Great piece. This entire thing made no sense to me until you mentioned the piece about the CIA running guns through the Turkmen militias. Now it all makes sense. I don't think Erdogan makes this move on his own and I can't help but wonder if, perhaps, very covert American special ops were hit in the Russian strikes. Juan, you bring so much light to the situation, but there is still so much we don't know. I can tell you this, this entire episode started with Turkey letting into Syria a group of Islamic Militants who took over the Christian, traditionally Armenian village of Kessab. My wife's family was from there and we were getting play by play reports. Turkey opened the border allowing close to 5,000 terrorists into Syria, when the Syrian government scrambled a fighter to repel this threat against it's sovereignty, Turkey shot the plane down on Syrian land, thus allowing the terrorists to take over Kessab. The entire Armenian population of Kessab went to Latakia as a safe haven. Turkey has been instrumental from day 1 and I am sad to say, it seems the US had a major hand in this as well. As an Armenian American, that is very very depressing. Thank you for your analysis, it has been the best around on this topic for years now.
Great piece. This entire thing made no sense to me until you mentioned the piece about the CIA running guns through the Turkmen militias. Now it all makes sense. I don't think Erdogan makes this move on his own and I can't help but wonder if, perhaps, very covert American special ops were hit in the Russian strikes. Juan, you bring so much light to the situation, but there is still so much we don't know. I can tell you this, this entire episode started with Turkey letting into Syria a group of Islamic Militants who took over the Christian, traditionally Armenian village of Kessab. My wife's family was from there and we were getting play by play reports. Turkey opened the border allowing close to 5,000 terrorists into Syria, when the Syrian government scrambled a fighter to repel this threat against it's sovereignty, Turkey shot the plane down on Syrian land, thus allowing the terrorists to take over Kessab. The entire Armenian population of Kessab went to Latakia as a safe haven. Turkey has been instrumental from day 1 and I am sad to say, it seems the US had a major hand in this as well. As an Armenian American, that is very very depressing. Thank you for your analysis, it has been the best around on this topic for years now.