GLOBAL EYE. The Syrian googly

US President Donald Trump’s recent announcement on troop withdrawal from Syria has been received with strong and mixed emotions worldwide.

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and special envoy to the global coalition fighting Islamic State, Brett McGurk, have both resigned, at least in part, because of the announcement. French President Emmanuel Macron dubbed the decision deeply regretful, while other allies of the US responded with cautious criticism.

While analysts and allies are accusing Trump of having no coherent strategy in Syria, the reality is that Trump is uninterested in the outcome of the Syrian conflict.

A majority of analysts believe that this is a shot-in-the-arm for Iran to purportedly create a Shia Crescent from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean, while some say that it emboldens Russia in its regional influence plans.

Most however, fail to see that there are only two key players in the aftermath of this announcement. The Syrian Kurds and Turkey. Everyone else is a bystander or further removed in the impact chain.

Let’s start with seeing the current control map of Syria.

Syrian Kurds are politically grouped as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) , the backbone of which is the YPG, a Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought an insurgency against the Turkish state since the 1980s; Turkey, the US, and the EU have designated the PKK a terrorist organisation.

Despite the YPG’s shared genealogy with the PKK, Washington supported the group because of its battlefield prowess and common enemy spotting in the ISIL. As it beat back ISIL, the YPG took control of additional non-Kurdish territory in Syria, including the mostly Arab cities of Manbij and Raqqa.

The YPG (Kurdish Militia) controls close to one-third of Syria today. They have wrested this resource-rich territory from the Syrian state and a host of militias (mostly ISIL) over the last few years.

After Assad wrests the last rebel stronghold of Idlib back from the rebels, he would need the resources of SDF-held Syria to rebuild the nation. Assad needs the YPG-held region’s vast wheat fields and oil fields — Syria’s largest — to rebuild.

The YPG has already sent multiple delegations to Damascus to negotiate an understanding on post-war revenue sharing, partial-autonomy arrangements. While this might take time and result in a raw deal for the Kurds (as Assad is in no hurry and the Kurds have their back to the wall after US departure), it is way better for the Kurds than the alternative of looming Turkish control/military incursions into their territory.

An understanding will be reached between the Kurds and Assad. Delayed but assured.

But Turkey does not want the YPG, and by extension the PKK, running a Kurdish enclave in Syria directly on its border. In February, Turkish forces invaded the Kurdish district of Afrin in northwest Syria, wresting it from the YPG as Russia and the US stood by.

The group now fears that the story will play out again in Syria’s northeast.

With news of US withdrawal, the Turks and the Kurds are heading for a showdown near the town of Manjib in Syria, which might be delayed by Assad’s intervention, but a long lasting resolution looks unlikely.

Assad clearly has a smiling bystander view for now, as the Kurds and the Turks bloody the borders again, in this long miserable war.

The writer is a geo-political analyst

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