The Current Events Room
Kurds Betrayal
This article was published prior to the announcement of a ceasefire by Turkey. However the points that it makes are good. Did the US "betray" the Kurds? Yes, but so what. States act in their vital interests, not the vital interests of others.
The Islam State was an existential threat to the Kurds, but not to the US. They should thank us for helping out against IS. But they have no reasonable expectation that the US is going to fight a border war for them in an issue that has nothing to do with US vital interests.
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The reaction to Trump's pullback has been immediate and nearly unanimous. Pundits denounced Trump for betraying the "ally" who had defeated ISIS, albeit with ample American aid. Special Forces soldiers who fought beside the SDF told reporters about their shame. Congress, despite never authorizing the war in the first place, is incensed about any potential U.S. drawdown in Syria. But this rejection of the Kurds was always going to happen sooner or later. Though Trump appears to have left the Kurds in a particularly peremptory and callous manner, the real issue is the way in which America habitually acquires, arms, and then abandons partners of convenience.
The United States chose not to employ many of its own troops in the campaign against ISIS – a war that was existential for Kurds but not for Americans. Outsourcing America’s fighting has consequences though. Despite the assurances of both politicians and military cheerleaders who write books with titles like “One Hundred Victories,” proxy warfare has ample costs. Many of these are borne by the proxies themselves, as Syria’s Kurds have now been reminded.
The Kurds are as sympathetic a partner as one could hope to find in today’s Middle East. Secular, Westernized, and egalitarian, Kurds have carved out autonomous regions in both Iraq and Syria. Blue jeans and beer are on offer in Iraqi Kurdistan’s Erbil, while the Syrian Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) famously employs women in combat on the frontlines and aims to establish a socialist utopia when the fighting ends. The People’s Protection Units (YPG) even drew a few American volunteers, in an echo of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade volunteers who fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War.
Yet the Kurds remain without a country of their own. At 30 million people, Kurds are the largest stateless nation in the Middle East. A quick look at a map shows why. The Kurds sprawl across four countries: nearly half are in Turkey, with the rest divided between Iraq, Iran, and Syria. None of those countries would allow a Kurdish state, and all have fought intermittently to prevent the formation of one. Some are willing to grant the Kurds varying degrees of autonomy. Instead of enabling that autonomy within Bashar Assad's Syria, a tough but necessary pill to swallow, U.S. officials ordered American forces to remain in the Kurdish region, encouraging fantasies of a Kurdish state. Faced with confronting Turkey alone, the Kurds did what they were always going to have to do, and concluded a hasty deal with Assad. Russia has been the biggest beneficiary.
Read the rest of the article at the link.
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Originally Posted by BenjaminO
