Washington DC – North-Press Agency
Nicholas A. Heras
There are many tragedies that have happened, and will likely to follow since Turkey's unprovoked invasion of northeast Syria began last October. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, hundreds of civilians have been killed, and it looks quite likely that Turkey will not stop until it has destroyed the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, that were charged by the U.S.-led Global Coalition to build stability in the wake of the Islamic State group (ISIS). And, to add to this roster of horror unleashed by Turkey, the collapse of the SDF and the autonomous administration would be the gravest defeat for the Syrian opposition movement to date in Syria's devastating conflict.
A underappreciated fact is that the SDF and the Autonomous Administration are the evolution of the decades-old opposition movement in northeast Syria that has sought to transcend political, ethnic, and sectarian identity toward the goal of building a better Syria without the brutal system of repression that developed under the Assad regime and the Arab Baath Deep State that undergirds its power. Though little noted, and frankly little understood in Washington D.C., the social and political structure of the Autonomous Administration is the most representative and inclusive actor in the Syrian conflict.
The SDF and the Autonomous Administration are difficult for Washington to wrap its head around. Before the war against ISIS began, the dynamics of the Syrian conflict in the eastern region of the country, let alone the nuances of the revolutionary movement that developed there, were not closely followed by analysts in the U.S. capital. With so much attention and concern given to the opposition movement in western Syria, which is a majority Sunni and Arab, the complexities of the communal map in northeast Syria were difficult for many observers in Washington to follow. Ultimately, the trope in Washington became that while it fought ISIS well, the SDF and the Autonomous Administration were a de facto one-party state that force-fed an extremist brand of Kurdish rule over an unwanting and mainly Arab population. However, the reality of the matter was far different, and far better, than many in Washington were willing to admit.
As it fought the war against ISIS in Syria, the United States became especially concerned with building stability after ISIS. The U.S. demanded that the SDF not only beat ISIS on the battlefield, it also made it a mandate that the SDF provide security, governance, and administration for former ISIS-held areas after the fighting stopped. In essence, the U.S. was asking a coalition of militias that it had been nurturing to fight ISIS to make that transition into a governance structure that could ensure the local population would not think wishfully for ISIS to return, or to turn to Assad and undermine the U.S.-led effort to oust Syria's once and likely future leader.
What is most underappreciated about the task placed on the SDF by the United States is that it came with the burden of expectation to be better, more inclusive, and more effective than any other non-state actor in the Syrian conflict. Northeast Syria is a mosaic of ethnic and sectarian communities that have historically been at tension with each other, especially the Kurds and Arabs. By turning to People's Protection Units (YPG) to fight ISIS in northeast Syria, the U.S. made a conscious decision to ask a Kurdish-led force to achieve what no other actor in the Syrian conflict had achieved, which is to build an effective, sustainable, and in the aftermath of ISIS, enduring force that bridged the gaps between the Arabs and other communities that ISIS had filled and used to build its Caliphate.
Put bluntly, the effort to build stability after ISIS in northeast Syria would have been impossible without Abdullah Ocalan's "Democratic Confederalism" model. Mr. Ocalan has created this model, which emphasized a network of local governance councils engaged collectively, as a response to the explosion of ethnic violence between Arabs and Kurds that occurred in the early 2000s. The objective of democratic confederalism is to create harmony among diverse identity communities that live amongst each other, with northeast Syria specifically intended to be the place where the model would be applied. When the U.S. turned to the SDF to provide northeast Syria with governance after ISIS, it meant that the Americans were giving a vote of confidence in Ocalan's model to be implemented as the means to hold back the return of the extremist group of ISIS.
Of course, like any governance structure, there are problems with the Autonomous Administration, most glaringly that it is still transitioning from being led by a particular vanguard (the PYD/TEV-DEM) into a broader-based social and political structure. However, what was rarely mentioned in Washington was that in comparison to all the other opposition-held areas of Syria that received American support, the Autonomous Administration includes more women, gives a real governing role to more ethnic and sectarian groups, and incorporates more political factions, and governs by far the most communally-diverse, opposition-held region of Syria. Nowhere else in Syria that received U.S. support-not Idlib, not Homs, not Aleppo, not Dara'a, not Daraya or Ghouta-has the opposition shown its capacity to be inclusive, and its capability to bridge gaps among diverse and at times hostile communities, than the Autonomous Administration.
* Nicholas A. Heras is a Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), working in the Middle East Security Program. His work focuses on the analysis of complex conflicts and security issues in the greater Middle East and North Africa.