Is Turkey Battling ISIS Or Are The Kurds The Real Target?

Are Turkey’s recently well publicized efforts to join in the fight against ISIS Islamic terrorists a “come to Jesus moment,” as Zerohedge jokingly referred to it, or something else?

What is Turkey’s real motivation after suffering electoral defeat to Kurds?

The Islamic group best known for lighting prisoners of war on fire, beheading those whose religion or politics they differ and enslaving and selling women they capture, ISIS has taken terrorism to new levels, literally scaring the pants off Iraqi troops that have a history of retreating when threatened.

Whipping up public support to tackle that monster, even in an Islamic state such as Turkey, can create a cloud of emotion that could influence elections. Is this the real plan behind Turkey’s move to fight ISIS – a method to beat down a political rival under the cover war fervor.

The world is a complex place and intricate and often what seems absurd, such as a Turkey planning an attack on its own nation to whip up war, is not unique

Think such talk of using war and complex deception is impossible? Just connect a few dots and realize the world is a complex place and those in control use a variety of methods to exert their will. In Turkey, for instance, the government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is documented to have banned YouTube when a secret plan was revealed that had the nation’s own intelligence apparatus planning to attack Turkey.

When the head of Turkish Intelligence, Hakan Fidan, had his private conversation with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu published on the video sharing site, it revealed an odd plan.  Turkish Intelligence, the conversation revealed, was planning on sending four operatives into Syria to attack Turkey.  This would “make up a cause of war” with Syria, Fidan said in the conversation.

Official sources were quick to discredit the recorded conversation as an altered recording, but such a plan would assist the Erdogan government in achieving one of its primary goals, regime change in Syria. While toppling the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad was a priority, an even more pressing priority is repressing the opposition Kurdish party.

Latest Kurdish electoral victory in Turkey created deadlocked parliament for first time since 1999

While Turkey is engaged in an offensive campaign along its border with Syria and Iraq, the primary Turkish targets to date have not been dreaded ISIS terrorists, but rather those feeling the brunt from Turkey’s aggression are the ruling party’s primary opposition, the Kurds.

This fight might have actually started at the Turkish ballot box. In the most recent June 2015 elections, Erdogan’s AKP party lost its majority due in large part to a resurgent Kurdish party. Dealing with Kurdish rebels and growing allegations of authoritarianism were among the top issues raised and voters made a significant decision, resulting in the first “hung” parliament since 1999. As compromise couldn’t be reached with rival political parties, Erdogan could be looking to defeat the Kurds on the military battlefield when similar efforts failed at the ballot box.

Turkey’s beating of the war drums come as new elections are being called. As ZeroHedge points out, the logical plan is not so much about fighting ISIS – a group U.S. Vice President Biden said at one point Turkey helped create.  When answering questions at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government October 2, Biden let it slip who was suppling arms to the dreaded Islamic state terrorists. “What did they do?” he questioned, speaking of Turkey. “They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad – except that the people who were being supplied were (Jabhat) Al-Nusra and al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.”

Biden would later apologize for the statement and the Obama administration was quick to deny the statement, but the damage was done, as ZeroHedge points out:

Biden’s apology came across as hollow precisely because in all likelihood, his comments were spot on, with the only irony being that the US did precisely the same thing in terms of “supplying and facilitating” the Syrian “opposition” and indeed, perhaps that’s why the Obama administration was so quick to apologize (it’s the whole “throwing stones in glass houses” bit).

There is an end game to the madness, of course:

In the final analysis, Turkey wants Assad out of Syria and that means backing anyone and everyone who is willing to help make that happen (including ISIS) with the exception of the PKK, who Ankara is keen on crushing especially after June’s election results. So now, Turkey will use ISIS as an excuse to procure NATO support for a politically motivated rout of Kurdish “terrorists”. The West will hope that ISIS will suffer more damage than YPG, Turkey will hope that PKK and, by extension, YPG will suffer more damage than ISIS, and everyone – Ankara, Washington, ISIS, and PKK – will hope the when the dust (and blood) finally settles, Bashar al-Assad will have met a Gaddafi-esque end.

So while Turkey is being touted as an Islamic alley in the war against the most brutal terrorist force in the world today, just remember to consider the other issues at play.

Read the full ZeroHedge article here.