Afrasianet - Oraib Al Rantawi - The collapses of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are similar in their speed to the rapid and sudden collapses that toppled the regime of ousted President Bashar al-Assad. Ten days, here and there, were enough to bring about radical coups in the two scenes: the Syrian and the regional, and the comparison here is with the difference in the weight of the two events.
Just as the changing "regional-international environment" did in overthrowing the Assad regime, after the allies withdrew their hands and removed the umbrella from above it and from under it, the developments in the regional and international environment surrounding Syria these days have turned the collapses of the SDF into a kind of free fall.
The stakes and illusions have dissipated, the prohibition has fallen, and now the Kurdish movement is paying the price that many have long warned about the prospect of paying.
In the Changing Political-Strategic Context
The SDF gained its privileged position from the perspective of the Western Alliance led by the United States, and with the support of some regional capitals, from its role in confronting three "threats":
• The first is the former regime, and the need for these parties to target it, and to remove large areas from its control and "guardianship", and confront the "axis" that supports it, from Tehran to the southern suburbs of Beirut, passing through Baghdad.
• Second: ISIS, and the need to curb it, contain its spread and expansion, after it controlled the entire east of the Euphrates and large parts of its west, as well as a third of Iraq's area, and its second largest city, Mosul, a mandate that remained granted to the Kurdish movement, even after the fall of the regime and the entry of Syria after December 8, 2024, into a new era.
• Third, it was exacerbated at the height of the conflict of the axes and proxy wars, in the decade of the "Arab Spring", as some regional capitals saw the SDF as a spearhead that could be relied on to disturb Turkey and threaten its security, stability, and the integrity of its territorial and national unity.
At the time, Turkey was at the top of the list of national and national security "threats" from the perspective of these countries, before the situation changed, in the past four or five years, and Turkey moved from the position of the existing threat to the position of a potential ally of a number of them.
The fall of the Assad regime, the decline of Iran's role, and the retreat of the axis have all deprived the SDF of the status of "first care" from the perspective of Washington, Paris, London, and Tel Aviv from behind the curtain.
The new regime in Damascus never needed anyone to "incite" it against these parties, and it was its killer during the time of the opposition, and it cut off the "Iranian corridor" in the middle after it came to power, depriving the SDF of one of its most important strategic functions.
The West's bet on the SDF as a spearhead in the face of ISIS terrorism remained in place, despite the regime change in Syria. Western capitals and some Arab capitals were not sure that the new regime in Syria would take on the task of fighting and hunting down the organization, given its Salafi background.
However, less than a year after its establishment, the regime of President Ahmed al-Sharia will join the International Coalition to Combat Terrorism, making Syria the 90th country in this coalition, and will, in an untimely and inopportune way, fulfill its obligations in security, intelligence, and field work against the Islamic State.
Thus, the second most important pillar of the "mandate" granted to the SDF, for which it deserved all this support and "coverage" from Washington and its allies, was dropped.
What can the SDF offer to this alliance, which Damascus cannot offer exponentially? This is the question that the leaders of the SDF had to look for an answer to.
As for the support that the SDF used to receive from Arab capitals, which bet on turning Mazloum Abdi into "Hemedti 2", "Haftar 2" or "Aidarous Al-Zubaidi 2", it lost much of its importance and urgency, in light of the reconciliations and settlements witnessed by Arab countries with Turkey.
Not all capitals have engaged in the file of "employing the SDF" against Ankara, of course, and not all of them retain the same degree of confidence and reassurance for the current Turkish role, but for all of them, Turkey today has left the position of the "enemy" in which it was at the time of the "Arab Spring" revolutions.
I think that rational and realistic thinking dictated that the leaders of the SDF should read the scene with its movement and dynamism, rather than remain asleep on the silk of its illusions and disappointed bets, and to begin to distinguish between what is realistic and what is possible of its demands, and what is beyond all the ceilings and red lines, and belongs to an era that is darker.
Water under the Kurdish house
There are three "historical" poles around which Kurdish movements in the region have revolved around them: Talabani's declining leadership after his departure, and Sulaimaniyah's inability to produce an alternative charismatic leadership that transcends local borders.
Barzani's historical leadership, which was never in harmony with the SDF, and maintained a minimum of "fraternal ties" with the organization, was influenced by groups and parties that joined the Kurdish National Council, considering that the SDF is counted on the third charismatic leadership of the Kurds, with a cross-border extension, and Abdullah Ocalan, the most influential Kurdish leader on the Kurds inside and outside his country.
Memories are still full of "deterioration of relations" on both sides of the border between Rojava and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, starting with the closure of the crossings, through the refusal to receive leaders and citizens in Erbil, and stories of facilitations provided for the passage of troops and weapons to anti-SDF parties that crossed the Iraqi and Turkish borders together.
It would not have been possible for a Kurdish-Turkish leader who wavered for peace, dissolved his party, and laid down his arms, to continue to demand that his followers from the Syrian Kurds keep their weapons and maintain their "separatist" tendencies in the name of federalism and expanded decentralization.
The godfather would not have confined his theory of the democratic state and society to his prison on Imrali Island, or kept it within the borders of his country, and "multiply" it on his Syrian neighborhood, and the Syrian Kurds in particular.
I believe that since the Turkish reconciliation, the decision to dissolve the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), lay down arms, and start the descent journey from the Qandil Mountains, the SDF has lost a rock on which it was based, and although it retained in its ranks and leadership leading symbols from the aforementioned party, the impact that Ocalan's transformations on the SDF cannot be denied or underestimated.
