On Wednesday December 2nd (2/12/15) the UK Parliament authorised the Royal Air Force (RAF) to conduct air-strikes in Syria against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Within an hour of that vote the RAF conducted its first air-strikes.
Although this has been covered almost constantly by the British media since to those familiar with the conflict it is just another insignificant step in a well rehearsed routine.
As with all aerial bombing campaigns the first priority of the US-led coalition - Combined Joint Task Force: Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTFOIR) - is to fly reconnaissance missions to identify potential targets. Once a potential target has been identified it is passed up CJTFOIR's chain of command for authorisation to strike that target.
Since Turkey formally joined CJTFOIR in early September 2015 CJTFOIR has not been able to authorise any air-strikes against ISIL's heartland around the Euphrates River - particularly the city of Raqqa.
However if by some miracle authorisation is given to strike a target the mission is placed into what is known as the Air Tasking Order (ATO). Essentially this is a taxi rank where all the aircraft assigned to CJTFOIR queue up waiting to be assigned missions.
When Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh was burnt alive by ISIL in February 2015 an unspoken agreement was reached within CJTFOIR that when a new country joined the coalition it would immediately go to the front of the ATO and be assigned all available missions.
This allows the media from that country to show lots of pictures of aircraft taking off and cockpit footage of bombs being dropped convincing the domestic audience that their leaders are trying really hard to defeat ISIL. Then after a couple of days the news cycle moves on and the ATO goes back to normal.
By the time the RAF joined the operation in Syria there was only one mission on the ATO. This involved dropping just three 230kg (500lb) bombs on the Omar oil field.
The Omar oil field is essentially an unpopulated patch of desert roughly 20km (12 miles) east of the city of Deir-er-Zour and 80km (50 miles) west of Syria's border with Iraq.
It is roughly 150km (90 miles) south-east of Raqqa and 130km (80 miles) south of the city of Hasakah which is the front-line between ISIL and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who are fighting them. It is also roughly 400km (240 miles) from where ISIL's oil export route crosses the border into Turkey.
As such I might even go so far as to say that the routine training exercises the RAF carries out on bombing ranges within the UK are likely to do more damage to ISIL then strikes against empty patches of desert in Syria.
On Thursday (3/12/15) there were no missions assigned to the ATO so neither the RAF nor any air force assigned to CJTFOIR bombed any targets in Syria.
On Friday (4/12/15) - perhaps with the UK media losing interest - another mission to bomb the Omar oil fields was assigned to the ATO and the RAF carried this out dropping eight 230kg (500lb) Paveway bombs.
So no. On Wednesday (2/12/15) the UK Parliament didn't vote to conduct air-strikes against Syria. Instead it voted to allow Turkey to tell the UK that it can't bomb ISIL in Syria.
One interesting thing did come out of the vote though when Prime Minister David Cameron finally confirmed what he meant when he said there were 70,000 moderate ground forces in Syria ready to fight ISIL.
This was a claim first made during the previous Thursday's (26/11/15) debate.
Initially it sounded credible because the Kurdish/Arab/Syriac SDF (Arabic: QSD) are 64,000 strong. Overwhelmingly but not exclusively Sunni-Muslim they represent the main ethnic groups in Syria with the exception of the Turkmen and are a moderate, secular force that has been proven in battle. They are currently located 50km (30 miles) away from ISIL de facto capital of Raqqa.
However in Wednesday's (2/12/15) Prime Minister Cameron announced that he has no intention of working with the SDF/QSD. Instead he plans to magic these 70,000 moderate ground forces out of the fragments of the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
This looks likely to be extremely difficult because when Cameron also said that there are around 70 armed groups currently active in Syria this was an under-estimate of the magnitude of around 100x. There are closer to 7,000 armed groups currently active in Syria.
For the most part these groups operate in much the same way that criminal street gangs operate in places like the US. That is to say they fight primarily for control of a territory in order to profit from that territory through smuggling and the taxation of the hostage population. Sometimes they go to war with each other to expand their territory and sometimes they form temporary alliances to boost their profits.
The big effort to unify these disparate groups has been the formation of the Army of Conquest/Jaish al-Fatah (JAF) coalition. This is led by Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front (ANF) alongside the Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant/Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya (FML).
The JAF shares ISIL ideology and is every bit as brutal as them. FSA groups that have joined JAF have happily engaged in sectarian massacres particularly of Shia Muslims and the Druze religious minority. Its prime objective is the overthrow of the Syrian government and it has frequently allied itself with ISIL to achieve that aim.
However that is not to say that all members of the FSA are bad. After all two of the main Arab groups of the SDF/QSD are the Euphrates Volcano/Burkan al-Furat and the Army of Revolution/Jaish al-Thuwar who are both FSA fragments.
The problem is that the brutality of the JAF rarely gives otherwise moderate local FSA fragments the choice of whether to join them to pursue their extremist agenda.
A prime example of this has been around the Syrian town of Maera sits around 30km (20 miles) north of the Syrian city of Aleppo and around 20km (13 miles) south of Syria's border with Turkey.
As I've mentioned before on August 9th (9/8/15) Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the JAF to withdraw from Maera to hand the territory to ISIL. Henceforth it has been referred to as "Erdogan's Pocket."
However the withdrawal of the ANF and FML sections did not mean that all members of the JAF left Maera. Instead a small FSA fragment were left to fight ISIL alone. With ISIL vastly outnumbering them and using chemical weapons against them this FSA fragment was quickly defeated.
Therefore the whole thing does look like Erdogan, ANF, FML and ISIL getting together and going; "Oh look there's some moderate forces. Let's have them killed."
Erdogan's primary reason for handing Maera to ISIL was to create a panic over ISIL holding position so close to Syria's border with Turkey. This panic would then be used as a pre-text for a Turkish invasion of Syria to re-establish Turkey's supply lines with ISIL that the SDF/QSD have been so successful in cutting.
Despite it being obvious to all what Erdogan's plan is it has been permitted to steadily gather pace since August.
With the close air-support they deny to the SDF/QSD and Iraqi forces CJTFOIR has been helping the Syrian Turkmen Brigades (STB) who are essentially an irregular and therefore illegal branch of the Turkish military advance from their positions in the Latakia Mountains towards Maera.
The STB will then act as the bridgehead for the invasion by regular Turkish forces which is rumoured to be scheduled for the middle of next week.
The problem for Erdogan has been Russia which is simply not going to allow Turkey to continue its support for ISIL.
So Russia has been concentrating its considerable firepower on dislodging the STB from its base in the Latakia Mountains. This is why on November 24th (24/11/15) Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 as it was on a bombing run over the Latakia Mountains.
Erdogan's gamble was that the international community would rally around him against Russia.
Although US President Barack Obama's support for Erdogan has remained resolute this largely did not happen. In fact rather then being stopped Russia has intensified its attacks on the Latakia Mountains the STB now seem to be in full retreat.
Also Russia has started air-dropping weapons and ammunition to Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) who are not formally part of the SDF/QSD in what is referred to as the "Afrin Canton" that sits on Syria's border with Turkey north-west of the city of Aleppo.
It seems likely then that with Russian support the YPG will soon move into Maera cutting it off from the Latakia Mountains and finally sealing Erdogan's pocket.
This seems to leave Erdogan with little option other then to invade Syria next week as planned or not at all. So last night Erdogan moved to test the diplomatic waters by invading Iraq where Russia does not currently operate.
A 1000 strong tank battalion backed by a further 200 strong artillery unit have crossed into Iraq's Nineveh province and have taken up positions close to Mosul - ISIL de facto capital in Iraq.
Stressing that they have in no way given permission for this Turkish invasion the Iraqi government have described it as a serious violation of Iraq's sovereignty and intend to protest it in the strongest possible way.
This presents a very serious problem for CJTFOIR because Iraqi forces are currently fighting ISIL on the Anbar and Mosul fronts. If the Turkish troops is not withdrawn Iraq will have to divert troops from the fight against ISIL in order to expel the Turkish forces.
This would put CJTFOIR in direct combat against the nation it is supposed to be protecting from ISIL.
Erdogan's primary objective though is to test the reaction of the international community - particularly the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). If they do not speak up to condemn this invasion of Iraq Erdogan will calculate that they also won't speak up when Turkey invades Syria.
Erdogan has clearly been emboldened by the UNSC's July 31st (31/7/15) failure to condemn his unilateral invocation of Article 51 of the UN Charter to bomb anti-ISIL forces. He has clearly been further emboldened by the idiotic statement 2249 France placed before the UNSC on November 20th (20/11/15) which completely incorrectly stated that Article 51 can be unilaterally invoked while a Chapter 7 resolution is in force.
Erdogan has clearly been further emboldened by Wednesday's vote in the UK Parliament which attempted to legitimise the French state and again incorrectly stated that Article 51 can be unilaterally invoked while a Chapter 7 resolution is in force.
Good luck hearing about any on that on the mainstream news though.
17:30 on 5/12/15 (UK date).
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