TURKEY IS EFFECTIVELY AT WAR WITH AMERICA IN SYRIA (AND IS WINNING)

Turkish proxies taking the town of Manbij from US-backed Kurds

Turkey is now at war with America in Syria.

This may seem surprising, as both are members of NATO and the US even has military bases in Turkey, but it is true nonetheless. This is because Turkish proxies, supported by Turkish airpower, are hammering America's proxies, supplied and trained by US personnel. There may even be US personnel mixed up in the fighting for all we know. 

During the rule of Assad, the US maintained a large zone of influence in the Northeast of the country through its proxy army, the "Syrian Defence Force" (SDF). In reality, this was mainly made up of Kurds, something that Turkey was extremely displeased by. Turkey, for its part, shielded and supported its own proxy group the Syrian National Army (SNA) in Northern Syria.

The SNA is not directly allied with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) the group led by Abu Mohammad al-Julani that recently took over most of Syria, but in the past the two groups have cooperated due to their common enemies. 

Since the defeat of Assad, the SNA has been pushing into the territory long controlled by America's proxy force, the SDF. Recently the city of Manbij (population 100,000) was taken from the SDF after a battle lasting several days, and now SNA forces are even striking into the SDF's heartland territory. Just today there were reports that they had successfully crossed the Euphrates River and seized the village of Qarah Qawzak on the other side. 

Now that Assad has been removed, Turkey sees no reason why America should continue to back Kurdish forces just across its Southern border, and it clearly means to use the SNA and possibly HTS to eradicate all traces of Kurdish autonomy in Syria. But the SDF is still very much a US-backed project, and it is unlikely that the US government has given Turkey permission to do this, or that Turkey has even asked. 

The key point about the modern Middle East is that nobody has respect for anyone and will do whatever they can get away with whenever there is a chance to do so. In the same way that Israel is seizing this chance to degrade Syrian military assets by a ruthless bombing campaign, so Turkey is seizing its chance to finish off America's proxies in the Northeast of the country. The best that America can do is pretend that this isn't happening.

Syria is turning into a graveyard for Russian geopolitical ambitions but also American ones.