主题：《茗谈》五十九：下届美国总统 -- 本嘉明

On Syria - the conversation centered on how far Turkey is actually going

to go. TR325 explained that the Turkish plan is centered on civil war in

Syria. Officially, it's Turkey providing the main training,a rms and

support to FSA. Unofficially, US and TUrkey are doing this together in

deploying SOF for this mission. Notice all the talk in the press now

about civil war breaking out in Syria. This is the narrative Turkey and US

want to build. I pointed out that creating the conditions for civil war -

actual neighborhood to neighborhood fighting - is still pretty difficult

considering that the Alawite forces are still holding together, but he

seemed to think that this can escalate within 2 months time. He also said

without saying that they're working on making that happen. He acknowledges

it'll be messy and it will take a lot of blood and time for a Sunni power

to emerge in syria, but that this is the Turkish obligation.

The Turkish plan to preempt the instability that would result from civil

war conditions is to implement the buffer zone 5-40km into Syrian

territory and set up refugee camps. I asked what levers Iran and Syria

have to get Turkey to back off in relation to PKK. He said

(half-jokingly) that Karilan is Turkey's man (ie. turkey can actually

negotiate with him.) But he said PKK third-in-command (still need to get

this guy's name) answers to Syria and Iran. Turkey knows this very well

and he says Syria and Iran are already making moves to threaten attacks

via this faction.