Of course, piling pressure on the 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey to go back will cost Erdogan little, both politically and diplomatically. In an age of mass slaughter of dissidents, unprovoked attacks on oil infrastructure, and vast detention camps for defenseless Muslims, the Turkish leader is probably seen by the West as the least of its problems.
Otherwise what could possibly explain the Pentagon’s collaboration with the Turkish government in the creation of the buffer zone in the first place? After all, it was not the Turkish military that made the enormous sacrifices in blood and treasure that rid the world of the so-called ‘caliphate’ of the Islamic State group (ISIS) straddling Syria and Iraq.
That being said, the establishment of the ‘safe zone’ on Syrian territory should come as no surprise to anyone given the American presidents’ history of failing the Kurds, to say nothing of the huge power imbalance between Turkey and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-led force that defeated ISIS in northern Syria.
With Turkey still throwing its weight around in the guise of a NATO ally and commanding one of the most powerful armed forces in the Middle East, it is small wonder the SDF got a raw deal east of the Euphrates, despite its sacrifices spearheading the anti-ISIS ground war.
As preposterous as the plan may sound to use the ‘safe zone’ to resettle Syrian Arab refugees with no ties to the Kurdish-majority north, the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES) should not expect any explosion of global outrage in its favor.
Forget the international community – this is no ordinary US administration the Kurds are interacting with.
The American president was on the verge of becoming Erdogan’s patsy at the height of diplomatic tensions between the two countries earlier this year. The Kurds may be the West’s most dependable allies, but in Donald Trump’s eyes they do not have quite the cachet of a deep-pocketed potential investor in the US economy – making them dispensable.
If Syria’s Kurds have not been completely abandoned by Trump, it is largely thanks to their powerful friends in the Republican party and in the US foreign policy establishment. The visit by Ilham Ahmed, co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council, to the US in January and the efforts of influential administration stalwarts such as Mike Pompeo and John Bolton also clearly helped foil Trump’s simple-minded bid to give Erdogan free rein in the region.
Going forward, the Kurds of the Middle East should only pay heed to their own collective interests. Given their reputation for social liberalism and political pluralism in a region carved up by secular autocrats and authoritarian Islamists, the priorities of the Kurds are likely to overlap significantly with those of the West (like the pro-Western Arab Gulf countries). However, Kurds should regard this convergence as a fortuitous coincidence rather than as the cornerstone of their relations with the West.
What Kurds should beware of is allowing Western powers to dictate or even influence their agenda. The danger springs not just from the insular, “America first” mentality of Trump’s core supporters but equally, if not much more, from the declinist world-view of America’s left-liberal political and media establishments.
For proof, Kurds need look only at the destabilizing effect on southern Yemen of the UAE’s military withdrawal in the face of an ideologically motivated assault by virtue-signaling Democrats in Washington and their ideological counterparts in Europe.
Additionally, the West’s kid-glove treatment of an expansionist Iran should be a cautionary tale for Kurds who do not fully grasp the cruel calculus of power politics. Instead of being subjected to continuous sanctions and diplomatic isolation for its oppressive rule at home and foreign terrorist entanglements, the Iranian regime has been repeatedly treated as a partner in good faith and rewarded with concessions.
The net result of this approach is now plain to see, but even then there is no shortage of influential voices in the West trying to portray the country as some kind of a hapless victim of Trumpian overkill.
What it all means is that the Kurds should have zero expectations of fairness and gratitude merely because of their role in eliminating the ISIS menace. They should instead always be prepared for the worst outcome of any conflict or negotiation while maneuvering for the best one.
The Americans may very well regard the Turkish tactics of intimidation with disgust, treat the Syrian regime as untouchable, or hope to see Iran’s theocracy implode. But this is of mere academic interest to the Kurds.
The only thing that ought to matter to the Kurds of Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran in the context of any dealings is “what’s in it for us?”. And this is the attitude that should inform every aspect of the NES’s response to Erdogan’s budding plan to settle Syrian Arabs in the so-called ‘safe zone’. Everything else is commentary.
Arnab Neil Sengupta is an independent journalist and commentator on the Middle East.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
