Pakistan is siding with the Taliban over Afghanistan. Turkey is siding with ISIS over Kurdistan. Both NATO allies are making huge geopolitical mistakes as well as errors in moral judgment. The Taliban and ISIS are passing phenomenons, while Afghanistan and Kurdistan are geopolitical and demographic realities that can't be wished away.
Erdogan has chosen ISIS over the Kurds. It always turns out bad when racism or religious sectarianism drive your country's foreign policy rather than geostrategic reasons. It's not a smart bet to side with a hate-driven terrorist group filled with idiots from a hundred countries over a 30-35 million strong people who are indigenous to the region. Turkey may not like it, but ISIS will eventually disappear from the map, while the Kurds aren't going anywhere.
Jihadists from ISIS and other terrorist groups like to think that they're radical and revolutionary. But what is radical about answering to the likes of the U.S., Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, England, France, Pakistan, and Israel? And from the perspective of these states, you don't fear something that you more or less control.
That's why Turkey is going after the PKK/PYD Kurdish groups and not ISIS. And that's also why the Gulf monarchies are not too worried about any significant blowback from their pro-Jihadist policies in Yemen, Libya, and Syria. ISIS is pretty much preaching Saudi beliefs and state doctrine in Syria. And that's not an exaggeration.
An excerpt from, "Al Qaeda in Syria leaves area where Turkey seeks buffer" Reuters, August 10, 2015:
The al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front says it has quit frontline positions against Islamic State north of Aleppo and ceded them to other rebels, leaving an area of northern Syria where Turkey wants to set up a buffer zone.An excerpt from, "Turkey Invades Syria, Goes For Aleppo" by b, Moon of Alabama, August 10, 2015:
Today al Qaeda in Syria, aka Jabhat al Nusra which the U.S. has nurtured since 2012, pulled back from its areas in Aleppo governate. The Turkish president Erdogan wants these areas to block a Kurdish autonomous area in north Syria but also as a supply zone for his forces which those will need to later take Aleppo city, Erdogan's real strategic target.An excerpt from, "War Crimes Alert: Turkish Daily: “Aleppo to Become the 82nd Province of Turkey”" by Cem Ertür, Global Research, August 9, 2015:
Nusra claims that the retreat was because it would not support Turkey's attack on Syria and/or fight against the Islamic State for solely Turkish and U.S. gains. But the timing makes it clear that it had simply received an order or an offer it could not refuse: "Move now or we will cut you off from the money and logistics you have received for so long."
A few hours after Nusra pulled away from the fronts in Aleppo governate and moved towards Idlib the Turkish invasion started.
The predatory motives behind NATO’s genocidal covert war on Syria are getting ever more transparent.
“The Assad regime, frankly, is the root of all evil here.” [U.S. Department of State's Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner, daily press briefing, 6 August 2015].
