Turkey to Train Syria's Army

By Barry Rubin

While we are being told constantly how well things are going in the Middle East, still another dangerous development has been ignored by the Western media and policymakers.
A pro-regime Turkish newspaper reports that the Turkish army will start training the Syrian army.

Yes, that's right. A NATO member is going to train the army of a country allied with Iran, at war with Israel, recently caught trying to build a nuclear weapons' facility, sponsoring terrorists in Iraq that kill Americans, and being the patron of Hamas and Hizballah.

Might there be a problem here? How secure are NATO's weapons, technology, and strategies now with the Turkish regime getting so close to the Iran-Syria alliance. Of course, Turkey's armed forces are still pro-Western and probably hates what the government is making them do. Nevertheless, this is the trend.

How can this Turkish regime be a U.S. ally if it is training the military of the most radical regime and leading sponsor of terrorism in the Arabic-speaking world?






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