Washington Kurdish Institute
July 2, 2019
Uncertainty looms in the Autonomous Administration of North and East of Syria (AANES), even after the military defeat of the ISIS caliphate. Short-term challenges include attacks by remaining ISIS terrorists –known as “sleeper cells”– that cross into Kurdish territory from areas in which ISIS enjoyed local support, as shown by the car bomb in Qamishli on June 17th. Other security issues related to the economics of the region are the arsonist attacks on Kurdish farmlands in the region. From Kobani to Qamishli, the region suffered the burning of thousands of agricultural acres. ISIS has claimed responsibility on previous occasions, but there are multiple players in the region that would like to hurt the Kurdish-led AANES and its economy.
The AANES is also facing several long-term obstacles to its existence, such as the threat of invasion by Turkey or a return to the Assad dictatorship. The AANES controls a swath of Syria that is rich with natural resources, which makes it easy to survive economically if they receive some support from the outside world. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) can defend the area from the terror groups, but given their lack of an air force, they would be unable to repel sustained offenses from Turkey or Assad. Syrian Kurds have requested the enforcement of a no-fly zone, similar to what the U.S. provided to Iraqi Kurds from 1991-2003 to quell Saddam Hussein regime’s aggression.
A U.S. withdrawal from Syria would corner the Kurds between returning to Assad regime rule without guarantee of basic rights, or an armed struggle against NATO ally Turkey, as Erdogan has been clear in his stance for an invasion of the Kurdish region and support to Jihadis. Both cases would represent a foreign policy loss for the United States; if the U.S. withdraws, Russia would will fill the power vacuum, and Iranian proxies would take over much more Syrian land.
The Washington Kurdish Institute hosted a roundtable discussion featuring the Representative of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) Sinam Mohammed and Dr. Ozum Yesiltas, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University.
In her opening remarks, Ms. Mohammed discussed the recent developments in Syria, especially the Kurdish-led AANES.
Ms. Mohammed’s remarks:
How did the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) originate?
The northeast of Syria, like the rest of Syria, is diverse. All over Syria, you can find ethnic diversity and religious diversity, such as Arabs, Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians, Turkmen, and so on. In regards to religious diversity, there are Muslims, Alawis, Druze, even Yazidis. So, there’s all this diversity in Syria, which makes us in northeast Syria think: how we can bring all of these groups together instead of fighting each other? So, it happened that we contacted all of the different people there, and we agreed on a social contact, let’s call it, in the area. They agreed to administrate the area together, they agreed to have a system based on gender equality. The women participate in all the institutions in the area, on the committees, about 50%. We even have freedom of religion, which is not found in other places in Syria. We worked based on these principles, democracy and decentralization, because we suffered a lot under the central government during the Assad regime.
Our region is the richest area in all of Syria. We have 60% of the food basket, wheat, oil wells, all these things, but we are among the poorest people in the country. There was nothing, no development in this area during the regime. So for that, we said ‘O.K., we would like to have a decentralized government, nothing like a dictatorship that rules over all of Syria and takes all of the wealth.
So this is what we asked: to have a decentralized Syria, a democratic Syria, a new Syria, based on equality of genders, secularism, pluralism, and the unity of the Syria people, but through diversity. Kurds need to be recognized as Kurds, Assyrians need to be recognized as Assyrians, Arabs recognized as Arabs, and so on.
