Mosul and beyond, Erdoğan and al-Abadi, Obama and Putin

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi announced early on Oct. 17 that an offensive had begun to retake Mosul, the country's second biggest city, from under the occupation of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Only the Iraqi army and police forces would enter the city to clear out the ISIL militants, he said, stressing that no other forces, including Turkish troops, would be involved.

The latter issue was a bogeyman al-Abadi created a few weeks ago, perhaps in order to encourage his own troops and also to send a "don't worry" message to Tehran. 

A few Turkish troops have been stationed in the Bashiqa camp near Mosul, there to train Sunni Arab and Turkmen militia against ISIL, (as invited by al-Abadi himself in December 2014). They are also there to protect the camp from attacks by ISIL and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Neither their mission nor their numbers and equipment were suitable to join any ground operation. 

Al-Abadi knew that, but perhaps he came out with his remarks in order to avoid looking like he was kneeling down to the terrible Turk. Such a move would not have been possible without the support of the U.S. and Iran.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan, meanwhile, is sticking to the line that Turkey will not leave the Bashiqa camp, despite Iraqi demands. He knows, as the commander-in-chief of the Turkish military, that the understanding already reached with the Americans is for the Turkish soldiers to stay in Bashiqa and to not move a meter out of it.

The U.S. has joined the chorus, stressing that neither the PKK nor its "affiliates" would take part in the Mosul operation. That was a reference to the People's Protection Units (YPG), a PKK affiliate in Syria that the U.S. Central...