What does the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria mean for the region and how could the takeover of Damascus by Turkey-backed Islamist extremists reshape the Middle East?
After Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani described Syria’s Kurds as “part of the homeland and partners in the future of Syria,” Masoud Barzani, president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), welcomed Jawlani’s remarks. The irony here for Kurds is that Barzani never recognized Rojava, the region’s self-governing entity, and shut the Semalka border crossing between Iraqi Kurdistan and Rojava to comply with Turkish demands. Barzani’s participation in the anti-Kurdish blockade came even after the Kurdish Parliament issued a decree to recognize and support Rojava. Under the Barzanis’ leadership, Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government has refused any official dealings with Rojava, though the Barzanis do not hesitate to resell and profit off Rojava’s oil.
Both state and non-state actors seek to shape the new Syria and the broader Middle East.
Barzani’s statement is both astute and cynical, as he aligns himself with Turkey’s agenda and seeks a leading role in the future of Syria. He hopes the Kurdistan National Council (ENKS) under his influence can serve as an alternative representative of Kurds in Syria, rather than the existing Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, a group that has rejected Barzani’s tribal-based administration. The ENKS lacks popular support in Syria, but Barzani calculates the cure to that is to eliminate its competition, rather than reform the group to reflect local Kurdish sentiments and demands.
The intra-Kurdish maneuvering highlights a broader dynamic in which both state and non-state actors seek to shape the new Syria and the broader Middle East.
Turkey and Qatar coordinate a more extremist, Muslim Brotherhood-oriented Sunni camp in which the KDP and its affiliates like ENKS seek to align themselves. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia lead a more moderate Sunni camp to which Rojava generally turns and with which Israel separately partners. Iran and Iraq, meanwhile, lead the Shi’ite camp.
Prior to the territorial defeat of the Islamic State, the Turkey and Qatar-led camp sought to see the would-be caliphate take control of swaths of land in Syria and Iraq; however, after the Islamic State’s defeat, this Sunni extremist camp has backed other radical Islamists and supported figures like Jawlani, whom they now seek to legitimize absent firm commitment to a democratic, inclusive project for Syria’s future.
Intra-Kurdish politics can lead some well-meaning American officials who wish to support the Kurds to actually betray their aspirations.
While Jawlani may speak of the Kurds as partners in Syria’s future, he and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan craft the fine print: The Kurds can be partners only if they abandon the secular and democratic worldview they embrace and that imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan promotes. Barzani prefers to betray his Syrian counterparts, rather than face competition to his increasingly unpopular tribal and conservative order. Jawlani, meanwhile, may acquiesce to Turkey’s demands to kneecap Kurdish self-governance for the sake of maintaining a centralized state.
Syrians should be wary. The trio of Turkish leaders—Erdoğan, former intelligence chief turned Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, and current Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin—sees themselves as godfathers of the new Syria. Undermining the Kurds may be at the top of their agenda, but their willingness to drag Syria into regional conflict with the moderate Sunni or Shi’ite blocks poses a threat to all Syrians.
Intra-Kurdish politics, meanwhile, can lead some well-meaning American officials who wish to support the Kurds to actually betray their aspirations by choosing a cynical Barzani over local Syrians who want nothing to do with his nepotistic order. Regardless, if Jawlani dominates Syria along the lines the Turkish state has drawn, the new Syria will never be at ease with its citizens or neighbors.
