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Turkey was ingenious to get the US Coalition to get the SDF to dismantle their forts and facilities near Tel Abyad in August and September in preparation for this US decision. The SDF complied, channeling Ankara’s views about “security concern”. As I said b4, it paves the way.
The European powers will now demand the SDF hold the ISIS detainees until Turkey is done taking over the border area then the SDF will hand them over and disband itself. For the civilians of eastern Syria of course they will have no say.
The US has viewed the SDF as a tool to defeat ISIS, it was a unique approach by Washington’s standards, help create and train a group to get it to fight and then when it is done sacrificing lives and fighting, say “ok now we give that area you liberated to another country, adios”
The main failure and probably a lesson for other groups is that the US wanted the SDF to go Raqqa and Baghouz, and the SDF could have asked for political guarantees, a policy statement, but it never focused on the fact that it was excluded completely by the US from non-military
For instance the SDF should have noted that its US “partner” was not involved in Astana and that the US excluded it from Geneva. Rebel grouos with a few hundred members were given more recognition than the SDF with tens of thousands.
When the SDF’s civilian components went to DC they got the cold shoulder, despite what one may hear, they were basically treated like they didn’t exist, despite controlling a third of Syria. The evidence for what would come on October 6 was in the cards, they never used leverage
Trump warned in the spring of 2018, just after Afrin, that the US was leaving, he said the same thing in December; and the security mechanism in August 2019 was just a temporary paving measure.
This isn’t “hindsight is 20/20,” I wrote systematically about this for a year. It’s clear the SDF and it’s links needed more leverage. After all, Trump is transactional, and that is known too.
