Trump's Syria Policy and the Kurdish Militia SDF: The Betrayal

For many Kurds, it has long become a bitter adage: in the end, they are always betrayed.

• So it was after the First World War, when they were promised their own state, from which nothing became.
• Or in the fight against Saddam Hussein, when the US government encouraged the Kurds to rebellion, leaving them alone when the Iraqi dictator murdered thousands of civilians in Halabja in 1988 with chemical weapons.
• And again: US President Donald Trump drops her in Syria.

Strictly speaking, it is not "the Kurds" but the majority of the Kurdish "Syrian Democratic Forces" (SDF), from whom Trump now withdraws American support.

The SDF were Washington's closest partner in Syria. No other militia got so much money and weapons from the US - and even support from the air. The betrayal is now particularly infamous, after all, the SDF had just partially defied their positions at the urging of the United States to meet the security concerns of Turkey.

The SDF provided stability in its part of Syria

In the Syrian tragedy, the SDF are perhaps the only guarantee of stability. From their origins as guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers' Party PKK they swung themselves on to the 100,000 man and woman strong military and police organization, which acted east of the Euphrates under the air of the US-led coalition against the IS.

In the area they control, international aid organizations have settled there, supplying people with food and medicines, and sometimes with prospects. Thousands of SDF fighters died in the fight against the Islamic State (IS).

At the beginning, the US alliance with the SDF was a surprise. Because not only Turkey, Washington's NATO alliance partner, classifies the PKK as a terrorist organization; the US itself is on their list.

But the need to find a reliable partner against the IS weighed more heavily for Washington. The calculus in Turkey, on the other hand, is a different one: it seems that the PKK is the greater danger after decades of cruel war against the organization.

Bashar al-Assad is the closest alliance partner for the SDF

In response to Turkish security concerns, the SDF downplayed its PKK connections. Most recently, many of the PKK boss Abdullah Öcalan's portraits disappeared in the areas under their control - pictures that had been hung there, where previously the Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad was displayed.

Now, however, Assad is the closest alliance partner for the SDF to defend itself against Turkey and the militias it supports. Lastly, there were hardly any serious negotiations between the SDF and Damascus. The SDFs demand more rights and independence, which the Syrian regime does not want to grant them. The Syrian regime and the PKK have a decades-long, complicated purpose relationship:

• While Damascus oppressed the Kurds, at the same time it helped the PKK to hold pressure against Turkey.
• However, as relations between Syria and Turkey improved, Damascus's PKK leader Öcalan dropped.

But the Turkish plan could now force the SDF into Assad's hands, because the government in Ankara is even more of an evil for them.

A Turkish security zone would fuel the violence in Syria

Along the border, Turkish President Recep Tayyep Erdogan wants to create a security zone in which one million Syrian refugees from Turkey are to be settled.

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Turkey wants to gain a foothold in Syria - the Kurds will fight the project

If one assumes that Turkey and its allies could behave in the same way as they do in the already occupied Afrin Canton in northwestern Syria, this would mean the forced eviction of up to one hundred thousand Syrians.

These include many who belong to ethnic or religious minorities. Such action would amount to a crime against humanity and further fuel violence in Syria.