Hussein Jamo
Among the analytical trends of superpower policies, the Russian path in the world remain the most ambiguous. However, it is easier to deal with, as that ambiguity does not mean they will stop dealing with the matter, but rather it will be addressed superficially and simplistically, to the point of creating scenarios with the impression that they are about to be realized. It is not clear if this is due to Russia's deliberate tendency to leave a margin for each side to believe that at some point Russia may be its only refuge.
In this way, all local parties involved in the Syrian conflict have a reserve of hope that Russia is doing something that will ultimately be a blow to this local player's opponent.
As such, propaganda agencies in Russia do not resist foreign rumors that contribute to further media confusion. For example, to this day there are those who believe that the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) was a proxy of the Soviet state, and that this common heritage facilitates any understanding between Russia and the SDF in northeastern Syria.
Also, there is a completely opposite view, which is widespread among the pro-Turkish Syrian opposition, that is that Russia is a superpower whose priority is to strike U.S. influence in Syria, because breaking the Kurds is the center of their concerns, and because without that, it would not be possible to remove America from Syria.
Recently, the proposals of this opposition have relied on Russia to remove Iran from Syria.
On the other hand, there are visions shared by the regime and its supporters, namely that the Russian state deals exclusively with the Syrian state, that there is no legitimacy other than the legitimacy of the Syrian state, and that Russia is fully committed to this legitimacy.
There are visions of Turkey's followers, represented by small Kurdish groups, who share this with their opposition peers. They believe that Russia has a long-standing "genius" scheme to drive Iran and Hezbollah out of Syria. In addition, they think that the Turkish occupation in Syria is in Russia’s interest in order to balance Iranian influence, and other hearsay, much of which is obvious nonsense.
The Autonomous Administration and the SDF do not deviate from the previous framework in dealing with the margins of Russian presence in the eastern Euphrates and the rest of Syria. It would be wrong to consider the Kurdish dialogue as sponsored by foreign officials from the United States and France and that Russia is absent from its agendas, objectives, and expected outcomes.
The SDF and the Kurdish National Council (ENKS) have their own visions of the ongoing dialogue. However, what about the parties sponsoring the dialogue? Are their goals identical to the local parties involved?
What is known to the decision makers in the local parties mentioned is that international competition in Syria and the eastern Euphrates is a lower circle within the higher circles of conflict worldwide. Therefore, there are no priorities that cannot be compromised for countries involved in the conflict, and this was evident during Trump's deception which paved the way for Turkish forces and their affiliated extremist groups to invade Tel Abyad and Serekaniye (Ras al-Ain) and displace hundreds of thousands of people. Prior to this shock, Russia had done something similar in Afrin when it withdrew its points in front of the Turkish forces and their affiliated opposition groups, which Moscow is directly fighting on the ground.
In both cases, the Kurds were blamed, a claim that is not entirely wrong in the end, but hides part of an agreed vision between Moscow and Washington regarding the SDF and the current administration east of the Euphrates. Both of them want to divide the essence of the existing political theory. This demand was at the heart of the discussions that preceded the discussions of James Jeffrey, the Special Envoy for Syria, and opened the way for the Turkish invasion in such a way that America was confused for weeks.
James Jeffrey, described by Russian scholar Vitaly Namkin as the “U.S. Special Envoy for war against Russia," agrees with Russia at the heart of the policy east of the Euphrates, namely that the region is divided not between the Russian and U.S. influences, but above all returning the region to old human units, tribes, nationalities, and sects separated from each other, not to come together under any roof independently, all under the title of the so-called "disengagement" between the Autonomous Administration and the PKK, i.e. ending the existing partnership between the Administration and the SDF, which despite the few observations and criticisms on it, is an unprecedented situation in the history of the Eastern Euphrates region since its final annexation to the Syrian state in 1930.
The Russian Foreign Ministry, which is not so different from the U.S. State Department, is pushing the Kurds to redefine themselves and present themselves as a Kurdish component that has nothing to do with anything but Kurds, and to end the existing participation manifestations among representatives of all components of the region. Accordingly, Kurds speak on behalf of Kurds, Arabs speak on behalf of Arabs, and sporadically each tribe represents itself.
This dismantling represents an international vision against another vision that wanted to group in the beginning of the crisis, but today the dominant current has tended to divide what has been composed, and this paves the way for these local parties to be placed under possible regional mandates.
If there is someone who will demand evidence or a document, that is not available, but it is possible to monitor where things are going, and from this perspective the current American-French marketing, Turkish silence, and Russian monitoring from afar can be absorbed in order to make a political path that works on bringing the two Kurdish parties (the Autonomous Administration and ENKS) closer. However, views on the outcome of this dialogue are mixed, and sometimes contradictory. There are international parties encouraging negotiations, pushing to break up the existing form of partnership in the eastern Euphrates and building a new one.
According to U.S., Russian, and European references, this new form does not exclude the disengagement of multi-ethnic and multi-religious participation in the Jazira region, which is embodied in two institutions, the Autonomous Administration and the SDF, which is met with a strong rejection by the Administration and the SDF.
However, the risk is not in rejecting the implications of the possible Russian-U.S. divide of the Autonomous Administration per se, but in the consequences of rejecting it.
In the previous attempt at a dialogue between the Autonomous Administration and representatives of the government in Damascus, this demand was repeated by Russian delegates working on the Syrian territory and by government officials: "You have nothing to do with anyone other than the Kurds, negotiate in the name of the Kurds and your gains will be greater."
This opinion may not be correct, meaning that the Kurdish-Kurdish dialogue rounds are an isolated matter from the administrative and military reality, and everything will remain as it is, and any negotiation between Damascus and the eastern Euphrates will be a representation for the whole region, and not only for one component.
This may be so, but both Russian and American visions aim at reducing the size of the representative negotiator for the eastern Euphrates. One of them wants to reduce the power east of the Euphrates to achieve something for Turkey, and another wants the same thing in favor of Damascus.
This reduction risks discussing the dismantling of the Autonomous Administration politically, and the purification of the Kurdish component among others to represent himself. This is what a group of Kurdish nationalists does not stop at, because this group is still captive to childish passions, filled with tears when it hears a song or sees the flag. It loves the word "Kurdish" and wants to see it in everything, and it cannot stand to be united in an administration that represents everyone, so this group with a narrow horizon will consider that it is in its own interest to force Kurds to represent themselves, and force Arab clans to represent themselves, tearing up the political participation.
In fact, the result of this path will be to extract the geography from everyone, and put everyone under the tutelage of the central force, or perhaps two central powers now, which are Damascus and its allies on the one side and Ankara on the other. Everyone will represent himself as a people, tribe, or religion, but without land and a center to build on, everyone will fall.