Turkish air and ground forces are attacking northern Syria.  The target is not ISIS – the presumed threat to Turkish interests – but rather Kurdish forces that have borne the brunt of anti-ISIS ground fighting and are key to the battle for Mosul in Iraq.  Since the July aborted coup in Ankara, the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been making internal war against what it calls the "Gülenist threat," followers of Turkish cleric Fetullah Gülen, who Erdoğan believes engineered the coup.  Tens of thousands of Turks have been arrested, dismissed from their jobs, and otherwise harassed.  Turkey has also been conducting an external war – either overtly or by proxy – to control sensitive areas of Iraq and Syria and short-circuit any possibility of Kurdish independence or large-scale autonomy emerging from the wreckage of wars in both those countries. After shelling Kurdish positions just north of Aleppo, the Turkish...(Read Full Article)