Fighting this month between the Syrian government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces the United States’ former partner against ISIS ended in a decisive defeat for the Kurds. Much of the territory they had governed since 2014, with American military and financial support, is now out of their hands.
This was more than a tactical setback. It marked the end of the Kurds’ daring, if improvised, experiment in self-rule — a utopian model combining leftist ideas and women’s empowerment in one of the region’s most conservative corners. Admired in the West but never fully embraced by the Arab communities it governed, the project also exposed a harsher truth: The US was willing to abandon a partner that had fought and died for it when its interests shifted. In Trumpian parlance, the Kurds had “no cards” in post-Assad Syria.
The new map cements President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s consolidation of power across much of the country and expands Turkey’s zone of influence along Syria’s northern border. The question now is what kind of Syria emerges and whether the US, having spent years shaping the battlefield, will help shape the peace by pushing for a constitutional order Syrians beyond Damascus can buy into.
It should. Syria cannot be stabilised through centralisation alone. Success now depends largely on how Kurdish rights are guaranteed, and whether the Kurds have a credible political future not only in Syria but also in Turkey, where the Kurdish question remains unresolved.
The Syrian government and the Kurds took an important first step on Friday, reaching an agreement to absorb Kurdish fighters into the Syrian military and integrate Kurdish civil institutions into the central government. Al-Sharaa’s declaration earlier this month recognising Kurdish identity was welcome. But the real test will be whether commitments on local governance, language recognition, education and cultural rights become law and are implemented consistently — and whether two ideological extremes, the Kurds’ leftist vision and the conservative Islamist cast of Syria’s new rulers, can be reconciled.
For the US, the stakes are not abstract. Continued tensions between Turkey and the Kurds, an ISIS resurgence, and new openings for Iran-backed militias across eastern Syria and neighbouring Iraq remain real risks. Any of these could again pull Washington into crises it claims to want to leave behind.
There is little doubt that Washington has switched partners in Syria, moving from its alliance with the Kurds to working directly with the country’s new rulers. President Trump’s special envoy to Syria, Tom
Barrack, has argued that the US sees no viable alternative to a unified Syria meaning it is not prepared to underwrite Kurdish separatism or a federal model.
US officials are mistaken to believe that military integration alone can bring stability. Syria’s reunification ultimately requires constitutional guarantees of political inclusion for Kurds and other minorities. That means embedding into Syria’s constitution the right to use minority languages, administer local affairs, and shape educational and cultural policies. Constitutional recognition, paired with genuine administrative autonomy for Kurds, Druze, Christians and others, is the only viable path to unity. You cannot ask a militia to put down its arms without offering its people a political horizon.
Washington cannot impose democracy in Syria, nor should it try. But it can endorse territorial unity while insisting that unity without minority rights is a recipe for renewed instability.
Regional politics make this moment especially delicate. Turkey has long sought influence through friendly Sunni governments and economic leverage. With Iran weakened and Washington largely aligned with Turkey’s policies, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan now has an opportunity to shape the region’s political architecture. He should build his legacy not only through hard power but by ending conflict with the Kurds at home.
Both Erdogan and Barrack often suggest that a benevolent strongman can do more than a weak democrat. That reflects only one reading of Ottoman history. Another recognises that stability in diverse societies comes not from homogenization but negotiated coexistence. Suppressing Kurdish political expression in Syria would not serve Turkey’s longterm interests.
As Erdogan speaks of shaping a new “century of Turkey,” his legacy will hinge on whether he opts for coercion or coexistence. Washington should urge Turkey to restart peace talks with the Kurds. Turkey’s security concerns are real, but a pluralistic Syria should be seen as a stabilising force, not a threat.
The New York Times