Eric Zuesse
Note: The events that led to this critical impasse were reported by me last night, and that report thus continues here, in order to provide context to these events.
The spokesperson for the Islamist party of Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan has called upon all of NATO to go to war against Syria for Syria's having killed dozens of Turkey's troops in order for Syria to defeat Turkey's invasion and military occupation of Syria's Idlib Province, which borders on Turkey. Going to war against Syria would mean going to war also against Russia, which is in Syria to protect Syria's sovereignty over its own territory. If the United States accepts that Turkish proposal, then World War III will consequently result.
Darius Shahtahmasebi reported for Russia's RT News on the morning of February 28th,
Turkey is calling for NATO's protection after 33 of its soldiers were killed in an apparent Syrian airstrike in Idlib, allegedly while fighting in terrorist ranks. In the regional chaos that ensues, only one player stands to gain.
Speculation over what's to come next has seen #article 5 trending on Twitter in the hours following the attacks, after Omer Celik, spokesman for Turkey's ruling AKP party, indicated to reporters in Ankara that he was looking at requesting formal NATO protection against Damascus and, by proxy, the Russian air force.
"We call on NATO to [start] consultations. This is not [an attack] on Turkey only, it is an attack on the international community. A common reaction is needed. The attack was also against NATO," Celik told Turkish media.
Article 5 of the NATO treaty says an attack on one member is an attack on them all.
The US State Department also condemned the attack, stating that it stands by its "NATO ally Turkey." It further stated that it continues to "call for an immediate end to this despicable offensive by the Assad regime, Russia and Iranian-backed forces." Never one to let us down, the US envoy to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchinson also told journalists that "everything is on the table."
This is the opportunity for U.S. President Donald Trump to join his opposition, Democratic Party's, and even his own Party's, hate-Russia campaign, by unleashing World War III, if he wants to. (For example, it was a unified Congress, both Parties, that forced him, on 17 July 2018, to reverse himself and say that Russia had assisted in his having become the U.S. President. He needed to be forced in order to say he agreed with that statement.)
Internally, within Islamist-ruled Turkey, the official Anadolu Press Agency sub-headlined one English-language news report, "Crisis in Idlib has crossed all limits, says presidential spokesman after regime attack martyrs 33 Turkish troops" and opened, "Turkey's presidential spokesman on Friday called on the international community to take measures to de-escalate tensions in Syria after dozens of Turkish soldiers were martyred in a late night attack by the regime forces." No mention was made about those 'martyrs', that this had occurred in Syrian territory, where Turkish forces were invaders and military occupiers, and that the 'regime' they referred to is Syria's committedly and ideologically secular, non-sectarian, Government, which is the only internationally recognized Government that Syria has (but from which Islamist Turkey is now trying to seize Syria's Idlib Province and to include it within Turkey's own territory).
By 7PM Turkish time on Friday the 28th, Firat Kozok of Bloomberg News headlined "Turkey Says It Has No Choice But to 'Loosen' Stance on Refugees" and reported that
Turkey is pressed by developments in Syria's Idlib and has no choice but to "loosen" its policy of preventing refugees from travelling on to Europe, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's communications director Fahrettin Altun told reporters in Ankara.
"If Idlib falls, then millions of Syrian refugees will try to escape to Turkey and Europe. Turkey no longer has the possibility to provide resources for and help these people," Altun said.
This is applying pressure upon the European member-nations in NATO to either join Turkey's now very hot war against both Syria and Russia, or else to become faced with Turkey's release of the tens of thousands of 'rebels' (mainly jihadists) whom Turkish forces in Syria's Idlib Province have been protecting against military fire from Syria's Army and from Russia's Air Force.