This past week, Syria experienced some of the fiercest fighting since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s Baathist regime in December 2024. After a series of intense clashes, the new Syrian government, led Ahmed al-Sharaa, managed to defeat the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and drive them out of much of the territory they controlled. This marks a dramatic shift in the fortunes for the Kurdish-dominated militia, which had long been Washington’s main ally in the fight against the Islamic State.
But if the SDF is defeated and its relationship with Washington broken, the impact of this political chapter will live on in Kurdish politics across the region. The military and political successes the SDF achieved under Mazloum Abdi have boosted Kurdish pride and confidence, while Washington’s behavior has fueled a powerful sense of betrayal. Meanwhile, for both the Turkish and Syrian governments, this victory will prove empty if they do not take further steps to address Kurdish political aspirations.
This past week, Syria experienced some of the fiercest fighting since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s Baathist regime in December 2024. After a series of intense clashes, the new Syrian government, led Ahmed al-Sharaa, managed to defeat the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and drive them out of much of the territory they controlled. This marks a dramatic shift in the fortunes for the Kurdish-dominated militia, which had long been Washington’s main ally in the fight against the Islamic State.
But if the SDF is defeated and its relationship with Washington broken, the impact of this political chapter will live on in Kurdish politics across the region. The military and political successes the SDF achieved under Mazloum Abdi have boosted Kurdish pride and confidence, while Washington’s behavior has fueled a powerful sense of betrayal. Meanwhile, for both the Turkish and Syrian governments, this victory will prove empty if they do not take further steps to address Kurdish political aspirations.
It all began in 2014, when the Islamic State advanced across northern Iraq and Syria, defeating Syrian, Iraqi, and Iraqi Kurdish forces. When Turkey declined U.S. President Barack Obama’s request for assistance in defending the besieged Syrian city of Kobani, Obama turned to a relatively small militia of mostly Kurdish fighters, who would later form the SDF. These fighters responded swiftly and not only disrupted the Islamic State campaign but also, during the conflict, captured thousands of Islamic State members and their families. This effort, however, was very costly, as the U.S.-backed fighters suffered numerous casualties, both men and women.
The playing field changed, however, when Damascus fell to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in December 2024. Within a year, Sharaa, HTS’s leader and now Syria’s president, gained international recognition, met with world leaders, visited the White House, and secured the removal of most international sanctions on Syria. Turkey, which had strained relations with the Assad government, has become Sharaa’s main supporter and has lobbied vigorously with Western and Arab governments on behalf of the new Syrian regime.
Ankara, for its part, was alarmed about the risk of U.S.-enabled Kurdish autonomy in Syria—a scenario it views as both plausible and dangerous. U.S. support was crucial in establishing Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government, and Turkish leaders understand a second autonomous Kurdish region would validate Kurdish demands for some form of self-governance within Turkey. For Ankara, the SDF is nothing more than a terrorist organization. The Syrian characteristics and operational focus of the SDF do not change its origins in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Turkish-Kurdish insurgent group that Turkey has fought against for decades and considers a terrorist organization.
Against this backdrop, the Assad regime’s weakness increased the SDF’s leverage in Syria and its value to the Americans. Conversely, it allowed the Turks, who have long aimed to completely dismantle the SDF, to operate more freely in the country. To that end, Ankara created and funded the Syrian National Army, a military force mostly made up of Arabs, and intervened militarily in Syria three times to push the SDF away from the Turkish border. Today, Ankara controls significant territory in Syria. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other officials have consistently supported Sharaa’s wish to integrate the SDF’s forces into the Syrian military and have also threatened to intervene themselves to resolve the issue. As a result, Ankara is ecstatic over the success of the Syrian government forces over the past week.
The SDF’s most profound impact on Kurdish awareness may have been showing that self-governance was possible. Rojava—as Kurds call their Syrian territories—combined military strength with civilian administration, offering a potential model for a federal region within Syria similar to Iraq’s Kurdistan Region. Despite issues with governance, this concrete example of Kurdish autonomy gained legendary status among Kurds everywhere. However, while final negotiations have not yet been concluded, recent setbacks for the SDF and the demands the Syrian government seeks to impose suggest that the SDF’s hope for autonomy is unlikely to be realized.
