Did Turkey outmaneuver the US?

Washington is unhappy about Turkey's "Operation Euphrates Shield." The potential for a serious confrontation between fighters from the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), is very real and clearly of deep concern to it.

The PYD/YPG combo is allied to the US in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Washington is very happy about this alliance which has secured important successes against ISIL.

Turkey says the PYD/YPG and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) are "birds of a feather," who bear allegiance to PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, who is serving a life sentence in Turkey for heading a terrorist group.

The US, like much of Europe, also says the PKK is a terrorist organization, but refuses to brand the PYD/ as such. US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter was put on the spot in April by US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) during Senate hearing and had to acknowledge the PYD/YPG-PKK link. (www.c-span.org/video/?c4591280/ash-carter-pkk-ypg).

Washington refuses however to end its alliance with the PYD/YPG. It probably felt until recently that there was little Ankara could do against this, given that it was unable to enter Syria militarily after Turkey downed a Russian jet while it was on a bombing mission against anti-Assad forces in Syria last November.

By reconciling with Russia and resetting its Syria policy, Ankara appears to have put Washington in a difficult situation where the only real option it seems to have is to force the PYD/YPG east of the Euphrates River, and end its dream of establishing a "Kurdish corridor" along Turkey's border.

Washington can't overlook the fact that the Turkish military...