This story says the Syrians carried out exercises near Turkey:
Syria responded last weekend by staging a massive live-fire military exercise, near the north-central desert town of Palmyra, that, according to Syrian state TV, was designed to test “the capabilities and readiness of missile systems to respond to any possible aggression.”
That would seem to include chemical weapons, that I mentioned before. Syria would need massive use of chemical weapons to stop a Turkish advance. And even then it wouldn't stop the Turks if they are determined enough and have chemical warfare gear.
What it would do is guarantee that every Syrian Baathist would be executed after losing the war. I'd guess that Assad would need to really roll the dice and hit Turkish cities in the hope that terror would cause popular pressure to end the invasion of Syria.
Of course, this part of the story cited above is completely unbelievable:
On Tuesday, under the headline “U.S. troops surround Syria on the eve of invasion?” the online Russian news channel RT.com reported U.S. troops withdrawn from Iraq are secretly being transferred to northern Jordan and taking up positions opposite Syrian tank formations along the border.
We certainly could have withdrawn some of our troops from western Iraq through Jordan. But the idea that they are stationed on the border with Syria poised to invade is far-fetched. I have my doubts that Syria would mass tank formations on the Jordanian border, too. This just sounds like Russia hyping a NATO threat to justify their deployment of naval forces as a show of support for the mass murderer, Assad.
Although no doubt this is a dangerous situation.
