Betraying the Kurds

On September 27, the U.S.-led coalition began a massive, prolonged, and deadly bombing campaign in Syria, targeting ISIS units around Kobane and initiating a partnership with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, known by their Kurdish initials YPG, that would go on to become arguably the most effective force against ISIS. “When we heard the U.S. airstrikes, we were very happy,” recalled Tamo, a Kurdish resident of Kobane. “We applauded with every airstrike on our city by saying, ‘Let our houses collapse over their heads, ISIS.’”

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In the latest of a long line of American betrayals of the Kurds, a White House press release issued late Sunday night, apparently following a phone call between Trump and Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan, said, “Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria.”

The northeastern Syrian region is administered by a Kurdish-led faction, the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, that did much of the heavy lifting on the ground during the U.S.-led coalition war against ISIS. Widely praised for their role in battling ISIS, the Kurdish forces may now be on their own — and facing a daunting battle against their historic foes in the Turkish government. “The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation,” said the White House statement.

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A Turkish invasion could devastate the region, reshape its demography, and force a new geopolitical realignment among Kurds that would set back their push for autonomy to the days before the Syrian civil war. Like some Western analysts, the Kurds are worried about the long-term security consequences under de facto Turkish rule.

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Kurds in northern Syria said they feel abandoned by the United States and fear the potential violence unleashed from a Turkish operation.

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“The U.S. knows very well if Turkey attacks, they are going to destroy our region. They know this truth,” he said. “For Turkey, if you’re a Kurd, you’re a terrorist,” [said journalist said Mustafa Alali].

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“People feel terrible,” said Alali. “Everyone was not expecting [the U.S.] to allow the Turks to attack us, especially after what happened in Afrin with so many killed and arrested.” Afrin is a neighboring Syrian-Kurdish region invaded by Turkish forces in 2018. The aftermath of the invasion of Afrin saw alleged incidents of ethnic cleansing targeting Kurds, as well as vulnerable minorities like Yazidis and Christians.

  The Intercept

Surely they're not surprised, even if they weren't expecting it.

The Turkish government has made no secret of its plans to resettle millions of Syrian Arab refugees in a “safe zone” under its control in northern Syria.

Why does Turkey have control of a zone in Syria?  Apologies for not being very knowledgeable about this area.

“For years, there have been millions of refugees living in Turkey, and public opinion is now overwhelmingly against their presence,” said Mohammed Salih, a Kurdish journalist and doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. “A Turkish invasion of Syria would open the door to sending those refugees back. This would boost Erdogan’s credentials with the Turkish electorate and also deal a heavy blow to the YPG and PKK, by creating an Arab ‘buffer zone’ in northern Syria.”

In addition to the humanitarian and political threats, a major war between Turkey and the SDF in northern Syria could breathe life back into ISIS’s largely sidelined insurgency. Thousands of ISIS prisoners are still being held in SDF custody, including many dead-end ISIS adherents at the al-Hol camp in the northeast.

Kurdish-led forces are already struggling to maintain control over these prisoners, some of whom are citizens of Western countries. Should the region descend into chaos, it would create a fertile new recruiting ground for extremists, while potentially allowing ISIS members in custody to break free. Maintaining the prisons that hold some 12,000 ISIS fighters has, in the words of one Kurdish general speaking to NBC News, become a “second priority.”

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Asked whether the SDF would now seek to ally with the Syrian government or Russian forces, [Amjed Othman, a spokesperson for the Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of the SDF] said, “For us, we will work with any side that accepts our demands.”

As you would.

[S]ome are still hopeful that Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops will be quickly reversed, as similar announcements have been in the past. His statements have nonetheless already shaken Kurds’ confidence in the U.S. “Local people no longer trust the United States,” she said. “They believe that Trump is temperamental in his remarks. They live hours of anxiety and then he comes out with a modified or opposite statement.”

As do we all.

The U.S. has now betrayed the Kurds a minimum of eight times over the past 100 years. The reasons for this are straightforward.

The Kurds are an ethnic group of about 40 million people centered at the intersection of Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. Many naturally want their own state. The four countries in which they live naturally do not want that to happen.

  The Intercept

I can imagine they wonder why the rest of the world backed giving the Jews their own territory in the Middle East when they were besieged in Europe.

On the one hand, the Kurds are a perfect tool for U.S. foreign policy. We can arm the Kurds in whichever of these countries is currently our enemy, whether to make trouble for that country’s government or to accomplish various other objectives. On the other hand, we don’t want the Kurds we’re utilizing to ever get too powerful. If that happened, the other Kurds — i.e., the ones living just across the border in whichever of these countries are currently our allies — might get ideas about freedom and independence.

Here’s how that dynamic has played out, over and over and over again since World War I.

Continue reading the eight betrayals of the Kurds since the early 1920s.

 I don't think the Kurds were surprised by this latest betrayal.

The Kurds have an old, famous adage that they “have no friends but the mountains.” Now more than ever, it’s hard to argue that that’s wrong.

Here are a couple background articles that are helpful in visualizing the area and the stiuation:

Turkey's Syria offensive explained in four maps  (BBC)

Everything you need to know about Turkey's military offensive in Syria  (CNN)