Why Does Obama Resist Naming the Kurdish Peshmerga as the Iraq-Syria Ground Force

Reuters filed a long report today, saying that Turkey agreed on Monday to allow Iraqi Kurdish fighters to reinforce fellow Kurds in the Syrian border town of Kobani. This followed the first United States airdrop of arms to help the defenders resist an ISIS assault. In a brief statement, the US Central Command said US Air Force C-130 planes "delivered weapons, ammunition and medical supplies that were provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq and intended to enable continued resistance against ISIL's attempts to overtake Kobani." Washington said the air-dropped arms had been supplied by Iraqi Kurdish authorities and had been dropped near Kobani, which came under ISIS attack in September and is now besieged to the east, west and south, and bordered to the north by Turkey, which stationed tanks on hills overlooking Kobani a week ago but refused to help the Kurdish militia on the ground until agreeing on a broader deal with its NATO allies on intervening in the Syrian civil war, saying action should also be taken against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. However, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a news conference that Turkey was facilitating the passage of Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga, which also fought ISIS when the militants attacked the Kurds' autonomous region in Iraq over the summer. He gave no details about Turkey's refusal to intervene against ISIS, which has seized large areas of Syria and neighboring Iraq. The Turkish refusal has led to growing frustration in the United States. The policy has also provoked deadly riots in southeastern Turkey by Kurds furious at Ankara's refusal to help Kobani or at least open a land corridor for volunteer fighters and reinforcements to go there. The AP reported today that the US airdrops angered Turkey, which has said it would oppose any US arms transfers to the Kurdish rebels in Syria because Turkey views the main Kurdish group in Syria as an extension of the Turkish Kurd group known as the PKK, which has waged a 30-year insurgency in Turkey and is designated a terror group by the US and by NATO. ~~~~~ Earlier, the US Central Command said it had delivered weapons, ammunition and medical supplies to allow the Kurds to continue their resistance in Kobani. The main Syrian Kurdish armed group, the YPG, said it had received "a large quantity" of ammunition and weapons. Reuters reported that Redur Xelil, a spokesman for the YPG, said the weapons dropped overnight would have a "positive impact" on the battle and the morale of fighters who have been out-gunned by ISIS. But Xelil added : "Certainly it will not be enough to decide the battle. We do not think the battle of Kobani will end that quickly. The forces of [Islamic State] are still heavily present and determined to occupy Kobani. In addition, there is resolve [from the YPG] to repel this attack," he told Reuters in an interview conducted via Skype. He declined to give more details on the shipments. ~~~~~ The United States military began carrying out air strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq in August. In early September, they started bombing ISIS in neighboring Syria. However, last night's airdrop resupply of Kurdish fighters is an escalation in the US effort to help local forces beat back ISIS in Syria, marking the growing US military support for the Syrian Kurdish group previously held at arms' length by the West, due partly to the concerns of Turkey, a NATO member. Washington has pressed Ankara to let it use bases in Turkey to stage the airstrikes, but a Turkish foreign ministry official said the country's airspace had not been used during the drops on Kobani. Escalating US airstrikes on ISIS in and around Kobani have helped slow its progress in the past week. The Kurds say the US military has been coordinating the airstrikes with them, helping to make them more effective. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that tracks the Syrian civil war using sources on the ground, said there had been two new US airstrikes on ISIS positions after midnight last night. The US Central Command confirmed 135 US air strikes near Kobani in recent days, combined with continued resistance on the ground, saying they had slowed ISIS' advances into the town and killed hundreds of its fighters. The Central Command statement added : "...the security situation in Koban remains fragile as ISIL continues to threaten the city and Kurdish forces continue to resist." ~~~~~ Obama gave advance notice to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan of the plans to deliver arms to the Syrian Kurds. The Turkish presidency said Obama and Erdogan had discussed Syria, including measures that could be taken to stop ISIS' advances in and around Kobani. In a statement published on Sunday, it also said Turkish assistance to over 1.5 million Syrians, including around 180,000 from Kobani, was noted in the conversation. In comments published in the Turkish media on Monday, Erdogan said the main Syrian Kurdish political group, the PYD, is allied with the PKK, describing both as terrorist organizations, saying : "It will be very wrong for America with whom we are allied and who we are together with in NATO to expect us to say 'yes' [to supporting the PYD] after openly announcing such support for a terrorist organization." Kobani is one of three areas near the border with Turkey where Syrian Kurds have established their own government since the country descended into civil war in 2011. ~~~~~ US Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking today in Jakarta, said it would have been "irresponsible" and "very difficult morally" not to aid the Kurds in this "particular" hour. Kerry told reporters in the Indonesian capital that the Obama administration understood ally Turkey's concerns about supplying the Kurds, who are linked to a Kurdish group that Ankara fiercely opposes. But, he said the situation is such in the besieged town of Kobani that the resupplies were deemed absolutely necessary in a "crisis moment." Kerry addressed comments to Turkey : "Let me say very respectfully to our allies the Turks that we understand fully the fundamentals of their opposition and ours to any kind of terrorist group and particularly obviously the challenges they face with respect to the PKK. But we have undertaken a coalition effort to degrade and destroy ISIL, and ISIL is presenting itself in major numbers in this place called Kobani." ~~~~~ Dear readers, in an about-face reported by the New York Times, Turkey’s foreign minister said later on Monday that the country would facilitate the movement of Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces to the embattled Syrian town of Kobani to join the fighting there. At a news conference in Ankara, the Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said that his government was “helping the peshmerga cross over to Kobani,” an apparent shift from Turkey’s previous refusal to allow any military assistance to Kurdish fighters in the town. ~~~ It seems that when President Obama wants to get something done in the Iraq-Syria ISIS crisis, he succeeds -- as it did last night in delivering arms, ammunition and medical supplies to the Kurdish peshmerga. Even Turkey, the most independent of the so-called coalition - caved in to the inevitable. We must ask why President Obama was not equally as insistent - in a much less difficult situation - on arming the Kurds in northern Iraq as they stood alone against ISIS this summer. The White House said then that all Kurdish supplies must pass through Baghdad, which like Turkey is fearful of the Kurds becoming too strong. We might also ask why President Obama did not "persuade" Iraq to let the US supply the Kurds directly. The US military has been strongly supporting the need for a ground army to secure the gains made by the US airstrikes. It is clear that neither the Iraqi army nor the Free Syrian Army of the moderate opponents of al-Assad will be ready to assume that role any time soon. The Kurdish peshmerga are ready and are now serving as the only ground force assisting in securing areas of Iraq and Syria softened up by US airstrikes. Where is the Obama resolve to bend the coalition - if it exists - to the obvious solution of using the Kurdish peshmerga as its ground force. What Obama agenda prevents this decision?