Then, ISIS attacked and occupied Kobane and other places. We later retook Kobane with the help of the international coalition led by U.S. –I’d like to thank them actually– but the terrorists of ISIS spread everywhere in Syria. They came to Mosul, to Raqqa, to all these places. So what happened? Now, all these places have been liberated. How did we liberate these areas? It is easy to say “we liberated them,” but imagine how big their territory was, how dangerous the terrorist groups are. In the places controlled by the Islamic State, they repressed women, they imposed religion upon non-Muslims. Some people were able to escape, but most were forced to remain, and they suffered a lot. We were able to liberate them, but it took us more than one year, and it came at a high price: 11,000 martyrs, heroes, being killed during the liberation of these areas. 11,000 of our fighters, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters. And if we look at these SDF fighters, it is worth mentioning that they are not just Kurdish forces, but a pluralistic force. We have Arabs, we have Kurds, we have Assyrians, all of them under the name Syrian Democratic Forces. They were able to liberate these areas because they are well-organized, well-trained, and they are united, not like the other people in the Free Syrian Army, where you have a lot of groups, different groups, different ideologies, and each group has an agenda, regional agendas, so they can’t do anything for Syria. The SDF, they are pluralistic, they are well organized, and they are diverse – Arabs, Assyrians, Kurds. Of course, in the beginning, it was the Kurdish fighters who organized this, the YPG (People’s Protection Units), the Kurdish fighters, but then they all came together and formed military councils. So, for the first time you can see Arabs with Christians with Muslims with Kurds all together at the front fighting the terrorists of ISIS. It is a significant thing, I think it hasn’t happened in the Middle East before. This is very important for us.
What are the challenges currently facing the administration in northeast Syria?
So, I have described the plurality of the forces and the plurality of the administration. Unfortunately, other people don’t like these principles. Some regional governments or countries, like Turkey –let me name it– they don’t like this plurality in the area, they’re afraid of democracy going into their area or their region, and we know now that in Turkey, there is a lack of democracy. Everybody knows what’s going on in Turkey; thousands of the people there are jailed and thousands of the journalists there are jailed. Turkey lacks democracy, so they’re afraid that this democratic system on their border will move across because they have the same diversity there. They have Kurdish people, they have Assyrian people, and they have some Arab people, as well as others in Turkey, so they’re afraid of this democratic system that we’ve built very successfully, and they want to destroy it. So they say “it is a Kurdish administration,” which it’s not, as in each of our committees we have a co-presidency system. For example, a Kurdish woman works alongside an Arab man, so we always have diversity in the committees. If you go to Rojava (Western Kurdistan), and you visit any one of these committees, you will find Arab people, Kurdish people, Assyrian people, and you will find women there because without women, no committee would work.
But what happened after ISIS? These victories happened with the help of the United States of course, but it was on the military side only. We never saw any political support for our system. This is what we need now. They say “we are for fighting against terrorism, and now terrorism has finished,” but there are still challenges there. Sleeper cells are launching suicide attacks, and we have people starting fires in wheat fields. Economic terrorism has started; we finished their military, so they’re starting to fight us economically. How? By burning all our wheat in the area. Now we have more than 4,000 hectares being burned in our area. Some have said “it’s the Kurdish starting the fires.” Kurds burning our land? That doesn’t make any sense. We are fighting the fires. We’ve paid for it; 10 people, 10 heroes lost their lives fighting the fires. It is very difficult because we don’t have any modern equipment to extinguish the fires, only old methods. But still, we are resisting because we know this is happening because they want to fight our administration, they want to stop this model, which we would like to be a model for all over Syria, not only for the northeast.
It can be implemented. Why don’t we have gender equality all over Syria? Why don’t we have a decentralized system all over Syria? Why don’t we have freedom of religion all over Syria? It is a good system to adopt, but like I said, we still have a lot of challenges. People don’t want this system to succeed, so they fight it. They send people who want to cause problems in the area that have a tribal, nationalistic mentality. They’re working with Turkey, and they are creating a lot of problems in areas that were liberated from ISIS, saying it is a Kurdish occupation of Arab land. Can you imagine? Deir ez-Zur is an Arab city, but who fought there? Who liberated it? It was the SDF with Kurds and Arabs and Assyrians. And after liberating it and paying high prices for it –the souls of our sons and daughters and all of these fighters– then they say it is an occupation. We never thought of it like that. We thought that we had to liberate all of these areas from the terrorists and the local people, actually, are the ones forming their councils. So they founded their local council, the Deir ez-Zur Council. They are administering their city. And it has happened in Raqqa and elsewhere. Still, these councils need power, so we need to empower these local councils in order to be qualified to administer their cities and areas. This is what we need. After liberating the area, we have the councils: a military council and a civilian council in each city. The military councils are responsible for protecting their zones, as we still have ISIS sleeper cells. This is what is going on. Many people are working to destroy this administration. Turkey, and forces related to the [Assad] regime. People with the Ba’athist mentality, you know.
