Turkey’s Two-Front War May Hurt U.S. Focus on Islamic State
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U.S. pressure has finally brought Turkey to the frontline of the war on Islamic State, but only at the risk of alienating another key member of the coalition.
The Syrian Kurds are among the few groups to have taken on the jihadists in ground combat and beaten them, and for that they’re counted useful allies in Washington. To the Turks, though, they are both enemy and threat -- part of a wider Kurdish movement with ambitions for statehood and designs on Turkey’s southeast.