From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
“What’s going on in Syria can only go on for so long. At some point it has to change,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters on a plane back to Turkey from Latin America over the weekend.
As we’ve documented extensively over the past several days, Ankara, Riyadh, and Doha have their backs against the wall when it comes to the effort to oust Bashar al-Assad and perpetuate Sunni hegemony in the Arabian Peninsula.
Hezbollah has surrounded Aleppo and their advance is backed by what’s been described as an unrelenting Russian air campaign. The rebels’ supply lines to Turkey have been cut and without a direct intervention by either the US or the Gulf states, the battle for Syria will have been lost for the opposition which pulled out of peace talks in Geneva citing the ongoing aerial bombardment by Moscow.
Now, with time running out, both Saudi Arabia and Turkey are weighing ground invasions.
“You don’t talk about these things. When necessary, you do what’s needed,” Erdogan said, when asked if Ankara was considering sending troops into Syria. “Right now our security forces are prepared for all possibilities,” he added.
For Erdogan, there’s only one acceptable outcome: Sunni militants oust Assad and take control of Damascus. Assad’s ouster is the desired outcome for the Saudis as well, but Erdogan has a secondary agenda in Syria: preventing the conflict from strengthening the Kurds. That means he’s against any support for the YPG – even if such support would help facilitate regime change.
Over the weekend Erdogan blasted both Russia and the US.
“What are you doing in Syria? You’re essentially an occupier,” he said, in a message to Vladimir Putin. “How can we trust you? Is your partner me, or is it those terrorists in Kobani?” he asked Obama’s envoy for the international coalition against Islamic State. By the “terrorists in Kobani”, Erdogan is referring to the YPG.
Erdogan’s frustration reflects the fact that the various groups fighting to take control of Syria are now virtually guaranteed to lose. As we said from the time Russia first flew combat missions from Latakia on September 30, the opposition has virtually no chance of winning a war with Hezbollah and the IRGC as long as Moscow is providing air cover. The rebels have no air presence whatsoever and no anti-aircraft capability and on top of that, there’s no advantage to be had in fighting an asymmetric battle with Hezbollah. Hassan Nasrallah’s army practically invented urban warfare.
The only option now is a coordinated ground invasion by the rebels’ Sunni benefactors.
To continue reading: Turkey, Saudi Arabia Mull Syria Ground Invasion As Russia, Hezbollah Decimate Rebels
