No Game Players

Türk Kara Kuvvetleri!!

J"ever note that the - uh - regional powerless powers in and around Suez are not unlike the ancient tune by TLC?

"Hanging out the passenger side of his best friend"s ride - trying to holler at me"

Essentially meaning that wanna be players have zero game to participate in tingly sexyful chicanery.

Ebberdobby knows the old school of tho't - the Ottomans are the real regional power: 

Her army fields 9 Army Corps, 1 Inf Div, 2 Mechanized Inf Divs, 1 Panzer Division,  11 Infantry / Motorized Infantry Brigades, 16 Mechanized Infantry Brigades, 9 Panzer Brigades, 5 Para-Commando Brigades. Her air force can, at least on paper, deliver a world of hurt with a semi sorta strategic reach and her navy often threatens to intervene on behalf of rowdy foreign violently determined blockade busters.

Yet when the op arises for actually acting out with some kinda action - like taking a 6 hour panzer ride to Damascus to halt unacceptable behavior - the Ottomans are the pushies of the ME. Fully crunk with non profit jawflapping and boring assetted inappropriate handwringing - the Ottomans are a weak joke of a regional power.

Why cause?

Because!  

If Turkey has one priority these days, it’s maintaining its soft power and popularity within the Middle East—and any sort of military intervention involving Turkish boots on the ground in Syria would directly undermine that.

A recent survey by TESEV, an Istanbul-based think tank that measures perceptions of Turkey in the Middle East, encapsulates Ankara’s dilemma in Syria. According to the poll, Turkey is the Middle East’s favorite country: A whopping 78 percent of the people across the region say they like Turkey more than any other country. Iran, Ankara’s only political and military competitor in the region, gets 45 percent, while the United States receives a mere 33 percent.

A Turkish intervention, even if it removed Assad, would turn the Turks into occupiers in the eyes of the Syrian people, a trap that the United States experienced in Iraq. And Turkish military action in Syria would evoke the memory of Ottoman Turkish hegemony in the Middle East, creating further antagonism. There is simply no easy way for Turkey to kick out Assad by sheer military force if it hopes to continue being liked in the region.

 To paraphrase Madame Sec Albright - "Why the heck do the Ottomans even have a military?"

Pic - "Trip the darkness"