U.S.-Turkish Ties May Be Cut for Good in Syria

Source:Foreign Affairs Date:09Nov2018

The United States’ top priority is to prevent Turkey from destabilizing northern Syria. The Turkish attacks challenge a central assumption about the direction of the Syrian civil war: that the various front lines have hardened and that the combatants’ existing positions can be used as the basis for negotiations to end the conflict. But the United States doesn’t really have a good option for responding to Turkey—it is not going to drop the Kurds, like Turkey wants, or start bombing Turkey in order to get that country to fall in line.