CENTCOM pushes Trump to win the battle at the cost of losing the war

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on March 2 that Ankara was resolved to march on the Syrian town of Manbij if the U.S. forces do not immediately evacuate the Kurdish militants there to east of the Euphrates. 

Çavuşoğlu made that statement after briefing Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee on recent developments in Syria.

Recalling earlier U.S. promises, he said that after clearing the Syrian town of Al-Bab of Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) militants, the Turkish military would continue to march on Manbij, hitting the militia of the People's Protection Units (YPG) if they do not leave the town.

That is likely to escalate already existing tension between Turkey and the U.S., two NATO allies, over anti-ISIL alliances in Syria.

Manbij was taken from ISIL by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the ground, backed by the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in August 2016. The SDF was established with inspiration from CENTCOM, in order to avoid objections from Turkey, which criticizes the U.S. for "cooperating with one terrorist organization against another." The YPG, which forms the backbone of the SDF, is the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria, and the PYD is the Syrian extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), designated as a terrorist organization also by the U.S.

The Barack Obama administration had rejected an offer from Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan in 2014 to work against ISIL with the Free Syria Army (FSA), mainly consisting of Arab rebels, opting instead to work with the Kurdish militants.

With the help of arms, vehicles, intelligence and air support from CENTCOM, the YPG - which is little different from the PKK killing people in Turkey - has taken a...