My point is this: it appears that sometimes early this month (or earlier?) Russians threatened Turkey with deployment of tactical nuclear weapons 'in defence' of their contingent in Syria.
All the mumbo-jumbo by side (then the more of his stuff on Syria I'm reading, the more I'm starting to realize that Parry's 'insights' into that conflict are of similar quality like those of Kinzer), and perhaps my 'general order of appearance' (or 'official protocol'?) is not perfect, but to me this situation appears to have developed as follows:
- For years, i.e. nearly as long as there is a war in Syria, the West is de-facto signalling to its allies in the Middle East: 'we don't want to get involved there, but if you want, please do so';
- allies in question then got involved in a kind of 'minimalistic' fashion (through provision of aid to insurgents), but the West said, 'OK, but under our control, and don't you dare doing something we don't like';
(BTW, and ironically, while attempting to exercise this control the West curbed all sorts of Saudi and Turkish support for 'other insurgents' but left Qatar support JAN - even the Daesh, at least early on - as much as it likes...)
- through late 2013 and into early 2014, Syrian Sunni Arab insurgents were THE FIRST party to fight the Daesh; they were also the THE FIRST to defeat the Daesh and force it out of seven provinces in Syria; but, this is completely ignored by the West - even more so since the West launched its anti-Daesh 'war' in autumn 2014;
- since autumn 2014, the West is signalling: 'we want your participation in our war against the Daesh (and/or al-Qaida) in Syria' (Iraq is out of question since pro-Iranian regime there is refusing such an option);
- since spring 2015, GCC-allies are involved in Yemen - in an action supported by the USA;
- because of their ops in Yemen, around the same time GCC-allies minimalized their participation in war against Daesh in Syria (which is no surprise, given this was limited to support of Kurds, and entirely ignored needs of Syrian Sunni Arabs);
- this 'minimalisation' in turn prompted critique from the West - as if Western allies in the Middle East 'must' fight the West's war against the Daesh, although neither Syrian nor Iraqi governments want them to do so (this is so ridiculous, I must laugh while typing this);
- then, in autumn 2015, the US switched its support in Syria to de-facto 'Kurds only', while at the same time US officials bitterly complained about lack of support from GCC-allies for its war against the Daesh;
- in early 2016, Turkey and Saudi Arabia announced they're ready to send troops to fight Daesh in Syria; but now - and 'all of a sudden' - the West is not the least delighted about this idea?
- Instead, the West is now exercising pressure upon Saudi Arabia and Turkey to ignore their own interests in Syria (i.e. to stick to Western policy of acting against these interests),
- while Russians threat Turkey with deployment of nuclear weapons.
- What a 'surprise' then, the Saudis reply with 'outing' about their nukes (arguably: in fashion that might appear 'unusual' to us in the West, then people here seem to kind of expect this king Salman to appear on the TV and say, 'yes, we can, i.e. have nukes'),
- and this is 'supported' by similar outings of people in the USA who 'are in position to say' or 'should know' if Saudis have nukes (even if the same people obviously have no trace of clue what's going on in Syria, which is no surprise nor anything diminishing their potential authoritativeness in regards of Saudi nukes).
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