Kurds in Syria: Playing a better politcal game than the Kurds in Iraq, but still going to get screwed?

Of interest, even though ISIS was pushed out of Mosul and Raqqa, there is still some fighting happening on the eastside of Syria. The area is known as the Deir al-Zor province, near the Syrian/Iraqi border. This is leading to some interesting dynamics between Iran, Turkey, Russia, Syria and the United States with the Kurds in the middle.



A Reuters article provides a nice brief set-up of what is happening in the province along the Euphrates river. There are two forces arrayed against ISIS. First, we have US backed forces called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SPF). The Kurds (YPG) make up the main driving force of the SPF. They are attacking ISIS from the east. On the west, you have the Syrian military backed by Iranian-militia and the Russians.

(Now maybe replace Syrian military with Iraqi military and take out the Russians and doesn't this sound a lot like Iraq and Mosul?)

A  quote seems to imply that Iran, Kurds, Russia, Syria, and the United States are all coordinating efforts:  A YPG [Kurds] spokesman declared the victory in a village in Deir al-Zor in the presence of a Russian envoy from Moscow’s Hmeimim military base in Syria, it said.

That quote is very interesting as President Trump authorized missile strikes against Syria in April.

The article goes on to say that since the start of the Syrian conflict, 2011, the Kurds have created a separate region for themselves that equals about a quarter of Syria.

In fact, based on another Reuters article, the Kurds recently held a regional vote.

The article has a couple other interesting points that deal with Turkey.

First: But their influence has infuriated Ankara, which considers the Kurdish YPG militia to be an offshoot of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has run a decades-long insurgency in Turkey.

Second: the U.N. is holding peace talks in Geneva, but the Kurds are being left out of them. This satisfies Turkey, but not the Kurds who argue that

the Kurdish-led administration would not be bound by decisions taken in its absence.

Turkey's protests about the YPG, probably convinced Trump to agree to stop arming the Kurds as this current battle front appears to be ending. Per The LA Times, the US initially started to arm the Kurds in Syria, ignoring Turkey's protests by

. . . arguing that the battle-hardened Kurds were the most effective fighting force available.

One of the criticisms I've heard about Trump is that he often will agree with the most recent person he's had discussions with. So this agreement to stop arming the Kurds came as a surprise to the rest of the US government:

Trump's decision appeared to catch both the Pentagon and the U.S. State Department off guard.

Based on various articles, there appears to be a modification to this where we will continue to arm the YPG until ISIS is defeated in the Deir al-Zor province. There is concern that after ISIS is defeated, that the YPG will provided the PKK with some of these military weapons, causing issues within Turkey.

There's an interesting article from the Al Monitor that shows the dynamics between Turkey, the Kurds and Russia:

While the Turks were busy debating whether Russia would greenlight a Turkish military move on YPG-controlled Afrin for the sake of Turkey's collaboration in the Russian-led Astana process, a new Kurdish-Russian partnership took shape in Deir ez-Zor. 

Afrin is near the border of Turkey.

Random thoughts:

1. It looks like the Kurds in Syria are playing it safer than the Kurds in Iraq in regards to independence.

2. The Kurds seem to have some distrust of the United States, which is why they're working with Russia. They probably realize that the United States needs to make this work with their NATO ally, Turkey. So to make sure that they have at least some support from the two major powers, they're dealing with both the US and Russia.

3. With all the rhetoric coming from Washington DC about Russia, it seems that on the ground in Syria we're working together to defeat ISIS. I might need to look into how Senator John McCain feels about this coordination.

4. This goes beyond just working with Russia. We're coordinating efforts with Syria and by default the Iranian-backed militia to defeat ISIS. And at the same time the Trump administration is questioning the nuclear agreement with Iran.

5. Saudi Arabia must be looking carefully at how much power the Iranian-militia has in Syria.

6. The quote from Al Monitor points to some interesting dynamics between Russia and Turkey.

7. I can't help but think that both the US and Russia are using the Kurds to defeat ISIS. As soon as ISIS is defeated, they'll both withdraw their support and go back to supporting Turkey and Syria, respectively. Russia will let the Kurds know that they expect the them to fall in line with the Syrian government in terms of what is politically allowed on independence -- no independence. If this happens, the US will put up a mild protest, but will essentially fall in line with Turkey's desire not to see the Kurds have any degree of independence. To me, this is already happening by the fact that the Kurds are being left out of the Geneva peace talks.