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US policy toward the Kurds of Syria has created the worst of all worlds. The return of Syrian sovereignty over N.E. Syria offers the only longterm protector for Kurds.
By preventing a deal b/n Kurds & Syrian Gov, the US may allow Turkish ethnic cleansing. joshualandis.com/blog/a-sustain…
By preventing a deal b/n Kurds & Syrian Gov, the US may allow Turkish ethnic cleansing. joshualandis.com/blog/a-sustain…
The US is keeping the Syrian Army from moving north into N.E. Syria and allowing the Turkish Army to move south. This is the single worst policy for the Kurds. There is no good policy for the Kurds, but allowing the Turks to prey on them is the worst.
My article written almost two years ago in January 2018 spells out what is happening now. There was no ideal end-game for the Kurds. But US interests would have been better served by facilitating a deal between the Syrian Gov & the PYD to allow Syria to counter balance the Turks
The Syrian Gov and the Kurds have many differences - but they are allies against both Turkey and ISIS. Assad needs the Kurds to govern N.E Syria. He will never allow them the sort of freedom and autonomy that the US could guarantee, but the US was never going to stay in Syria.
The notion of a permanent US satrap in N.E. Syria was always fiction. We raised Kurdish expectations beyond the possible, much as we did in Afghanistan by promising secular Afghans a rose garden. It is unsustainable. This mistake will now cost the Kurds doubly.
They are not allowed to reconcile with Syria & the Syrian Army has not been allowed north of the Euphrates. And the Turkish Army is being handed parts of the north. The Kurds living in that zone will be sitting ducks.
American soldiers may be left in the unenviable position of holding down the Kurds in the south while Turkey rapes them in the north. The grim truth is that only by allowing the return of Syrian sovereignty & military protection over the north could this have been avoided. 
The Commander of the Kurdish led Syrian Democratic Forces of N.E. Syria is reaching out to the Syrian Government for protection, as they were sure to do, but largely too late. This underlines how damaging the Trump deal is for US's Kurdish allies.
From a Kurdish point of view, such a deal is far from ideal and would mean a severe rollback of Kurdish autonomy and authority, but as made clear by Mazlum Abdi, the SDF Commander, it is much preferable to abandoning the Kurds to Turkish depredations.
