Turkey's convivial relations with Syria's protector, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

But this is the Middle East, and no one understands, can decipher or predict what will happen there at any given time. It is a geography of traditional social, political and religious dysfunction complete with violent hatreds, tribal and ethnic divisions and sectarian viciousness beyond the comprehension of any civilized peoples.

Smoke rises after an U.S.-led air strike in the Syrian town of Kobani, October 8, 2014.
REUTERS/Umit Bekas