Eurasia Press & News
Kurdish autonomy is a problem that today’s Syria can’t afford.
On a recent trip that I took across Syria, one thing was palpably clear: Syrians were universally elated to be free from the iron grip of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. For now, that euphoria is inspiring and sustaining a semblance of hope and national unity that had all but vanished throughout the past 13 years of brutal civil conflict.
However, Syria’s transition rests on fragile foundations. It is managed at the top by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former jihadi group whose promising first months in charge still stand over a broken state, a destroyed economy, and profound security challenges.
Buoyed by the opportunity to reshape the heart of the Middle East, regional states—led by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar—have flooded the capital of Damascus and tabled dozens of aid, investment, trade, and other proposals. But U.S. and European sanctions originally introduced to target the former Assad regime remain in place, and as long as they remain, the economy has little hope of recovery.
Within this extraordinarily fragile dynamic lies an increasingly large elephant in the room: the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). As the United States’ longtime partner in the campaign against the Islamic State, the SDF has proven itself consistently loyal and capable. It was thanks to the SDF’s considerable efforts on the ground that the Islamic State was dealt its territorial defeat in 2019. In the years since, the SDF has remained squarely focused on containing and degrading what remains of the Islamic State while guarding and securing tens of thousands of the group’s fighters and associated women and children in prisons and camps in Syria’s northeast.
Despite their clear value to Washington and its coalition allies, one unmistakable conclusion that I drew from more than a week of meetings with Syrians from all corners of the country was that in today’s post-Assad Syria, the SDF is a problem that needs to “go away.”
Men and women from all of Syria’s ethnic and religious communities and all provinces of the country were unanimous that Syria must now unite. In their eyes, the SDF’s “autonomous administration” and its armed forces in northeast Syria must now dissolve and fully integrate into and under the Syrian state, while the sizable energy and agricultural resources under their purview should come under Damascus’s control. Until such steps are taken, the SDF is seen domestically in Syria as an “occupier” and a “threat.” The collective sense of animosity toward Washington’s SDF partners was incontrovertible.
Since December 2024, the SDF has been in talks with the interim government in Damascus over a potential deal that would see it subsumed into a united Syria. But no high-level in-person talks have occurred since more than 20 people were killed in the northern city of Manbij in a car bombing blamed on the SDF. Still, a deal was the preference of all Syrians whom I spoke to. None favored a military solution—though many predicted that it may end up being necessary.
Though unseen during my trip, I was told that U.S. military officers have been actively involved in facilitating these talks, attending high-level meetings in the Dumayr Airbase not far outside Damascus. U.S. Central Command also greenlighted the decision by the Syrian Free Army—its smaller Syrian partner force, based in the al-Tanf garrison along the Jordanian border—to dissolve its forces under interim government control.
A senior U.S. general has also met with interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, taking him aside at one point to praise his “remarkable” military campaign that unseated Assad and to bestow him with a medal, as I was told in detail by a Syrian who had been in the room.
The deal currently on the table for the SDF is not a bad one. In a profound change from Assad’s era, the interim government in Damascus has promised Syria’s Kurds equal rights and said that it planned to designate Kurdish as Syria’s second language. SDF and autonomous administration figures would also be guaranteed seats and membership in all of Syria’s transitional bodies, including a temporary parliament and a constitutional committee. And revenues from Syria’s oil, gas, and agricultural sectors would be invested proportionally into the northeast.
After weeks of talks, the SDF has accepted much of the deal on principle, as a Feb. 17 meeting between the SDF and its political wing and governance arms reiterated. But while the organization has privately accepted for weeks that its forces would one day be dissolved and integrated into Syria’s new armed forces, the primary stumbling block in talks is over how that happens. While aligning with all other armed factions across Syria in accepting an eventual dissolution, SDF leader Mazloum Abdi is demanding that SDF personnel remain a distinct bloc within Syria’s new armed forces, to remain stationed only in their current positions in the northeast.
For Damascus, that is unacceptable. All other armed factions from across Syria are in the process of being dissolved, with their fighters and leaders being dispersed to other areas of the country, away from their places of origin. For the interim government, this is a mandatory step aimed at avoiding warlordism and inculcating a sense of national service rather than geographic, communal, or factional loyalty. This is a red line that will not change. And without movement on this issue, a deal will remain far off.
U.S. policy on Syria needs to adapt to the profound change that Syria has gone through since December 2024. Already, the intelligence community has established a productive exchange with the interim government, oriented primarily around the shared goal of countering the Islamic State. Eight plots by the Islamic State have already been foiled in Syria as a result of this new intelligence exchange, I was told.
The military is also clearly reading the tea leaves, and its pivot to encourage the SDF to settle on a deal with Damascus is a good step. But the clock is ticking. The more time passes, the less favorable a deal the SDF is likely to get. Across Syria’s northern border, Turkey stands poised to crush the SDF should talks fully break down. If that circumstance arose, then there would be no obstacle in Turkey’s way. I was told by sources in Syria that Arab tribes stand ready to help.
Washington retains significant interests in countering an Islamic State that was resurgent in Syria in 2024 for the first time in a decade. The new interim government has a promising track record in fighting the Islamic State and intends to continue doing so, but it lacks the strategic capabilities needed to deal with an insurgency dispersed across vast tracts of desert. The United States must push hard to achieve a just and stabilizing SDF-Damascus settlement. This will benefit Syria and America’s ability to secure its own national security interests in this fragile and challenging region.
