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Fiddling While Kobani Burns

Fiddling While Kobani Burns.A_2

By experts and staff

Published
  • Steven A. CookCFR Expert
    Eni Enrico Mattei Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies

This article was originally published here on ForeignPolicy.com on Tuesday, October 7, 2014.

The Syrian Kurdish city of Kobani, along the Turkish frontier, is on the verge of falling to IS. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared Tuesday that a ground invasion will be necessary to rescue the city. But Ankara has stood by for weeks as the jihadists have laid siege to the city. Even while Erdogan insists that it will take a ground invasion to keep Kobani from the hands of the self-declared caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Turkish tanks stand sentry along the border within view of the fight, doing little more than observing.

It turns out that Turkey’s authorization of the use of force was less about fighting Baghdadi than about giving Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu the maximum amount of domestic political flexibility given the multiple dilemmas the Turkish government confronts in Syria, Iraq, with the Kurds, and at home.

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