How Kurdish issue will be determining in post-Assad Syria – Firstpost
West Asia has been on the cusp of conflict since its decolonisation from the European forces. Religious orthodoxy, sectarianism, ethnic identity, and foreign intervention have determined its volatility. Stability is an oxymoron in the West Asian context. When Gaza seemingly settles down, Syria emerges as a new flashpoint of conflict location.
The Assad family-led Syrian authoritarianism from 1971 to 2024 came to a whimpering end recently under the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebels’ takeover of Aleppo, Hama, and Damascus. Turkey, Israel, and the US were reported to have engineered the move using the rebel forces on the ground. The threadbare Russian and Iranian approach facilitated the faster fall of Damascus. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had to flee to Russia, his trusted partner.
Given these developments, what awaits Syria is more important. The way ahead seems blurred. Syrian nationhood is not characterised by homogeneity. The divergence of interests constitutes the Syrian political reality. The Iranian and Russian ineffectiveness brought Israel and Turkey into prominence. Israel captured the buffer zone in the Golan Heights to protect its border in the wake of the rebels that seized Syria. The Golan strategic plateau, which is around 60 km away from the Syrian capital, Damascus, was occupied by Israel during the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. Tel Aviv annexed it in 1981. Israel has also planned to expand the settlements in the occupied Golan Heights.
The elevated points of the Golan have helped the IDF in the past to monitor the movement of Axis of Resistance forces purportedly led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Israeli defence forces perceive it as a shield/bulwark against any strike from the rebel forces from the Syrian border and avert any threat emanating from Iran-backed non-state actors. Tel Aviv will restrict anti-Israel animus to grow in Syria. It will not allow HTS to free its hands any time soon. It pre-empts the possible dangers in the future. Before HTS formed a patchwork government, Israel strengthened its position in the region, making territorial advances wherever possible.
Turkey has set its own geopolitical goals in the region. Ankara will try its best to engage the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), previously the Free Syrian Army (FSA), to fight against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led and US-backed ethnic rebel group of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), called Rojava. This makes the task of governance and political stability all the more difficult for HTS. The Kurdish interest seems to have been affected by the fall of Assad. Turkey is emboldened now. Its coercion is likely to intensify against the Kurds who live predominantly in northern Syria, especially in Afrin, Jazira, Qamishli, Hasakah, and Kobanê.
The US engaged the Kurds against the Islamic State (IS) during the Syrian Civil War, safeguarding their autonomy in Rojava. In the event of any Turkish intransigence or threat to American geopolitical interests in the region, the US may instigate the militant Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) of Syria and the Kurdish Worker Party (PKK) of Turkey, fuelling their demands for greater Kurdistan. It could be mentioned that Kurds were the fourth largest ethnic group in West Asia who were assured of statehood through the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. Much to their chagrin, the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), negotiated with a new Turkish government led by Ataturk, overlooked the provision of Kurdish statehood.
With a population of around 30 million, Kurds constitute one of the world’s ‘largest stateless nations’ spread over contiguous territories of southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, northern Iraq, and northwestern Iran. Hence, if a greater Kurdistan encompassing these adjoining borderlands intensifies, West Asia could have a new turbulent zone, creating a space for an ethnoreligious divide/conflict between the Sunni Turks, Sunni Arabs, and Sunni Kurds in the future.
Notably, the central oil reserves and agrarian land belong to the Rojava region, which the Kurds control. Northeastern Syria is fertile because of its abundant water and favourable limate. Abu Muhammad al-Julani, leader of HTS, needs money to reconstruct Syria. Mere rhetoric will not work. The Syrian economy is in shambles. The Syrian pound has depreciated by 141 per cent compared to the US dollar. More than 90 per cent of Syrians are reeling under a huge debt burden. More than half of the country’s population is either internally displaced or stays as refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Germany, etc. There is skyrocketing inflation, and the growth rate has fallen abysmally. The supply chain is highly disrupted. The supposed Sunni axis is not coherent enough to economically support Syria.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE may not support the Turkey-tutored HTS. The US under Donald Trump will be more protectionist. If HTS turns home for financial support, it has to shift its focus to its Kurd-majority northeastern region. If it collaborates with SNA to corner Kurds to use the economic resources in the northeastern region, it will conflagrate the sensitive Kurdistan issue. The US base in Syria aids the Kurdish interest. The US interest is mostly attached to the Kurdish interest. It will not allow Turkey to suppress the Kurds and stitch them forcefully with the HTS’ imagined unity of Syria to make use of the resources. These probabilities complicate HTS’ aspirations in Syria. The minorities, such as the Kurds, Druze, Yezidis, Alawites, Armenian Christians, Greek Orthodox Christians, Assyrians, Circassians, and Turkmen groups, may feel insecure if HTS becomes powerful with its Salafi-jihadist ideology and conviction. If the HTS tries to come closer to the Kurds for a united Syria, it will upset Erdoğan. The Druze minority living in the villages adjoining the Israel-controlled Golan Heights has reportedly expressed its willingness to integrate with Israel. Such overt expressions indicate the apprehensions of the Syrian future under HTS.
However, northeastern Syria secures significant attention in the efforts to settle the Syrian question of integration and government formation in the aftermath of Assad’s regime. The geopolitical gravitas essentially shifts to the Syrian northeast, where Turkey intends to exercise leverage by suppressing the Kurds and SDF. The limbo of uncertainty hangs over the Kurds in the region, and Turkey has the skin in the game. Rojava’s autonomy causes discomfort in Ankara. The political vacuum creates an occasion for Ankara to push its interests. It has already built a buffer zone along its border in northern Syria to keep the Kurds away from its border. Turkey-led Operation Euphrates Shield and Operation Peace in 2016 and 2019, respectively, also hurt the Kurds. The SNA reportedly carries out its assault on the Kurdish forces in Syria in the ongoing conflict. Erdoğan might push the Syrian refugees to the AANES to convolute Kurdish nationalism through demographic change. Both the antecedents and current Turkish antagonism against the Kurds in Syria and their autonomy in Rojava may intensify the Kurdish issue. The consequences will affect the supposed Syrian national unity.
Therefore, bringing the fractured Syria to a workable governing reality is complex. HTS’ history and ideological conviction will be a significant barrier to securing support from the stakeholders in Syria. HTS’ repressive posture may also augment the balkanisation of Syria. Syria’s political future seems uncertain. Syrians who celebrate the end of Assad’s authoritarian regime will soon be disillusioned. A stable Syria is a paradox. Contesting interests will make it again a fractured nation. Migration, economic crisis, civil unrest, and foreign interference will again undergird the Syrian reality. The euphoria of difference is going to be a short-lived one. The unending status quo is the only tragic assurance. Syrian geopolitics is complex. It is geographically sandwiched strategically, and securing autonomy is a chimaera. This is the hard reality that will remain tragically a non-negotiable problem for Syria.
Jajati K Pattnaik is an Associate Professor at the Centre for West Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Chandan K Panda is an Assistant Professor at Rajiv Gandhi University (A Central University), Itanagar. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
Post Comment