Why is it important for the U.S. to support the AANES?
If [U.S. forces] left, Assad said he would come and take the area. Russia said it, Iran said it, everybody was ready to replace U.S. forces if they left the region. For that, we ask U.S. troops to stay until Syria is stable, until we come to a political solution. But we haven’t come to that solution.
So, look at the Geneva peace talks – how many have been held now? But we are, as the Syrian Democratic Council, excluded from the talks. Do you know why? Because of the Turkish veto. Turkey doesn’t want us to participate, so we weren’t included. Now, they are talking about the constitution committee in Syria, which would be made up of representatives from the regime and opposition, so they can sit together and talk about the new constitution of Syria. Imagine. We make up more than a third of the territory in Syria, and we are not even included in this committee. They want to write a new constitution for Syria, and a third of the Syrian people, roughly 4.5 million people, are not included. Nobody represents us in this constitution committee. We need to be included in the constitution committee and Geneva peace talks.
Let all Syrian people sit and talk. Let us have a dialogue. Let’s fight at the table, not on the battlefield. We want to finish the bloodshed, nine years is enough. Let us fight at the table one more year. Let us reach an agreement as Syrian people. Maybe they have a vision for a new Syria. Let us discuss it together. We will find some common ground. This is what we need.
Unfortunately, the opposition groups in Istanbul do not want to have meetings with us, the Syrian Democratic Council or the administration (Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria). They are always attacking us. One of them is the head of the negotiation committee, Nasr Hariri. He accused the PYD party of starting the fires in Arab areas. It is ridiculous. As a man who is in the committee of negotiation, you are making accusations that are untrue. If we go to burned areas, the largest place that is burned is in the Kurdish area. The Arab areas lost a couple hundred hectares in Raqqa, Tabqa, and Manbij, but the Kurdish areas lost over 4,000 hectares. That accusation doesn’t make any sense. This is how it has been since the beginning: accusing us of being a Kurdish administration, accusing us of being not democratic, of controlling Arab land. Come on – we are working together, the locals control their own cities.
So, I think that in order to have stability all over Syria, we need to be involved in negotiations, and we need the U.S. to recognize our system, this democratic system in the northeast of Syria. We need them to empower it. We do not claim to be perfect. We make mistakes, of course. But it is not deliberate. This administration came about during a war, so there are people that are not well-qualified, not well-trained in this administration, so mistakes happen. I ask many representatives from Europe, ‘please come give government training courses to our administration,’ but nobody listens to us. So, I ask the U.S. to empower this administration. You can help us.
During her remarks, Dr. Ozum Yesiltas shed the light on the U.S. foreign policy toward the Kurds.
The U.S. foreign policy toward the Kurds
What I’m broadly looking at is the U.S.’ relations with the Kurds in the region. The main premise is that there is a need for a coherent U.S. Kurdish policy.
First I want to briefly explain how I justify my main premise, which is why the lack of a coherent U.S.-Kurdish policy is problematic, especially in the context of the evolving political dynamics that we see in the region where the Kurd live.
Who are the Kurds and why it matters?
The main point of departure of my project was Kurds are an important transnational ethnic group. They are living as sizable minorities in four key states that are important to the stability in the region. And especially I think the Syrian conflict made it acutely clear that Kurds illustrate an effective non state actor, they are increasingly becoming an important transborder player, and as such they’re increasingly becoming attractive partners even for global players, including Russia and the United States. We should add to that the geographic reality of two autonomous regions now in Iraq and Syria with a third in Turkey, which seeks greater self determination, which I think requires a more nuanced approach in the U.S. foreign policy towards the Kurdish question in the region besides this ad hoc, largely tactical and predominantly military cooperation that we observed so far. As a nonstate actor, Kurds are acting on the basis of limited resources.
