I was finding the situation of what is happening in the Middle East rather puzzling and as I was recently going to visit Turkey and Turkey is close to where the action is taking place I thought that I would show interest and ask questions to put my mind at rest. It’s much clearer now, so let me explain.
We support the Iraqi Government in the fight against Islamic State (IS). We don’t like I.S. but I.S. is supported by Saudi Arabia who we do like. The Iraqis don’t like the Kurds, who we like. Turkey who we do like, doesn’t like the Kurds, but we like them.
We don’t like President Assad in Syria. We support the fight against him, but not I.S. which is also fighting him. We don’t like Iran, but Iran supports the Iraqi Government against I.S.. So some of our enemies are fighting against our other enemies whom we want to lose, but we don’t want our enemies who are fighting our enemies to win.
If the people we want to defeat are defeated, they might be replaced by people whom we like even less. And all this was started by us invading a country to drive out terrorists, who weren’t actually there until we went in to drive them out. I must say that I found the whole situation a complete puzzle until my visit to Turkey whose land is of course much nearer to the problem. I.S. is fighting the Kurds close to the Turkish border and as I explain the Turks don’t like the I.S. and they don’t like the Kurds but if I.S. defeats the Kurds that will put them threatening the Turkish border.
The West wants Turkey to take up arms against I.S. but they are fighting their old enemy the Kurds so Turkey at the moment is staying out of the melee. I asked a large selection of the local Turks to enlighten me on the problem. Unfortunately none of them had a clue what was going on except that they placed the blame on the Americans, the Israelis and the British.
I spent my time there working it all out for myself in order that I could help you be better informed. I hope my explanation has made the situation much clearer now. Because if we all understand the problem it must become easier to solve.
