Assad’s fall lays the ground for wider peace—if the US can seize the moment

The epochal collapse of the Assad authorities, together with a lot of the Iranian regional community, has opened the door to a extra peaceable Center East, however has additionally created dangers. The present administration should deal with these with urgency, not depart them to its successor.

Excessive amongst these challenges helps America’s efficient counter-ISIS associate, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, emerge as a political consultant of the Syrian Kurds. This requires a shift away from its roots within the Turkish separatist group PKK, and from its standing as “state and militia inside a state.” Washington has an ethical responsibility and geopolitical curiosity to make sure that the Kurds usually are not crushed militarily, and that the battle in opposition to ISIS not lag. However the U.S. should not indefinitely prop up a Kurdish statelet inside Syria as a perpetual counter-terrorism associate or “nice recreation” Levantine pawn, within the face of resistance from the brand new Syrian nationwide authorities and the regional king-maker, Turkiye.

It will be significant that this transition be gradual. The SDF stays irreplaceable within the battle in opposition to ISIS remnants, and the brand new Syrian state is at present unable to manipulate the hundreds of thousands of Syrians now below Kurdish rule.

However the transition should even be inevitable. Turkiye has lengthy seen the SDF, given its simple ties to the PKK, as a severe national-security risk. Starting in 2016, Ankara launched a collection of armed incursions to stem SDF enlargement alongside the border, ceasing solely when Washington and Ankara lastly hammered out a ceasefire for northeastern Syria in October 2019. U.S. sponsorship of the SDF has additionally broken U.S.-Turkish relations.

The U.S.-SDF alliance has endured, regardless of Turkish mistrust of U.S. intentions and calls to withdraw U.S. troops within the Trump and Biden administrations, on three pillars. First, the lack of the Assad regime to successfully and humanely substitute SDF governance within the northeast. Second, the U.S. navy presence retains Iran, Russia, and the Assad regime from accessing the northeast (and the south at Tanf), denying them a strategic benefit inimical to Turkish and U.S. pursuits. Third, ISIS stays resilient south of the Euphrates, the place Assad regime operations repeatedly failed.

However with Assad’s sudden collapse, stress soared between the Kurdish forces west of the Euphrates (most are technically not a part of the SDF, however of its core factor, the Syrian Kurdish PKK offshoot referred to as YPG or the Peoples’ Protection Items), and the opposition Syrian Nationwide Military forces backed by Ankara. The SNA swept into Tal Rifaat and Manbij, two Arab-majority areas seized in the course of the civil struggle by the YPG. YPG withdrawals have been negotiated, with assist from the USA. However the SNA and Turkish forces at the moment are poised to assault east throughout the Euphrates into the Kurds’ homeland round Kobane. The might spark huge combating that might additionally violate the 2019 Turkish-U.S. settlement and will embroil U.S. advisors on the bottom. 

U.S. officers have signaled their persevering with assist for the SDF. On Dec. 13, Nationwide Safety Advisor Jake Sullivan referred to as it “deep and resolute,” reinforcing Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s talks in Ankara with President Recip Tayyip Erdogan and Overseas Minister Hakan Fidan. The outcome for the second is a short lived ceasefire round Manbij and no new Turkish strikes into northeast Syria. However after the Dec. 12 assembly, Fidan reiterated that Turkey needs to see the YPG sever overt ties with the PKK, and disarm.  That’s a longer-term wish-list whose particulars may be negotiated, however the Turks are severe. The HTS-led provisional authorities in Damascus additionally seems thinking about establishing management within the northeast, and shutting down non-public armies.

However all three pillars of the U.S.-SDF alliance are crumbling with the Assad regime. The caretaker Syrian authorities with its HTS and different forces will ultimately find a way, with worldwide help, to tackle ISIS remnants themselves. It should additionally ultimately set up governance all through Syria, together with the northeast, as welcomed within the multinational Dec. 13 Aqaba Assertion. And the secondary mission of the U.S. presence, to stymie Iran and proxies and Russia, has been largely achieved with Assad’s fall. Moreover, the U.S. navy presence is on borrowed time, with a brand new administration skeptical of such deployments, and the introduced closure of the rear base in Iraq for troops in Syria by the top of 2026.  

Administration actions this previous week on Syria have been on track, reaching out to the HTS-led authorities and laying out cheap situations for cooperation, whereas freezing for now battle between Turkiye and the SDF. The hat trick is, to proceed briefly engagement with the SDF in opposition to ISIS, whereas making ready for the inevitable main transition. The SDF has already taken some steps below Turkish stress and U.S. urging: withdrawing forces from the Turkish border in some areas and promising to expel instantly non-Syrian PKK members.

Additional steps in coordination with the U.S. are wanted. Expertise exhibits that until Washington alerts there isn’t a various, the SDF and its PKK sponsors will go for the “state inside a state” and assume that the U.S. will maintain defending it. The SDF thus ought to negotiate with the caretaker Damascus authorities on the latter’s assuming capabilities within the northeast, first in Arab areas, and on “state sovereignty” missions comparable to transportation, border safety (one other Turkish demand), and oilfield administration, with a plan for eventual regular nationwide management, in addition to operations in opposition to ISIS. With U.S. assist, the SDF ought to resurrect the buffer-zone idea alongside the Turkish border agreed between Ankara, Washington, and the SDF in 2019, together with joint U.S.-Turkish patrols, till the central authorities can assume border management. The SDF ought to open channels to Ankara and lay out a step-by-step plan for its demobilization and transformation right into a political get together with out overt institutional hyperlinks to the PKK, just like the largely Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democratic Celebration in Turkey.

Kurdish leaders seem keen to contemplate all this. However Washington will possible be tempted to stay indefinitely with the Kurds, out of well-earned affection for the SDF, comprehensible mistrust of HTS and Turkiye, need to battle ISIS and different terror teams, or a romantic imaginative and prescient of the Kurds as a everlasting U.S. associate within the Levant “nice recreation.”  

These are all recipes for failure, in Syria and the area. To counter them, the following administration ought to—whereas contining the above initiatives—announce an eventual withdrawal of all forces from Syria, based mostly on situations, however no later than December 2026, absent a brand new settlement with Damascus. 

James Jeffrey is chair of the Center East program on the Wilson Middle; a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Iraq, and Albania; and former Particular Envoy to the International Coalition To Defeat ISIS, and Syria chief of mission.