Springtime for Erdogan and Putin?

The situation in Kobane worsened tonight as ISIS attempted to gain control of the border crossing with Turkey. Their attempts to surround the town are putting thousands of lives at risk and despite reports of constant air strikes by Western aircraft, there is no sign of the intervention of ground forces despite the Turkish army now being massed on the border.

At the same time rioting is breaking out in Turkey itself as armed gangs of Turkish Nationalist attack Kurdish demonstrators. Over 30 people are already reported dead and there is no sign of the internal strike ending any time soon.

The situation has been inflamed by Turkish officials treating the Kurdish fighter as "another terrorist group". There are some 15 million Kurds in Turkey and their struggle for greater autonomy has been a long and bitter one regardless of the nature of changing governments.

However according to some reports Turkey has further complicated  the situation. Middle East Eye reports:

Turkey is prepared to send ground forces to help eradicate Islamic State in Syria if it gets international assurances for its borders and the removal of the Syrian regime, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Monday.

In an exclusive interview with CNN International's Christiane Amanpour, the prime minister said that without the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad, the Syrian regime's ongoing offensives posed as big a threat as that caused by the Islamic State.

"We are ready to do everything as long as there is a clear strategy that after [Islamic State] we can be sure that our borders will be protected,” he said. "We don't want the [Assad] regime on our border any more, pushing people against - towards Turkey."

"If [Islamic State] goes, another radical organisation may come in as long as Assad stays in his seat," he added.

That would cause another problem for NATO as The Times reports today that a secret base in Syria now overrun by Syrian Rebels shows that the Russians are in Syria and have been for some considerable time:

..the walls  were covered in Maps of Israel annotated in Russian to show the layout of Israeli forces and signal stations.

There were lists of Russian soldiers who had apparently served with Syrian forces at the base, less than ten miles from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Wall mounted displays showed Syrian army emblams alongside the insignia of the Osnaz GRU, the Russian special forces electronic intelligence unit.

The report also mentions that six of the past commanders of the base were Russian.

Meanwhile Kurds die daily while the machinations of Erdogan and Putin prevent a military solution to stopping ISIS, which can only be done by sending in ground forces.

And yet as another small demonstration took place in Central London today all I hear from the so-called "progressives" of the anti-imperialist left is that  the Western imperialism is the problem.

This blinkered approach is also preventing the growth of a proper solidarity campaign with the Kurds.

Turkey is run by a corrupt Islamist Government who many, quite rightly do not trust. Russia obviously intends to prop up it's client regime under Assad.

The West may eventually have to act unilaterally otherwise there will be a massacre on an unprecedented scale.

Quite simply the West must grow a pair.

Save the Kurds. Now!