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Between a rock, a hard place, and the US

Syria’s Kurdish forces were once spread along Syria’s northern border with Turkey in three main concentrations. Afrin lay in the west, Kobani east of the Euphrates, and Hasakeh in the east. They have now lost control of Afrin to Turkiye and its proxies, who are threatening Minbij. Ankara wants all Kurdish forces at least 30 km from the border.

Meanwhile Syria’s de facto new leader, Ahmed al Sharaa, wants Kurdish forces brought under the Ministry of Defense. The United States has long cooperated with the Kurds in fighting the Islamic State and imprisoning its cadres.

The American side of the triangle

The Americans won’t want anything to happen that weakens that mission. But American support for the Kurds is the least certain side of this iron triangle. President Trump has long wanted the Americans out of Syria. His National Security Advisor nominee, Mike Waltz, is known as a long-time friend of the Iraqi Kurds.

He is also strongly committed to destroying the Islamic State (IS). That goal requires Kurdish cooperation. But there are few IS fighters remaining in the wild, where the Americans bomb them often. The main IS threat now is from the fighters whom the Kurds have imprisoned. If the Kurds were to release the jihadis, that would revive IS. A secondary threat is from their families, mainly concentrated in a refugee camp in the south.

The rock and the hard place

Ankara and Damascus are the more rigid sides of the triangle. Both have vital interests vis-a-vis the Kurds.

Ankara wants the Kurds off its border with Syria. Or at least diluted with some of the three million Syrian (mostly Arab) refugees Turkiye wants to return to Syria. Ankara has said it would take responsibility for the IS prisoners and their families. Damascus wants the Kurdish forces either demobilized or absorbed into the new Syrian army. It will also want the Kurdish governing institutions in the north absorbed into the Syrian state.

None of this will appeal to the Kurds. But they are weaker militarily than the Turks. And they have long accepted that their institutions, including the armed forces, should be subservient to a post-Assad state. The Americans, their main supporters, will not support a bid for independence.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide

The Kurds are cornered. Iraq’s Kurds have their own problems and won’t want to support Syria’s Kurds, who espouse a different governing philosophy. They even speak a different Kurdish. Iran, which has sometimes appeared supportive of Syria’s Kurds, also has its own problems. It has evacuated most of its cadres and their leadership from Syria. Kurds still control a slice of Syria’s oil resources. Turning that over to Damascus could be a bargaining chip. Iran and Iraq have halted exports of oil to Syria.

Reaching an accommodation with Ankara and Damascus will not be easy, but the Syrian Kurds have little choice. Unless Syria descends into chaos, the days of their wide autonomy will end. They would do well to offer up their armed forces in exchange for Damascus acceptance of Kurdish governing institutions. Damascus might even want them to maintain a strong police force and intelligence capability. The Kurds should also try to convince Ankara of their willingness to break ties with Kurdish rebels inside Turkiye. In exchange they could ask that Kurds return to their homes along the border.

Politics rather than force

Kurds often portray themselves as the largest ethnic group without a state. That is a dubious claim. And in any case there are no guarantees of a state based on population size. The Kurds live in four contiguous states, none of which they can call their own: Iraq, Turkiye, Syria, and Iran. They need to use their political strength and savvy to gain what they can from these non-democracies. Necessary as it has been, military force has not produced a desirable outcome.