Nuclear Weapons 191 - Threat of World War III looms in Syria - Part Two of Two Parts
Part Two of Two Parts. (Please read Part One first)
The problem with writing about evolving situations is that you may have to revise what you wrote on a day to day basis. That is what has happened with this blog post.
In the past week, Turkey has been firing artillery shells into Syria at Kurdish positions that threaten their alleged ISIS supply corridor. In the meantime, Saudi Arabia has been massing troops at their northern border to hold "military exercises." They have also sent fighter planes to Turkey for possible use in northern Syria. There are rumors that Turkey and Saudi Arabia may be considering sending troops into Syria to topple the Assad regime.
If Turkey and Saudi Arabia do attack the Assad regime in Syria, then it is entirely possible, considering the threats that Putin has made to use tactical nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe, that the Russians might consider the use of such tactical nuclear weapons in Syria if they are being pushed back in a ground war. If the Russians push Turkish forces back and cross the border into Turkey, then the U.S. and NATO are bound by treaty to respond because Turkey is a member of NATO. We could be drawn into a war with Russia. If nuclear weapons had already been used in Syria, then the risk of escalation into World War III would rise.
UPDATE:
Robert Parry, an investigative journalist, reported yesterday that Russian officials have actual said what I was worried about above. Russia only has about 20,000 troops in Syria. Turkey and Saudi Arabia could send hundreds of thousands of men into Syria to support the rebels that they back and to topple the Assad regime. Highly place Russian sources have told Parry that Russia is "prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons if necessary to save their troops in the face of a Turkish-Saudi onslaught." He went on to point out the danger of escalation into a nuclear confrontation between Russia and NATO.
Parry says that the only person who could prevent a Turkish-Saudi invasion of Syria is the U.S. President Obama. He goes on to say that apparently Obama is not prepared to forbid Turkey and/or Saudi Arabia from such action but he has told them that the U.S. would not support any such attack. The U.S. position is complicated by the fact that Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations have been supporting rebel groups in Syria in the fight against Assad. Critics of U.S. involvement point out that some of the Syrian Rebel groups have links to Al Qaeda and even ISIS.
SECOND UPDATE:
NATO officials have recently stated that they would not be drawn into a war between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Russia. Normally Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which is the collective defense clause, would be invoked if any member nation is attacked. However, foreign ministers of NATO members such as Luxembourg, France and Germany have made it clear that they will not support Turkey in a war in the Middle East that Turkey provoked and that they would like to see the situation in Syria be "de-escalated." Russia has called for an immediate meeting of the U.N. Security Council to discuss the increasing Turkish aggression on the Turkey-Syrian border.
I am going to go ahead and post this essay although I realize that it may well be outdated by developments in the near future. I hope that cooler heads prevail and that conflict in the Middle East does not bring down human civilization.
Russian ORT-21 Tochka Missile:
