Will NATO Sanction Turkey for Invading Syria?

Turkey is a NATO member. NATO has stood with Turkey again and again. Turkey invaded Syria 6 days ago. The U.S. helped. It provided air cover for 2 days. In public, the U.S. yesterday told Turkey to stop. It hasn’t, yet. NATO hasn’t said a word yet about the invasion.

In invading Syria, Turkey broke its word as a Party to NATO:

“Article 1

The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations.”

What does NATO say and do when its own members break their word? Both the U.S. and Turkey broke their word. NATO has no rules or sanctions for dealing with this.

The U.S. broke its word to NATO when it invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. We know the answer. NATO does nothing to sanction its own members. In these two cases, it aided and abetted the invasions. NATO in toto broke its own charter.

NATO will follow the lead of the U.S. because it doesn’t want to kick Turkey out of NATO. It has no intermediate tools of sanction that it can use. It might go so far as to say that Turkey’s actions in Syria are “unacceptable”, as the U.S. has. NATO will wait for the U.S. to do what it can to stop Erdogan and limit his invasion. Erdogan will probably stop on his own when his military has gone as far as it can easily go without significant losses of men and machines, when he’s bitten off a chunk of Syria, and when he starts seriously to anger the big powers. If he can extort a bribe or some favor for stopping, that too may matter to him.

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10:57 am on August 30, 2016