For the United States, the partnership with the SDF was crucial due to the threat posed by the Islamic State. The choice to team up with a militia from a disgruntled ethnic minority was a convenient if unconventional choice for Washington, securing a reliable ally with a minimal commitment of boots on the ground. For the SDF, in turn, forging an alliance with the world’s most powerful nation brought three key benefits: legitimacy, some protection, and a better standing in negotiations with Damascus. Therefore, the second major disappointment for Kurdish ambitions was the psychological impact of feeling abandoned, or even betrayed, by the United States. While U.S. officials consistently worked to temper expectations, referring to the relationship as “temporary, transactional, and tactical,” Syrian Kurds and the SDF nonetheless came to rely on strong bipartisan support in Congress and the U.S. government. Equally significant was the solid relationship they developed with members of the U.S. military after years of fighting together.
However, Thomas Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and President Donald Trump’s Syria envoy, pulled the rug from under the SDF on Jan. 20, declaring on X that “the original purpose of the SDF as the primary anti-ISIS force on the ground has largely expired.” He went on to state that the Syrian government would assume responsibility for the remaining Islamic State prisoners, numbering as many as 9,000 insurgents and 30,000 family members.
Other parts of the U.S. government appear less convinced about Syria’s reliability as a counterterrorism partner. After reports emerged that some Islamic State prisoners had escaped, U.S. Central Command launched a major operation last week to move the remaining detained insurgents from Syria to more secure locations in Iraq.
The breakdown in Washington’s policy process, combined with Turkish lobbying, has been destabilizing. Trump’s sudden decision to lift Syria sanctions in May 2025 came immediately after conversations with Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It’s not the first. In October 2019, the day after a phone call with Erdogan, Trump announced that it was time for the Kurds “to figure the situation out” with their neighbors and with the Islamic State. He then decided to withdraw U.S. troops from the Syrian-Turkish border. Ultimately, the political backlash in Washington prevented him from completely ending U.S. involvement. In 2026, Erdogan again influenced Trump’s decision to sever ties with the SDF. In both cases, announcements were made with little regard for implementation, prisoner transfers, or other considerations.
As a result of these developments, Kurdish ambitions across the region have taken a major hit. Turkey can claim a strategic victory, as the SDF has suffered severely, but also because it has become the most influential power in Syria, boosting its own standing in the Middle East. Sharaa is close to achieving his goal of centralizing Syria under an Islamist and Arab-nationalist construct. The United States, by contrast, has damaged its reputation. It is not just Kurds who will perceive Washington as an unreliable actor, but just about every other player in the region will be wary of Washington’s promises.
The impact of these developments will also be felt in Turkey, where the government is pursuing a “peace process” with the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party. While progress remains limited, what makes this effort unique is Ankara’s agreement to include imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. The PKK, in turn, announced last May that it was officially ending its armed struggle. Yet, despite these moves, the process remains fragile mainly because there is no shared vision for an end state.
Developments in Syria will only exacerbate this divide. In a presidential decree issued just before the start of the battle with the SDF, Sharaa unilaterally acknowledged certain Kurdish rights in Syria. His decree recognized Kurdish as a “national” language, although not an official one, that can be used in public and private education in selected areas and declared that the Kurdish New Year, Newroz, would be a national holiday. Although issued through a revokable presidential decree without prior consultation, these are still recognitions of identity that no Kurd in Turkey has. Devlet Bahceli, the hard-line Turkish nationalist leader and Erdogan’s partner in government, fully supported Sharaa’s reforms without ever acknowledging that Turkish Kurds also desire them and more.
More immediately, Turkey is also vulnerable to increased violence in Syria. Although Syrian Kurds are on the losing side, they still expect some minimum concessions regarding governance in the majority Kurdish areas. Sharaa’s ongoing efforts to remove Kurds from key locations are very likely to lead to much greater violence. Currently, the symbolically important Kurdish town of Kobani, where in 2014 the alliance with the United States was formed, is beingbesieged by Syrian regime forces during a cease-fire. And once again, Turkish Kurds are watching as their government cheers on the Islamist forces attacking their ethnic counterparts across the border.
This is a bad sign for what’s to come. For decades, previous Turkish and Syrian governments have sought to subjugate their Kurdish populations by force, only to fuel a destabilizing cycle of violence. With Washington out of the way, Erdogan and Sharaa may be tempted to double down on this approach, but they are unlikely to prove more successful than their predecessors.
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