Samuel Johnson called second marriages “the triumph of hope over experience.” So is the Kurds’ agreement yesterday to end their control over much of northern Syria, relinquishing the safe haven to the al Qaeda-tied Sharia-supremacists who seized Damascus last year.
Unfortunately, the announcement comes as jihadis who helped achieve that feat have been murdering large numbers of other Syrian minorities, including Shiite Alawites and Christians. If that precedent were not chilling enough, confidence in the new regime’s promises to respect Kurdish rights is further undermined by the abiding determination of its sponsor, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to crush the Kurds.
The U.S. has maintained a small force of special operators in the Kurds’s region to discourage Turkish attacks and counter ISIS. Presumably, they’ll now be withdrawn, increasing the chances that our Kurdish allies will be the next victims of jihadist genocide.
This is Frank Gaffney.
They already have been and Turkey contracted the psychopaths to perpetrate the massacre. With the Biden admin’s blessing. And nobody is naming Turkey/Erdogan. Our “ ally”. A monster.
The Kurds have a long history of being mistreated. They seem very strong in their resolve, but have been put upon by Iraqis, Syrians, and Turks over recent time (more throughout history). Like Ukraine, they count way too much on the United States to be their savior. That may be coming to an end for almost all wayward souls in the world. "What is in it for us" seems to be the new motto of the United States as opposed to the hypocritical "we want you to have democracy, no matter what we have to pay you" spewed by the imperialist oligarchs in the US over the last 60 years. So many of these weak, big-talking factions, many of them with a good case, must find ways to position themselves to the best advantage for their people. Maybe that is submitting to a dictator. After all, the meek will inherit the earth. However, there is not a good track record in the world for people picking benevolent leaders. Such leaders may not even exist. More than any time in recent history, people of the world need to take their own future into their own hands. I do not think they are ready and the picture will not be pretty in the short run, not just in Kurdistan, but throughout the world.