What can the SDF offer America and its allies, and Damascus cannot offer exponentially? This is the question that the SDF leaders had to look for an answer to.
In Erbil, the SDF did not find in leader Massoud Barzani what it was looking for. The man who emerged from the shock of the failure of the "referendum" seems to have learned the lessons of "uncalculated adventures" the hard way, and took the position of advisor to the SDF in response to Damascus's calls and the presidential decree on the rights, participation, and citizenship of the Syrian Kurds.
It is perhaps meaningful that the January 18 agreement was issued from Erbil, which in every sense implied a decline in the ceiling of Kurdish expectations and "gains", and if the SDF had gone to the honest and smooth implementation of the March 10 agreement, it would have been in a better position today in the composition of governance and leadership in the new Syria, especially since the said agreement was concluded in the climate of the Sahel events pressing Damascus, and before the latter completed its openings in the Arab and international arenas.
The SDF, or rather, its hawks, bet on the possibility of a better agreement, and got a worse agreement from the perspective of its aspirations and calculations.
Loss of compass
In recent months, the SDF's compass seems to have lost its direction twice:
- First, it emerged that sources and intelligence websites circulated leaks that the SDF, as it began to sense the scenario of "abandonment and abandonment", and faced the possibility of pulling the cover of the shepherds and their rug together, is looking into the possibility of seeking help from yesterday's enemies: Iran, Hezbollah, and the remnants of the old Syrian regime.
- Damascus accused the SDF of using Iranian-made "Shahed" drones in Aleppo and its countryside, and its sources talked about the recruitment of more than seven thousand "remnants" in its ranks, while intelligence leaks spoke of the arrival of a delegation of "remnants" in the southern suburbs a few months ago.
- Regardless of the extent of the truth or falsity of these reports, it is certain that the SDF quickly realized that this is not an option at all, because transferring the gun from Washington's shoulder to Tehran's shoulder will be costly to the SDF itself, and will only accelerate the path of the "shepherds' coup" against it and its project, which will put a definitive end to all the aspirations of the Kurds, both legitimate and illegitimate.
- The credibility of these "leaks" was strengthened by the media coverage relied on by media outlets affiliated with the Tehran axis, as it was clear that there was "the same sympathy" or redundant objectivity in the news coverage, and in the quality and biases of the guests, as if there was a "nostalgia" or a bet in "Mattrah" that the clock would turn back, despite the fact that a lot of water had flowed in the rivers of Syria and the region since the scene was reversed on December 8.
- Second, when the SDF tried to test the "Minorities Alliance" theory at the famous Qamishli conference, some of its leaders began to experiment with the option of betting on Israel, waving for help, opening up to media and political meetings with Israeli officials and media stations, and mobilizing the Kurdish lobby in coordination with the Israeli lobby in Washington against Damascus.
Another disappointing bet, not justified by the official normalization tracks between Arabs and Israel, nor by official negotiations between Damascus and Tel Aviv to reach an agreement on the south of the country, collided and will collide with an Arab popular position that rejects this entity, which sees only images of racism, genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Surprise of the field
The advance of the Syrian army forces in the neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyya in Aleppo, and even in all areas west of the Euphrates, is understandable, and has its explanation and justification. But the surprise that came to the SDF, and its control in "Maqtal", was represented in the "uprising of the Arab tribes" against the Kurdish organization.
The SDF has lived in a long state of denial because there is a gap between the government and the governed in the areas under its control: a Kurdish minority, an ideological (leftist-secular), which clings to the grip of control and control by a conservative Arab majority, tribal in its identity and structure, and all the narrative adopted by the SDF has not succeeded in covering up the fact that it is imposing its control by force on the areas of the "sweeping" Arab majority, especially in Deir Ezzor, Raqqa and parts of Hasakah itself.
The "vaccinations" conducted by the SDF for the Autonomous Administration, with Arab elements, did not succeed in concealing the dominant character of the Kurdish organization over this administration, as the Arabs, including some respectable names, were nothing more than a "blue bead" that gave a false national character to the essence of the institutions of governance and administration, which are mainly held by the organization.
If the Assad regime played a repulsive role for the Arab tribes, pushing them into the lap of the SDF, and if that regime showed less interest in these areas and their people, out of its own view of "useful Syria", a new regime came to power in Syria, with different priorities, in which the tribes saw an opportunity to get rid of the control of the SDF, so they went out of their way to pursue their units and security forces, and preempted the army in overthrowing and retaking these areas.
This was a "backlash for the SDF's expanding influence in the vacuum of power and regime, over an area of more than a quarter of Syria, which has a balanced Arab majority.
Conclusion:
• First, the SDF did not learn from the lessons of its own experience, nor from the lessons of its brothers in Turkey and Iraq, so it deliberately and persistently approached the same mistakes, built on the same disappointing bets, and "covered" Washington, without taking into account the common wisdom: "The one who is covered by America is naked."
• Second: The SDF was a failed lawyer for a just cause, and here we open brackets to emphasize our conviction that the Kurds have individual and collective rights that have been wasted in varying destiny, in the countries to which they are distributed, including Syria, and the situation has worsened in the past year, when signs of an obstruction of their project have appeared on the horizon.
• Third: There is no military solution to the problem of the Kurds and Syria at all, neither by the authority nor by the Kurds, because the solution is through dialogue exclusively, by peaceful means, without being bullied or summoned abroad, and by a civil-democratic constitution for Syria, which guarantees all citizens, entities and components, their individual and collective rights. This is a message to both Qamishli and Damascus.