But I think they are a key aspect of a lot of discussions happening within their respective political contexts. They are key actors on the discussions on democratization, governance, citizenship in Turkey. We see that especially around every election cycle in Turkey, including the one coming up on Sunday regarding Istanbul local elections. They are an important foreign policy item in Turkey’s policy towards Syria. They are key actors to the stability of Iraq’s power sharing system. They are key actors to any political settlement in Syria. They are key regime challengers in the context of Iran and Iranian Kurds have been relatively less visible, but they’re very closely observing what’s going on in other parts of Kurdistan. So in a way, actually as an effective non-state actor, they have been part of solutions as well as problems within their respective political contexts, which is what my argument is, if we’re going to talk about a coherent U.S. Syria policy, a coherent U.S. Turkey policy, a coherent U.S. Iraq policy.
The U.S. goals and leverage in Syria
I think Kurds must be factored more systematically into the United States’ political calculus in these countries. I want to go a little bit more in detail explaining why this systematic consideration is necessary, especially in the Syrian context. I think the fundamental issue to unfold this discussion is first to have a clear understanding about why the United States is in Syria. I think both Trump and Obama administrations struggled a great deal in clarifying what the ultimate goal of the United States in Syria. Based on the public statements and based on some of the interviews I did in the State Department, I think it came down to three key goals, defeating ISIS, not just physically, but creating circumstances so that ISIS or groups like them are not going to return, pushing Iran out of Syria and making sure that there will be a political settlement somehow favorable to the U.S. interests in the region.
Now I think the only realistic goal among these three is defeating ISIS. As far as pushing Iran out is concerned, as far as striking a political settlement in favor of U.S. interests are concerned, I think these objectives are unrealistic because of this mismatch between the extent of U.S. presence in Syria and the kind of commitment –military and political commitment– that these missions require. So, in this picture, we can probably ask two important questions. The first one is, who has a realistic chance of taking on a political role in Syria? And based on the answer to this question, the second question is – where does the U.S. have the most leverage to affect outcomes in its favor based on the limited means it has on the ground?
I think as far as the influential actors are concerned, the majority of them are outside actors, Turkey, Iran, Russia, as well as the United States. As far as domestic actors are concerned, I think there are only two domestic actors who has a realistic chance of taking on a political role in Syria, the Assad regime and Rojava. Practically, we are looking at three zones of influence in Syria: the Russia-Iran-regime zone of influence, which is a great portion of Syria, including big cities like Aleppo and Damascus, Turkey and opposition zone of influence in the northwest and the United States-SDF zone of influence in the northeast. I think we are approaching the last phase of the conflict. We’re going to enter this phase after the Idlib operation is complete. After that, any negotiation about Syria’s future will have a Kurdish component.
I think by and large, this is the ground where we can speak of a viable U.S. leverage in Syria. The first issue in northeast Syria is that this area was once the heart of the Islamic caliphate. And this area is where ISIS is most likely to reemerge if the area gets destabilized. It’s nearly one third of Syria. It’s economically important with energy resources and agricultural wealth. It’s densely populated with diverse ethnic and religious groups, nearly 4 million people. What’s favorable is unlike the 2003 Iraqi invasion, this kind of campaigning that United States engaged in collaboration with the SDF actually enjoyed domestic and international support because it kept the United States away from expensive entanglements in the Middle East, which both Obama and Trump administrations made a priority.
If preventing the resurgence of ISIS, which I think is the most realistic goal, is a key goal, then I think ensuring the future security and stability of SDF-controlled areas has to be the key to the U.S.’ Syria policy. I’m not sure to what extent we can talk about a U.S.-Syria policy, but if this is a strategy in the making, security of the stability of this area would be imperative. Rojava right now is encircled by hostile forces, Turkey from the north, the Syrian regime and Iran from the south. This area is home to an ethnically and religiously diverse population, and they are peacefully coexisting right now, but it’s very prone to fracturing in the event that the area becomes destabilized, and more importantly, there are thousands of ISIS prisoners, more than a thousand foreign fighters. The fate of these fighters is still undetermined.
