I am a hardline advocate for self-determination and sovereignty. Ideally, there should be a Kurdish nation-state carved out of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. However, I am also aware that this is also impractical and that the Kurds will probably have to settle for regional autonomy with cross-border relations among their four communities.

The mass murder of Kurds by Iraq is broadly recognized, and certainly Iraq is the worst offender since 1979. Yet Turkey is far and away the second-worst offender over that period, amassing a bodycount of Kurdish civilians more than three times the number of the Iranian revolutionaries. If the PKK is autocratic and fights dirty, what then of the Turkish state? This is the same Turkish state that denies the Turkish mass murder and cleansing of Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and Kurds in the 1910s and 1920s, and which has used its role in NATO to ensure that the PKK is designated as a terrorist organization. We both agree that the PYD is a branch of the PKK and its YPG has committed acts of ethnic and sectarian cleansing against Arabs, Turkmen and Christians. Of the Kurds, I prefer the Iraqi-based KRG/PM to the Syrian-based PYD/YPG, which have not exactly had the most cordial of inter-ethnic relations, but that preference is irrelevant. Turkey may well spoil the SDF offensive on Raqqa. However, just as the Turks will fight to prevent the establishment of a de facto independent Kurdish state on their southern border, Kurds in Turkey and Syria will prevent any reversion to the pre-war status quo. Pandora’s Box has been opened.

The U.S. has continued a very foolish policy toward the wars in Iraq and Syria, as it has not only attempted to be as uninvolved as possible, it cares only about achieving one limited objective in a conflict that rivals the Thirty Years War for complexity and dynamism. Americans fail to realize that Al Qaeda and Daesh do not matter that much to Iraqis and Syrians, as they are likely to be harmed by a variety of state and non-state actors, irrespective of whether or not these actors commit violence in the West. To Iraqis and Syrians, the West is only concerned with the mere spillover from their wars. The Kurds have proven to be a useful local allies in fighting Daesh because of their proximity and conflict with Daesh; this is not unlike how the non-Pashtun Northern Alliance was a useful ally against the Pashtun Taliban in 2001.

Yet once Daesh has been pushed out of areas that the Kurds seek to claim for themselves, their enthusiasm diminishes, as their primary goal is not to destroy Daesh but self-determination. The U.S. has also relied upon Iraqi Shia militias infiltrated by Iranian special forces, which are exactly the sort of occupying force that spurred the uprising among Iraqi Sunni Arabs that led to Daesh. If the goal is to corral and contain the Sunni Arabs of Syria and Iraq, the U.S. effort is going well; if the goal is to defeat Daesh, it is a disaster. Once Daesh is destroyed as an organization, another defender of the Sunni Arabs will emerge to take its place. The rebellion will never end until the Sunni Arabs are protected from oppression and Sunni Arab forces defeat the violent supremacists in their own community.

The only actor possibly capable of that is the Free Syrian Army.