Behind the Lines: Rojava sundown – a retrospective

Jonathan Spyer. Since the Autonomous Kurdish authority in north east Syria appears to be transitioning out of existence, I decided to write a brief retrospective focusing on some of my own experiences in this area over the last six years. The piece also notes the salient events and attributes by which this sadly apparently brief experiment in Kurdish self-rule will in my view deserve to be remembered.

Islamic State, that most malignant expression of the Sunni Islamist trend, was the natural enemy of this emergent Kurdish autonomy.

By Jonathan Spyer, JPOST
October 18, 2019 13:06

The news emerging from northern Syria remains confused. There are now fighters from five separate armies maneuvering in the area between the Euphrates River and the Syrian-Turkish and Syrian-Iraqi borders. These are the invading Turkish-Sunni Islamist force, the defending Kurdish-led SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), the escaping Western (mainly US, also British and French) special forces soldiers whose mission has been declared at an end, and the incoming troops and hardware of Bashar Assad’s SAA (Syrian Arab Army) and of his Russian allies.

Where all this will end is not clear. But one thing that seems apparent is that, with the return of Syrian regime forces east of the Euphrates, the emergent Kurdish autonomy in this area is finished.

Kurdish friends I speak to tell me that this is only a military alliance for joint defense against the Turks. The politics, they say, will be decided later. And I think ( although I don’t tell them) that if two SAA divisions cross the river, with the Russian Air Force above them and Russian support behind them, then the political matter is also settled. Moscow may pressure its client to grant some improved level of representation, but the regime is reconstituting its authority.

This brings to an end one of the more remarkable episodes in the recent history of the Levant – namely, the autonomous, self-governing authority known to the Kurds and then to the world as Rojava, which means “the sunset land” and denotes western Kurdistan. I happened to witness the emergence and growth to power of this entity. It deserves a retrospective, if not yet quite a eulogy. I want to attempt that here.

THE KURDISH power emerged in eastern Syria in the summer of 2012. It was not born in revolt against the Assad regime. Neither was it conceived in collaboration with that regime, contrary to some of the claims made by supporters of the Sunni Arab rebellion.

Assad was desperately short of loyal manpower that summer. He needed to draw in his lines of defense to keep his regime viable. The Kurdish authority emerged in the vacuum that followed the dictator’s unilateral exit from Syria’s northeast in June-July 2012.

The Kurds had to fight for their lives from the beginning. An early attempt by the jihadists of Jabhat al-Nusra to wipe them out was successfully resisted. As one of the first journalists to visit the autonomous area, I witnessed the nascent YPG (People’s Protection Units) in action in the town they called Sere Kaniye. It’s back in the headlines again now, under its Arabic name – Ras al Ain.

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Amid all this, the Kurdish fighters maintained an odd sort of fatalism, very far from the modern Western attitude toward death. If you were there, it was reasoned, you were ready to die and willing for it. So no need for excess emotion. They used to bury the dead fighters five or six at a time; with terse speeches and songs on the parched plains of the Jazira, between the Tigris and the Euphrates, as they pushed Islamic State south. To its end.

WHEN IT was over, and the jihadists’ caliphate destroyed, there was a quieter period. The nightmares were still there, of course, and no one really knew where things were heading. The most common predictions I remember in talks with friends were that the Americans would probably leave at some point, given the apparently limited and ambiguous nature of their commitment. If that happened, there would be a need for a rapid deal with the regime, to prevent a Turkish/Sunni Islamist rampage, and renewed catastrophe.

That is now what appears to have happened. The result is that after six years, the tanks of the Syrian Arab Army are rolling back into Qamishli, Raqqa, Tabqa, Tal Tamr, Kobani, Manbij, al-Malikiya and the other towns east of the Euphrates. This is taking place not because the SDF has been militarily defeated. Rather, as needs to be stated plainly, it has been betrayed – by its allies.

Complete Article at https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Behind-the-Lines-Rojava-sundown-a-retrospective-604994?fbclid=IwAR2b-bmeEs5sF8jmVYPsG3hoHMC0_GGiQADkoSK_9qyIgi5F-IrU-DZKIdM