WASHINGTON, DC — The American military’s refusal to support the Kurds in their fight against Turkey in northern Syria’s Afrin region is likely to push them to join the Iranian- and Russian-backed Bashar al-Assad coalition, according to an analyst who recently traveled to the Middle East as part of a United States military delegation and a former U.S. ambassador.
During a panel discussion sponsored by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank, moderator Josh Rogin from the Washington Post questioned the two experts — Melissa Dalton from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and former Ambassador Ryan Crocker — noting that news reports suggest the Assad regime was coming to the aid of the Kurdish forces in Afrin when the U.S. government was not willing to do so.
Rogin went on to ask, “Is that true? How scared should we be about the Kurds striking a deal with the regime and cutting us out?”
Dalton, a former Pentagon official who recently traveled to Syria with Gen. Joseph Votel, the top American commander in the Middle East, responded: “I could see future instances of pragmatic interests driving certain parties that perhaps haven’t been aligned in the past together in order to address what they view as a more viable way forward to address their interests.”
Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to the Middle East and the Afghanistan region, added:
The Kurds as a non-Arab minority did not threaten the Assad regime so the [Syrian regime] pretty well left them alone … They do have that kind of unique relationship [with Assad], and up until fairly recently, there were representatives from Damascus in Qamishili [Kurdish-controlled territory that borders Turkey in northern Syria].So, it’s a sure bet that given the uncertainty of what we may do next, that the Syrian Kurds are definitely talking to the regime. READ MORE