The U.S. support for the SDF is essential
Yes, the SDF is strong, but at the same time, this area is almost like a ticking bomb. It’s very fragile, which is why on the U.S.’ part, investing in the security of this area would be the U.S.’ best bet if there will be a viable counterterrorism strategy in the Syrian context. The stability of Rojava eventually would come down to some sort of a deal between the SDF and whoever will be in Damascus most likely the Assad regime. I don’t think, again, we can exaggerate U.S. influence within this process too much. The two major threats to Rojava are currently Assad’s commitment to regain territorial control of entire Syria and a possible Turkish incursion from the north. If either of these scenarios materialize, the consequences will be the deeply destabilizing, including massive civilian displacement, fractures in the SDF, all creating favorable conditions for isis to fill the vacuum.
Russia’s role in the region
I think the actor to unlock this puzzle eventually is going to be Russia. Russia is the one having more influence on the Assad government. Russia has been coordinating activities with Turkey way closer than the way Turkey and the United States have been working together or are not able to work together. But we have to also recognize that one of Russia’s primary goals in the Syrian context is to reduce the U.S. influence in the region and possibly push the U.S. forces out. So the United States’ limited military presence in the northeast could still become an important bargaining chip in a possible U.S. Russia diplomacy in order to strike an acceptable arrangement to secure SDF and possibly reasonably satisfy Turkey at the same time. How likely the scenario is, I’m not sure, but I think time is on Rojava’s side because right now the situation is dragging because of the battle in Idlib.
Iran’s role in Syria and support to non-state actors
As time goes by, the political entity in Rojava becomes more a reality, which I think is going to improve their bargaining position in the future. The other strategic issue for the U.S. is pushing Iran out or containment of Iran. This is important, especially in the context of Israel’s security in the region. And I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about this ‘land bridge’ that Iranians were building from Baghdad through Syria to Lebanon to more comfortably supply its proxies. I’m a little puzzled why we’ve been talking about Iranian influence or expansionism in Syria as if it’s something new. This has been going on for a very long time and repeating my previous point, I don’t think the U.S.’ military presence in Syria is a match for this mission at the moment. So, on the Iran issue and on the broader question of how a more favorable Syria can be created according to U.S. interests, I’m trying to develop a different angle.
For developing this angle, in D.C. I’ve been called naive, I’ve been called a wishful thinker. I guess in the policy world, it’s not very common to ask normative questions. Broadly, the argument is Rojava’s strategic importance for the U.S. in terms of creating a more favorable Syria lies with this inclusive, representative, and bottom-up model that Rojava has been building in the northeast. The alliance with the U.S. was by and large military, but the political entity that emerged in Rojava was essentially a product of this military cooperation. So, I think it could be a major counter to the kind of political, military and institutional networks that Russia and Iran are trying to build in Syria. To understand this argument, we have to look at the Iranian foreign policy.
Iran mainly capitalizes on conflict and state weakness and seeks empowerment through proxies in these contexts. Russia and Iran have been heavily focusing on proxies to establish a political vision in Syria. I think this is the main difference between how much U.S. leverage we see in Syria versus how much Russians and Iranians have leverage because their investments are not just military, their investments are political. They have these armed proxies, but they’re not only arming these groups, they are transforming these groups into social cultural actors. They are transforming these groups into political actors. What does Iran want? Iran wants sect-based institutions, Iran wants polarizing politics. Iran wants polarizing values. Iran wants week national identity. These are all the recipe to a weak state. That’s what Iran wants in Syria. To further its influence and to further penetrate and to become further entrenched.
Why the U.S. should not take political significance of Rojava out of the equation?
What Rojava does is completely antithetical to this model. Empowering through proxies is a norm for regional powers like Iran. The United States as a superpower can comfortably turn to conventional war rather than a proxy war. But if there won’t be a full scale military engagement to contain Iran, I think the United States needs to realize that truly countering Iran is going to require long-term strategy where the United States will need to match the kind of dedication and resources that Iran invests in the context of Syria. From that perspective, providing political support to Rojava could be a crucial preliminary step within this long-term approach. We have to remember that Obama administration wrestled a lot to find the correct anti-Assad partner in Syria, to find the correct ideological partner in Syria without any links to jihadist groups. Compared to its rivals in the region, the United States has been underperforming in terms of politically engaging its proxies. United States has been under performing in terms of understanding the long term political significance of these actors, which is why I think it will be a missed opportunity if the United States takes the political significance of Rojava out of the equation.