Turkey - Military Moves

With pressure building from within for Assad of Syria to go, the US is stepping up the outside pressure by moving three aircraft carriers into the Middle East.

In a possibly related move, Austin Bay reports on interesting going ons at Incirlik, Turkey.

The huge NATO airbase complex at Incirlik, Turkey, played a key role in the Cold War, in the Persian Gulf War, and in enforcing the northern “no-fly zone” against Saddam.

Now it’s being prepared to provide logistical support for potential “operations” to the east. The article says Afghanistan and Iraq. But other nations may read this quote from Defense News in different ways– peacekeeping requires logistical support (eg, the UN faces a huge logistics burden when it deploys 10,000 peacekeepers to Sudan later this year). Iran will read it as a building military threat. Kyrgyzstan may see it as either a peacekeeping lifeline– or the launchpad for western troops. Syria is only “slightly east” of Adana (more south, actually).

How much longer can Assad survive?
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